Bob Francoeur, and his wife Kim, love the outdoors and have visited different locations around Canada, with their RV trailer in tow.
“It’s a Keystone residence, a 40-foot trailer and when we bought it years ago it was a specialty order. It was our family trailer,” Francoeur said.
But they wanted an upgrade and decided to put that trailer up for sale on Kijiji in hopes to use the funds to purchase a new one. They got a few bites but one man stood out.
“He was very interested in buying it, talked about how he and his family would use it for vacations.”
Even more enticing, he offered the full price of $50,000 and had a bank draft cheque in hand.
“The cheque looked good to me. I looked up at (the cheque) in the sun. It had watermarks in it. It had the perforations around the edge.”
Despite the appearance seeming legitimate, the couple still wanted to double check.
“I asked him to send me a picture of the bank draft cheque, which he did. It was issued by Scotiabank.”
The couple brought the draft to a Scotiabank branch in Waterloo.
“We asked them if they could verify the check, they said they couldn’t. I asked why because the check number is on it, they said they couldn’t but told us it looked good to them.”
The couple went ahead with the sale and the man took the trailer. Francoeur’s wife deposited the cheque into their RBC account and then four days later, they received some bad news.
“RBC told her that the check was fraudulent. So if Scotiabank would have been able to tell me when I went in, that the cheque was fraudulent, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now,” Francoeur said. “So we’re not only missing our trailer but the $50,000 cheque is worthless as well.”
Speakers Corner reached out to Scotiabank about that, asking directly why staff were unable to verify the check by looking at the photo.
They didn’t answer that question.
“If clients are accepting a bank draft as payment, it’s advisable to wait until the draft has cleared and the money has been confirmed before completing a sale,” said a bank spokesperson.
We responded back to that reply, asking again, if customers are, or are not able to verify bank drafts before deposit. Once again, we received no response to that question.
According to the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), which has a section on what to do to prevent people from falling victim to cheque fraud, one of their recommendations is to try and verify the cheque by taking it to your bank before deposit. But it doesn’t mean all banks will be able to do that. A spokesperson tells us that decision is up to each institution.
The CBA agreed that the best safeguard for sellers is to wait until the cheque is cleared before releasing the goods.
As for Francoeur and his wife — their trailer is gone. Police are searching for it, and the suspect, but the couple is still left with a burning question.
“What due diligence and what responsibility do banks have in this situation?” Francoeur asked. “How did Scotiabank tell us it was fraudulent four days after the deposit, when they couldn’t tell me before the deposit?”
A question we too, have been asking Scotiabank without success in getting an answer. The couple says they’ve been in talks with the bank to get them to investigate but have not heard back on where it stands.
“We feel as though the bank did not take this seriously enough, and now we’re out a lot of money.”
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