I am the Security Officer from a New York bank and would like to know if anyone knows the procedure for when a customer accuses an institution of receiving a counterfeit bill after making a payment to their vendor and the bill was returned counterfeit by another institution. My belief is that the only obligation is that the recipient of the counterfeit bill sends the bill to the US Secret Service and let them conduct the investigation. Is it our obligation to reimburse a customer who "claims" that they received the counterfeit bill from us?

Thanks for your help.

You have no 'obligation' other than that of customer service. Anyone, of course, can claim that someone gave them a particular bill - how can that ever be proved. It's generally less likely that it came from a bank, because (hopefully) all currency received and processed through a vault are ran through a sorter/counter that has counterfeit detection technology.

Now, it's an excellent idea to examine the value of the custoemer, believability, etc in making a determination on assisting them with any reimbursement.

My rule has always been that if the customers questions the bill while still at the teller window, it may be exchanged by the teller who will follow our procedure after the customer leaves. Once the customer leaves and comes back later I no longer recommend crediting the customer. It then becomes a customer service issue to the branch manager. Obviously the bank is not obligated to credit the customer.