Currently being denied my deposit with demand to redeem lawful money

[karl nathan]

My local bank, one of two banks with branches in my community, has been dragging its feet for two weeks after my initial demand to redeem lawful money on 7/18/11. The first meeting consisted of me attempting to explain the remedy to the branch manager, who had never heard of it, with her final conclusion being that this would have to be run past the bank’s internal legal department. Fine, I can live with that and understand the bank needs to educate itself with its legal obligations.

In this initial meeting I explained I wanted to negotiate my checks with "Redeemed in Lawful Money Pursuant to 12 USC 411" with my lawful name dba legal name as my signature below the verbiage. However, the bank said, based upon their internal policies, they could not alter the title of my account (title = legal name and social security number according to the SSA) or signature card to anything else. Since my only intention, at this point, is to utilize the lawful money made available to me, and to avoid endorsing the private credit of the Federal Reserve, I did not feel I will be 'losing' anything by signing my legal name after the demand instead of my lawful name. Please correct me if I am wrong in this assertion. I realize I am acting on behalf of the legal fiction, my legal name, created by the State.

Yesterday (7/28/11) I received a phone call from a representative of the bank related to their legal/compliance department. The person I spoke with, I will call her Bankster, who is not an attorney, asked me what my intention of doing this was and if my intention was to restrict the bank from loaning against my deposits. I simply replied that it is my intention to not endorse the private credit of the Federal Reserve. Whatever you can or cannot do with the money I deposit is your responsibility, not mine. After several more questions she stated that I could negotiate the checks with the demand for lawful money verbiage so long as I signed with my legal name instead of my lawful name dba legal name.

Today, as a courtesy, I met with the same branch manager I had initially met with to let her know that I was about to deposit my checks and to thank her for working with me on this issue. I live in a small community with a population of about 2,000 and therefore everybody knows everybody and I thought a ‘thank you’ was in order. I was good friends with her daughter in our high school years.

However, it quickly became apparent that she had reached, or had been told, a different understanding based upon the information from the Bankster and legal/compliance department. She said that the bank would not allow me to make a deposit with my demand for lawful money and legal name signature. So she called up Bankster and all three of us had a discussion.

Bankster continually said during yesterday and today’s telephone conversations that it was the banks preference that I do not negotiate a check with a restricted endorsement. I continually corrected her by saying that I am not endorsing the private credit of the Federal Reserve and that the bank's preference is different than what the banks legal obligations are.

Furthermore, she said that she is ‘leaving the door open’ for this to proceed but since ‘it is a gray area’ and there are many different opinions in the matter with very little statutory or case law support (don't know what she meant by this) they want me to respond to the Bankster’s letter and provide additional support of my position (statutes, court cases etc) which I’ve come across in my research.

How would you proceed if you found yourself in this situation? Thanks in advance.