I completely agree with @catcherinthetoast.
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Sorry to be redundant but I want to be very clear as to why you should now stand down and wait. So far several potential parties are involved and are potentially all or in part responsible.
1- Whoever originated the transfer assuming it was an honest mistake. May have been the title company or some still undiscovered party.
2- Most banks have a 6 eyes confirmation process when transferring funds but mistakes happen. Chase may have screwed up.
3- Unlikely but a malicious outside party trying to somehow bait you into nefarious activity.
The one party who has no culpability at all is you. The minute you take action that changes, you become responsible. Let Chase do their job.
Just don’t touch the funds and know it will soon be gone along with any interest accrued.
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The problem is that OP may have potential liability if no action is taken to protect the funds now in their care even though through no action undertaken by them.
She has already been in touch with her bank. She’s not just sitting on the funds and pretending that they’re hers.
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Nevertheless, the funds are in her custody & control.
If the funds disappear, then the argument can be made that not enough was done to protect the funds.
I respectfully disagree once a SAR has been requested and or been filed. Her only obligation is to alert and notify financial institution while not touching the amount she has identified and reported. She legally had neither the means to “protect”nor the right to touch those funds. Any other action will just complicate the situation at best and at worst put OP in harms way.
Once again this is a highly regulated circumstance and all obligations fall upon the regulated entity.
30+ year career in this space as an accountable executive. I don’t want to be specific but I am highly confident that my advice is fully informed (only caveat being details provided).
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I appreciate your knowledge & experience, but examine the case law in our legal system & you probably will learn to say “Never say never”.
She said “Oh No! don’t do that —it will take a month for us to get the money.”
Oh well, that’s just too bad! Sometimes fixing mistakes is painful, and it’s certainly not OP’s mistake. I can’t tell you how many times in my accounting life, trying to shortcut just ended up causing more headaches. Do it the right way and they’ll have to wait. Maybe next time they’ll be more careful.
And I would definitely consider moving “your” money out of that account into a new one, to be safe
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This! My very first thought - and the idea of it makes me anxious…not a chance I would wire those funds back without a full and thorough uncovering. In writing. I want every aspect of the “error” in writing, from the company that made the “error” and then I want to hear from the president of that company about the “error” -
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Retail bank customers and their financial institutions agree to settle disagreements through mandatory arbitration not in court. While this can be contested it can only be done so with specific cause and is rare. This is done to minimize legal costs but also ensure those adjudicating are informed and familiar with the issues.
These individuals would be well aware that standard policy and procedure verbiage in bank employee handbooks regarding retail accounts and SAR reporting includes an escalation policy plus the mandate to tell the client to “take no further action until investigation is concluded and you are notified of its resolution”. This language (or some variant) is mandated by the FED or DFS of NY.
With that said please show me any case that has even remotely punished a retail bank account customer who has contacted the bank in a timely manner, demanded a SAR be filled, documented escalation, didn’t touch the funds and awaited the bank’s resolution for a reasonable time period. It simply does not happen.
I can however show you dozens of instances where a financial institution is heavily fined for failure to properly investigate, mitigate and remediate suspicious activity and errant fund transfers.
This literally happens at large banks thousands of times a day. The fault can be external or internal to the bank and is usually “fixed” within 24 hours.
Banks don’t like to litigate against their customers, particularly when it will reflect poorly on them and they will loose.
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My question…if your first mortgage was not indeed paid off, are you now paying for that…plus your new refinance?
This is a huge error somewhere in that transaction pipeline and it’s not YOUR error.
So what if they have to wait 30 days for their money. You have been waiting over a week now for a resolution to this and it hasn’t happened yet.
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Mandatory arbitration clauses are viewed with disfavor in many jurisdictions and in many cases.
Unequal bargaining power. What do you think would happen if an individual tried to open up an account with a major financial institution, but refused to agree to the boiler plate mandatory arbitration clause included in the standard bank contract ?
@thumper our first was paid off–we are good on “our” stuff.
@JustaMom5465 Other than the errant wire, have moved most of our $. I don’t want to
mess with all of our autopays from that account, so left enough in to cover those.
@Catcherinthetoast your advice has been invaluable–thanks! Yes, at this point, I’m not inclined to expend much more time on this and will let Chase do their job.
Kind of bummed to hear that all the accrued interest will disappear…probably would have gotten me a cup of coffee! 
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“Mandatory arbitration clauses are viewed with disfavor in many jurisdictions and in many case.
Unequal bargaining power. What do you think would happen if an individual tried to open up an account with a major financial institution, but refused to agree to the boiler plate mandatory arbitration clause included in the standard bank contract ?”
I am not sure I understand your point and or it’s relevance. Please help me
understand.
“I appreciate your knowledge & experience, but examine the case law in our legal system”.
You had suggested above that I review case law. You now seem to be acknowledging this would fall under mandatory arbitration.
Why would a bank seek to move a situation like this to a civil court when the arbitration clause provides an imbalance of power? On what basis could they object to the mandatory arbitration they have written into their own client agreements?
I value your comments so would love to understand what I am missing.
I have already asked you via our PM discussion to discontinue communicating with me regarding this matter. Please respect my request. Thank you.
I actually don’t think it particularly fair or informative for the OP for you to ask a question of me and then ask me to “respect you” by not responding. I will leave it to OP to follow the advice they find most credible.
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I am going to ask that the 2 posters above refrain from engaging each other on this thread.
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The problem is here is whether the OP’s account might have been compromised and/or whether OP is a potential victim of a scam. Frankly, this is a bizarre story by each of the parties (not OP).
Moreover, Chase seems to be doing nothing. Our relationship person at a huge bank holding company would have jumped at the first instance after getting our call about something like this. I cannot fathom Chase’s seeming inaction.
The title company was informed, and they didn’t do anything. Now, all of a sudden, the title company is worked up about getting the money back. Odd.
This is more than curious behavior by all parties involved, except OP, and I would have significant doubts at this stage that things are legitimate. They might indeed be, but they might not.
If I recall correctly, OP said that the money came into their normal bank account. Accordingly, their own legitimate cash is co-mingled with the mystery $250k wire. I would try to de-tangle the two.
Why should OP take a chance with their own cash if there is any reasonable chance that the account is compromised? If it were me, I would move my own cash to a new account at a new bank (i.e., not Chase, which has displayed a shocking inertia) and then check with a lawyer as to what to do next.
This way OP’s own money is safe, and the mystery wire of $250k has been isolated. What comes next is probably best sorted with OP and a lawyer. Perhaps that money should stay, but not if the account is compromised.
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When a SAR is filed the bank is obligated by law to complete confidentiality during the investigation and up until route cause and remedy is found. This includes the person who raised the alert.
Look up suspicious Activity Report confidentiality and they detail the logic for this approach.
These rules are drilled into bank employees during yearly training and obligatory attestations.
The account is closely being monitored for further activity. If anything criminal or nefarious was to happen this would allow the authorities to act accordingly and find those responsible.