There’s a question of which of the banks are liable, sort of. The banks that sent and received the money are liable. It doesn’t matter who touched the check b

There’s a question of which of the banks are liable, sort of. The banks that sent and received the money are liable. It doesn’t matter who touched the check before the fraud occurred. The bank would have a case if they could show the victim endorsed the check and then colluded with the thief to allow it to be intercepted. In that case, the fact that the victim had temporary possession of the check would matter. Note that, if the courts rule otherwise, things get bad fast. Your bank account number is basically public (you provide it to anyone you write a check to or ACH transfer to). If anyone can use that number to forge and cash a check against any account, and the only threat of recourse is “the account holder recovers the money without the help of the banks”, then the US financial system will collapse.