I am familiar with a SAR. I am also familiar with protecting my own money! The issue here as it relates to OP is not confidentiality. OP needs to get out of the middle. Chase’s SAR obligations to FinCEN are not relevant to OP’s own cash.
ETA: OP mentioned moving out their own cash. That’s great! Who cares about the rest. Let Chase and the other’s duke it out, but just make sure you keep all records about this.
I was responding to your comment that Chase is doing nothing. In fact they are following a well established protocol. The fact that OP is unaware is a product of mandatory confidentiality.
The OP has been told to do nothing at this time. The OP should do nothing in my opinion which is based on a bit of professional experience in this space.
Their account is being monitored and their money is safe.
My final post on the matter:
Chase didn’t do anything for quite a while until finally filing the SAR. That was inexcusable.
Note that the OP has already moved out the family money except for auto-pay. Once those auto-pays have been paid, I wouldn’t keep any of my own money in that account, opening a new account. That to me was the real concern, and OP has basically addressed that.
Once OP’s money is safe, let Chase deal with the $250k mystery wire.
Good luck, @gosmom !
I agree—once your auto pays for JulAug are done, I’d switch all autopay’s to another acct at another, more responsive financial institution and be done with Chase. Their behavior doesn’t inspire confidence, at all!
@VeryHappy The OP received 2 separate wire transfers into their account. The first amount was correct and as expected; the second amount of $250,000 was not expected and remains a mystery.
This post is directed to VeryHappy. Any other indicated recipient was by mistake. Sorry for the unintended error.
I wouldn’t wire that money directly. That would look very suspicious, because, well…you don’t know who they are or if someone is lying to you. I would just initiate a wire transfer return like before and be done with it. It’s the title company’s problem to deal with.
I have a feeling the call wasn’t from the Title company. They would not have had a girl call and say ‘oh so sorry, I’ll get in big trouble if you do XYZ’. The title company would initiate a formal recall and work with the bank to get the money to the right bank/account. The OP also said the amount is not the payoff of the prior mortgage. If it was the prior mortgage amount, then I’d be less suspicious, but this seems to be a random amount.
The reason Chase isn’t all over this 6 ways from Sunday is that either way it’s not their money. It’s not their mistake, they don’t make anything from the money, they don’t lose anything. It is just a wire transfer gone wrong. They’ll cooperate, for sure, but they got a wire transfer in and are now waiting for a request to move it back. I do think they could put it into a save escrow type account, holding it pending further instructions, but remember Chase is Too Big to Fail.
Actually they are regulated to be all over it and the fines for not being all over it are both meaningful and their money. Not to mention the damage to their reputation.
https://www.fintechfutures.com/2020/12/2020-review-10-largest-regulatory-fines-this-year/
A SAR was filed and consequently it is being investigated via a formal confidential process.
You can potentially believe bankers are lazy but we are frugal and fearful of jail😀. There are investigatory reasons this may take time to draw to a conclusion particularly if it was not accidental.
This. Although there are some sloppy ones; there is one local title co we will never use again. Two strikes was enough for us.
I’ve seen hard working ones and lazy ones and some who are just plain stupid and didn’t know how to fix errors. I’ve seen crooks who knew exactly what they were stealing. I worked for a federal regulator and have seen things you wouldn’t believe.
In my experience, when the title company screws up, it is escalated to a title officer immediately and the clerk or closing agent is not involved in fixing a $250k error, especially not calling clients and begging them not to wire the money back to the sending bank because it will ‘take too long.’ Just doesn’t seem like the title companies I’ve done closings with. Mistakes have been made and the issue is escalated.
Way up above in this thread, someone suggested that maybe the closer had sent both checks, the payoff and the ‘money out’ check, to the same account. OP said the second deposit is for an odd amount, not the payoff amount, so that theory was dismissed, but now the ‘title company’ is calling to say this odd amount was deposited by mistake and not to wire back but to wire to ??? Sounds fishy.
@gosmom any update?
OP has withdrawn funds, living in Belize while enjoying cocktails served in coconuts with little umbrellas. 
That would be SUCH a temptation for me…
I was looking for my invite to join, but didn’t get one…yet.
@gosman this has been a fascinating tale! How did things turn out?
This thread gives new meaning to the phrase “silence is golden”.
Update! Nope not in Belize—but sure was tempted to enhance our vacation!
On 7/16 I was at Chase and was told we would be getting a call to “validate” sending the wire back. (Mind you I gave permission on 7/9)
Crickets.
on 7/19, I informed my contact at Chase that I hadn’t heard anything, wasn’t going to spend any more energy…and btw…we were heading out shortly on vacation for three weeks, most of which we would be off the grid.
On 7/21, we got a message from JPM Transfer dept. giving us a code. Were told to send a secure message online, contact our Chase Banker or go to our bank (NOPE!) with this code. Somewhat skeptical, as call was mumbled, from Chicago, first name only given. Anyway, tried to do on secure message. Nope. No way to do it—didn’t fit any of their drop down options. Left message with our Chase contact–giving the code. Said sayonara. No reply.
7/23 TItle Company emailed H to say they hadn’t gotten it yet, and our bank contact had not replied. Told her everything we had done, confirmed that we had given code to Transfer dept…and that we we going on vacation and would be unavailable.
on 7/29 Title Co. emailed that the east coast bank had heard from Chase on 7/28 that they would be reaching out to us to confirm the account debit for the return wire.
8/2 we returned to email/voicemail/internet…still not home. Chase Wire Dept. requested that we agree to removal of the $165K wire from our account.
We confirmed our agreement to this (for the second time!).
Now…we could have made an effort to check communications sooner, but wasn’t really inclined as felt we had done our part…and we were on vacation! Also, advice I’d received from @Catcherinthetoast was that probably best to let process play out. Also, checked messages on our land line back home…more almost inaudible messages from the Wire department, leaving different first name only, no call back number, bad grammar, but sort of same message as 7/21.
Still on vacation, with guests, so have been slowly catching up on emails and CC!
Money is still in our account…
I had something similar with another bank, amount was just a few thousand. These banks are too big and offshoring too much of their operations, that you can’t get anyone that knows anything. We ended up just not dealing with it after reporting and eventually the money was removed. Closed the acct after that and will never bank with them again.
I hope you were able to enjoy your vacation!!
While not “fixed” it seems there is some good news imbedded in the communication you have received.
First it seems like their review has determined it was an error and not malicious.
Second they have identified and confirmed the rightful owner of the money
Third the rightful owners bank and your bank’s operation areas are actively working to repatriate the funds
Bad news is they appear sloppy (particularly Chase). At this point little else for you to do. The money will find it’s way back and you are not liable for and further delay or accrued interest.
Sorry for any angst it caused you. With all that said if you are in Belize sipping daiquiris way to cover your tracks with that backstory😀
All I read was:
“Money is still in our account.”
P.S. I must have missed something. Why is the amount under discussion $165,000 when the original over-payment was $250,000 ?