The error was committed by the LASD, their response here is wrong:
A few minutes later, she came back with the bad news. “Why didn’t you call earlier? It’s too late for us to withdraw the request. The money was already sent to the court! You need to go down to the courthouse and ask them to show you the court documents.”
It is not his problem what they did with the money, they took it from him plain and simple. The error was on their part and how they correct it on the other end is their problem.
Back in the day when people use MCI for some of their phone services , I got an adder to my phone bill from ATT (my carrier) for a charge attributed to a John Fox. I called ATT a couple times and pointed out that I'm not John Fox and they tried to tell me to call MCI. MCI used their LEC billing agreement to have ATT collect the fee. At some point I explained that I was not an MCI customer, had no relationship with them and that ATT had actually charged this fee to me, which is incorrect - how they wanted to deal with MCI or John Fox was their problem. They credited my account and I never heard about John Fox again.
EDIT: Actually the comment below by CLPX is better - the bank did this, they took his money and it is THEIR problem not the LASD. My point remains somewhat valid, it's not your problem to chase the money after someone wrongly took it - it's their problem. The bank didn't do a decent job of verification - they went on a partial name match alone apparently (no SSN, no account number, WTF).
Your anecdote about inter-carrier billing is a good one.
It reminds me of a position one of my best friends takes on "identity theft." He asserts it simply doesn't exist.
What bank's call identity theft most of the world calls "Bank Fraud." The banks don't want to eat it - so they lobby congress to pass laws making it your fault if a bad person tricks the bank.
tl;dr: Similar to how banks try to make identity theft your problem when it's really bank fraud.
Exactly: While "identify theft" is worth keeping around to refer to a kind of criminality, at least 90% of the time the real problem is institutions which fail their due-diligence.
Then they deny their negligent role and try to unjustly shift the cost onto their customers. What we actually need (as a society) is better backpressure on this kind of stuff, so that the institutions and processes actually improve at the weak point.
It's a conundrum. He could tell the branch manager to fix it since it was their mistake, but with the low level of competence displayed by said branch manager it is doubtful he would ever see his money again. Maybe try to elevate it to the district manager in the hopes that they can find their ass with both hands?
A few minutes later, she came back with the bad news. “Why didn’t you call earlier? It’s too late for us to withdraw the request. The money was already sent to the court! You need to go down to the courthouse and ask them to show you the court documents.”
It is not his problem what they did with the money, they took it from him plain and simple. The error was on their part and how they correct it on the other end is their problem.
Back in the day when people use MCI for some of their phone services , I got an adder to my phone bill from ATT (my carrier) for a charge attributed to a John Fox. I called ATT a couple times and pointed out that I'm not John Fox and they tried to tell me to call MCI. MCI used their LEC billing agreement to have ATT collect the fee. At some point I explained that I was not an MCI customer, had no relationship with them and that ATT had actually charged this fee to me, which is incorrect - how they wanted to deal with MCI or John Fox was their problem. They credited my account and I never heard about John Fox again.
EDIT: Actually the comment below by CLPX is better - the bank did this, they took his money and it is THEIR problem not the LASD. My point remains somewhat valid, it's not your problem to chase the money after someone wrongly took it - it's their problem. The bank didn't do a decent job of verification - they went on a partial name match alone apparently (no SSN, no account number, WTF).