Reference no: EM131675518

Question: A customer of Foster Bank named Choi deposited in her account a check for $133,026 that listed her as the payee. The check had been drawn on Wachovia Bank by a company called Media Edge that had an account with that bank. Foster presented the check to Wachovia for payment. Wachovia paid Foster and debited Media Edge's account. Now, as it happened, the actual payee of the check as originally issued was not Choi; it was a company called CMP Media. When CMP Media told Media Edge that it had not received the check, an investigation ensued and revealed that Choi had somehow substituted her name for CMP Media on the check she deposited. By the time this was discovered, Choi had withdrawn the money from her account and vanished, and Wachovia had destroyed the paper check that Foster had presented to it for payment. It had done this in accordance with its normal practice, the lawfulness of which was not a question. It had retained a computer image of the check, but whether the image was of the original check drawn on Wachovia, with an alteration, or of a forged check could not be determined. The issuing bank's suit was based on the presentment warranty, under which, when a depositary bank presented a check for payment by the bank that issued the check, it warranted that the check had not been altered. On the basis of these facts and the information you know regarding warranties, who do you think should be liable for the amount of the check?