I am payee for another person’s SS check. By the time I pay his rent, utilities, and provide cash to him for food etc., the account pretty much empties out every month.

When I was out of town, my husband needed checks and grabbed a book belonging to the payee account instead of our account. They are an identical design, but titled differently, of course.

He wrote three checks, all of which were paid (saving us personal embarrassment and returned check fees from businesses) but, of course, the payee account was seriously overdrawn.

As soon as I got the first letter notifying me of an overdraft, I called the bank and they were very helpful, but did not have actual copies of the checks written (that’s another gripe for another day.)

Anyway, as soon as we figured out what had happened, I thanked them profusely for paying the checks and immediately transferred money to the payee account to cover the checks and overdraft charges.

The bank rep OFFERED to submit a request asking that the overdraft charges be reversed. Of course I took her up on this, but did not expect them to be as this was obviously our fault. I was surprised when the charges were reversed. That truly amazed me.

I now store the checks in separate places and my husband knows to actually check and see if his name is on the check before writing it.