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I sold my car in an ICBC office in Vancouver. The buyer came with a fake driver’s license and a fake bank draft. I deposited the bank draft via mobile app, and it was accepted. Then I signed the paper. Unfortunately, 2 days after the bank draft was returned due to being counterfeit.

I lost $87,000 and I don’t know what to. Why couldn’t ICBC identify the fake driver’s license? Can I sue ICBC or the TD bank?

Please help me with this.

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    You should probably file a police report about the stolen car and the forged check...
    – littleadv
    Commented Feb 18 at 6:47
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    why did you go to the ICBC office but then use the mobile app? The QC function on the app verifies it meets the basic definition of a check, the numbers/words match and that there is a signature. It has no idea if the account number matches the name, or that there in money in the account.
    – mhoran_psprep
    Commented Feb 18 at 20:31

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Report it to the police.

Also tell the bank what happened exactly. After that, pour yourself a sizeable drink and drink a "goodbye" to your $87,000. It's possible that the police may recover your car, but it isn't likely. Car theft in Canada is at epidemic proportions with a very low recovery rate.

Neither TD nor ICBC is going to take responsibility or give you your money back. If nothing else they have no way of knowing that you weren't complicit in this scam. One reason you should go to the police is to help convince them that you weren't. When you deposit a check to a mobile app all it is doing is verifying that the check looks like a check, not that it is real or valid.

There are other questions on this site about how to sell a car and not be cheated out of the money. I recommend reading them. Forgery of bank drafts is unfortunately very common, and at the very least you should have waited a few days to ensure that the draft was genuine (it can take much longer than that in some cases though).

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  • There's no need to wait a few days, a bank draft can be verified by the issuing bank.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Feb 18 at 22:49
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    Yes, but it takes a few days for that to happen. It may be better if you are paying the draft into the bank that issued it, but experience says otherwise.
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Feb 18 at 22:52
  • Validation can happen immediately, but does not happen until normal batch processing if it's just deposited. Valid bank drafts represent funds already withdrawn from issuing account, so no reversals due to insufficient funds. It is definitely better to conduct the transaction at the buyer's bank where the draft could be verified on site.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Feb 18 at 23:06
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    There's lots of advice about how to deal with this problem on the site, and it's a complex problem. I'm not looking to duplicate the other advice here. Only point out that what the OP did was not sufficient to confirm that the check was valid.
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Feb 18 at 23:12
  • That's fair, I just wanted to make sure it was clear that bank drafts are not like personal checks as far as clearing process.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Feb 19 at 1:52

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