Payment Systems: Imposters and Fictitious Payees Podcast

The topic of this podcast is who has responsibility for losses involving imposters and fictitious payees. This topic deals with instruments, typically paper checks and promissory notes. Most individuals don’t use paper checks very often, but checks and promissory notes are still used in many transactions, particularly larger ones. Moreover, financial fraud remains a problem. Not only is this a practice issue, but imposters and fictitious payees are covered in Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which is tested by a number of states on the bar examination. These loss shifting rules are favorites on bar exams. The primary rule at play here is 3-404. It is important to try and use the correct terminology so in this podcast be on the lookout for the following: imposter, issuer, indorsement, payee, fictitious persons, person whose intent determines to whom an instrument is payable, holder, indorsement, and person entitled to enforce (or sometimes called a PETE). At the conclusion of this podcast, you should be able to identify when the imposter and fictitious payee rules apply to leave responsibility of losses on issuers and account holders.