Thanks Sledge, that would explain it too. I had no idea forged drafts were hitting the banks. That being the case, they should just stop offering them until they find a way to make them so that the cashing/receiving bank doesn't have to worry about it. Just seems pointless if they are no more secure than a regular cheque.

 Originally Posted By: bridgman
I have run into this in Canada as well on a couple of occasions. Both times I spoke to the manager - turns out that the incidence of forged certified cheques and bank drafts had gone through the roof (at least in the area I live) and they didn't yet have a good solution for dealing with the forgeries.

My assumption until then had been that they would simply go back to whoever deposited the cheque and remove the funds from their account, but there seemed to have been a lot of bad experiences tracking down account owners as well (since the balance in the account was usually near zero by the time the forgery was detected). I pointed out that I had an RSP and a couple of mortgages at the bank, but reading between the lines it seemed that people with apparently solid banking history were frequently involved in these scams, as they were basically looking to collect as much cash as possible before skipping town on the house, the mortgage, and the other accounts.

Apparently it's a lot harder to make a claim against an RSP than I thought. Not sure why that is.