<prompt> Human: This happened in California, if that matters. My 17 year old brother in law BIL is very responsible and honest, and tries to be helpful to others, but naive as most his age. He has a minors checking account not sure if UTMA or what with his brother, my son in law. My BIL entered a branch of Bank of America where he was approached outside by a fraudster asking for help. The fraudster presented my BIL who had 100 in his account a 5K check and asked if the BIL could cash it for him since he was going into the BofA branch. Some sort of bogus explanation came with this from the fraudster, but my helpful BIL presented himself to the teller with this 5K check to deposit into his account with a cash withdrawal the teller wrote his name as account holder on the pay to line, and amazingly, the teller next handed over 5K in cash, which my BIL gave to the fraudster when he left the bank. Naturally, it was a bad check returned a week later, now my BIL has a negative 4900 balance and the bank is refusing to undo the transaction. A police report was filed, and a request to get a copy of the original check was made, the bank is refusing, and acknowledged this same fraud happened at another branch with the same guy.x200B;The banks check cashing policy is clear that cash withdrawals beyond the balance on the account may only be done after a clearing period of a day or two, and they charge 25 for a check presented by a non-account holder cashing a check drawn from a BofA account holder for a checking balance they can verify before handing over the cash. When confronted with the fact that 1 the bank had no business handing 5K to a 17 year old, 2 the account only had 100 in it with a history of not much more than that, 3 the bad check was not from a BofA account, and 4 BofAs own policy prohibits this, the bank branch manager backpedaled and said those are just guidelines, our formal policy is to honor checks for any customer in good standing.x200B;Im planning on helping my SIL whose account is being held as collateral for his brothers error file a small claims action against BofA, arguing that the fraud transaction should be undone because it shouldnt have happened in the first place, and it was a teller violating their customer check cashing policy which caused it in the first place. Seems clear to us and agreed by the bank that a crime was involved, they apparently have the fraudster on their surveillance camera and are also working wth the police, but arent sharing anything with us that we could use in small claims, other than their policy because it is online.x200B;Any other ideas on this?x200B;EDIT:Ok, thanks all who responded, looks like my perspective was off on this one, thanks for the corrected view of this fraud. As mentioned, a police report was filed by both the bank and SIL, the bank has video images of the criminal.I entered this more from the perspective that the bank had some sort of obligation to follow its own written policy on check cashing, but the consensus here seems to be that the banks policy is window dressing which gives them license to not take an action when they decide not to use policy to refuse cash withdrawals exceeding acct balance, and defend other actions when it suits them, or after they realize they made a mistake a minor cashed a check for 100k with 10 in his account? No problem as long as theres an adult somewhere we can hang this all on if it goes wrong. Sounds like banking law governs regardless of the banks conduct or policy in the matter.Parents, take note!  <response>: At the end of the day he is responsible for any item he presents against the account, and since he is a minor the adult guarantor is responsible too. Unfortunately sounds like an expensive lesson in check fraud. 