Quote Originally Posted by logjam View Post
Update as of 10/27...

Decided to try my luck with another bank. This time, I did not tell them of my intentions... just listened politely as the Bank officer told me all about the features, overdraft protection, etc.
It was for a non-interest bearing checking account. I handed her the state-issued DL, and a $50FRN to open the account with.
After her tap tap tapping on her keyboard for quite a while, she finally handed me the "signature card" which is actually an 8.5x11 piece of paper. She indicated where I was to sign. I thoroughly read it through, then did some changes.
First, I crossed through U.S. Citizen, and wrote "man" in its place. Then in the section called "Other Terms/Information", I wrote "On all transactions, demand is made for lawful money per 12USC411", and signed with Without Prejudice above my name.

Great I thought! They didn't even question it.

About 15 minutes later and 12 miles down the road I get a call from the branch manager telling me that he checked with "Legal" and this is not allowed. I asked him if he was aware that Title 12 is US law, but he didn't want to hear it. He said to come in and change it, or they will have to cancel the account.

Can they do this once they've accepted a cash deposit?

What other recourse do we have? It seems banks are catching on to this, and want no part of it. If this is written into the US code and pertains to Federal Reserve Banks and branches, how can they ignore this law?

Anyone?

Thanks.
Hey logjam, just my 2 cents based upon experience, they do not like restrictive endorsements because certain ones limit their ability on the fractional reserve banking side to negotiate transactions at different rates.
If you can get a hold of a regular bank check from an account if you have an old one laying around, use a high powered magnifying glass on the signature line, it will say something like " Authorized Signature " . amazing how small it can be and still be legal. The other thing is that you do not need to be so elaborate in the lawful money statement, just simply put " 12 usc 411 - lawful money " and do it real small right below your signature, not just on the signature card but for all checks deposited, that way they cannot try to weasel out of a transaction and yet gets stream lined past most tellers, have had lots of success doing it this way. The only time i had a problem is before i started doing that was writing it real big to make it very obvious and in that case all i did was go to a different branch of the same bank and it was accepted.

good luck in your journey.