Shoutout to the teller who caught a $2,700 check scam last month

I was depositing a check from someone I met on Nextdoor for some furniture I was selling. The teller at my local Wells Fargo in Austin pointed out the routing number was for a bank in Montana that didn't exist anymore. She said scammers use old bank codes all the time and shes seen it three times this month alone. Has anyone else had a teller save them from a bad check situation like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

walker.jana17d ago

Old bank codes aren't really a thing like that. Routing numbers are assigned to banks by the Federal Reserve and they stay active for a while even after a bank closes, but scammers don't use old codes so much as they just make up fake numbers. That teller probably saw a routing number that didn't match the bank's location or name on the check. She did the right thing checking it, but the real trick is that scammers use real routing numbers from legit banks in other states and hope you won't notice.

robin48917d ago

Yeah @walker.jana that makes sense actually. My teller caught it because the routing number belonged to a bank in Montana that shut down in 2019. She said scammers pull that all the time hoping people just glance at the check. Glad she did her job because that $2,700 would've hit my account then bounced weeks later. Definitely gonna be more careful about checks from strangers now.

blake_smith15d ago

Man, that teller saved you a major headache. @walker.jana is right though, scammers usually just grab random routing numbers from legit banks and slap them on checks. Your best bet is to always call the bank listed on the check to verify the routing number before depositing anything over a few hundred bucks.