What reason would you use when returning a check that has a valid account on it, but isn't the customer's name nor their check????

Unauthorized signature? Non conforming account name and number? (The latter is more descriptive.)

Obviously, I don't know either, but I assume you are looking at a deadline & thought I would respond anyway. I would hesitate to call it a counterfeit or fraudulent item; sometimes check printers getting things bolixed up.

Unless we get an affidavit from the customer, it won't be going back as fraud. I was hoping someone had some great way of saying name on account doesn't match - or something like that?????

Oh... and thank you for responding.

Luckily, we have affidavits and are returning them as fraud. I still wonder though if there is something else out there just in case we wouldn't have gotten the affidavits on time?

We have used "signature not like on file" as a return reason when we were 97% sure it was a fraud but didn't have the affidavit back yet.

I know the clock has probably run out on this particular item, but for the sake of anyone who may search this thread later, I'll add that I agree with Prairie Gardener, assuming the signature is a mismatch. In fact, I would consider using "Unauthorized Signer" if you can read the signature well enough to know what the name is (I'll admit it--no one could guess MY name from my signature).

Of course, there's always the uninformative "Refer to Maker."

We do have some customers (especially businesses) who choose to print their checks with a name that is nowhere in the account title but is the one they're known by to their vendors. Seems like a bad idea to me, because it robs us of one of our "red flags", but as far as my bank is concerned, it's the customer's decision to put whatever they want on their checks.

FraudBuster