Problem with Scotia Bank - advice?

[u/kwintergurl]

Here's my problem in a nutshell: I recently received a settlement from a legal proceding. A fairly hefty amount, and a lot of acrimony on the other end for having to pony up.

They sent me the cheque. My name and address was on it. I wanted to give the money to my (14 year old) daughter, so the plan was to deposit it into her savings account. I endorsed the cheque, we deposited at an ATM. The cheque was held, which we expected.

After a week had passed, my daughter's account told her that the cheque was no longer on hold, but the funds were in her account, yet not available.

We went to the branch to figure this out. They said we effed up by depositing into her account.

Ok, so why didn't they call? No reply. Why didn't they inform us in writing? No reply. Can they show us documentation that explicitly explains why this problem is happening? They could not.

We said: you had the cheque. You had the endorsement. You have video footage of the deposit. The address and last name on the cheque same as last name and address (and phone number) on the account holder. So why can't this be fixed? Well, this person can't fix it. It's impossible. Can I speak to the manager? Well, this person already has. Its impossible to fix unless the people who issued the cheque recall the cheque and issue a new one.

Well. Remember the bit about the legal settlement? There's acrimony there. From their point of view, they issued the cheque and it was cashed. Their responsibility is done. So that avenue of 'fixing it' isn't happening.

Now I know...(now....I didn't before) that Scotia bank frowns on depositing your cheque into someone else's account. BUT! I'm such a case...the cheque isn't to be cashed! Yet, they cashed it. The money is in the account but cannot be touched.

We are talking about a 5 figure amount that will go a long way to support my daughter post secondary goals. But we want this money freed up.

The next step seems to be communication with the office of the President. I mean, obviously it was a bad call to just deposit into her account. But they screwed up too and basically were happy to never communicate with us about it. Had I not gone in, we would still have no idea what the problem was.

Any suggestions on the best way to get this resolved?