Wells Fargo refuses to refund $28K tax payment after thieves steal Bay Area homeowners' check. Here's the bank's reason

Jody and Paul Glaser of Los Altos did what millions of Americans inactive bash each year: they wrote a cheque for their spot taxes and dropped it successful a bluish USPS mailbox extracurricular the station office.

Three months later, a delinquency announcement arrived from Santa Clara County. Paul said helium knew he'd paid — he'd seen the cheque clear. So they pulled up the cheque representation online and saw idiosyncratic else's sanction wherever the region taxation collector's should person been.

"Clearly, the cheque had been altered, and cashed by idiosyncratic else," Paul told ABC7's 7 On Your Side (1).

Criminals had stolen the cheque from the mail, utilized chemicals to hitch the payee line, written successful a caller name, and deposited it astatine a U.S. Bank ATM successful Minnesota. The amount: astir $28,000. The Glasers inactive owed the county, and with penalties, their full harm came to astir $60,000.

They went to Wells Fargo expecting a straightforward refund. Within 30 days, they got an automated denial. The reason? They hadn't reported the fraud wrong 30 days of receiving their slope statement.

San Jose homeowner Kathy Pham had a astir identical acquisition — a $2,400 spot taxation cheque stolen from the mail, altered and cashed by idiosyncratic else, past denied by the aforesaid slope with the aforesaid explanation.

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Here's what tripped some families up. Under the Uniform Commercial Code — the model governing commercialized transactions successful each authorities — customers indispensable reappraisal slope statements promptly and study unauthorized transactions, typically wrong 30 to 60 days. Wells Fargo's 42-page deposit relationship statement sets that model astatine 30 days.

There was nary mode to spot the fraud from the connection alone. "It lone shows the day and the amount," Jody Glaser said. "It doesn't amusement who you wrote the cheque to. It doesn't accidental who cashed the check. It conscionable says 'check.'"

The lone mode to drawback it was to download the existent cheque representation — thing astir radical wouldn't deliberation to bash for each cleared transaction. Wells Fargo's presumption is that customers should bash precisely that. The slope updated its relationship statement past November to marque that anticipation explicit, though the clause wasn't successful spot erstwhile these families filed their claims.