A British Columbia court has found in favour of TD Bank in its suit against a client who was taken in a notorious Nigerian letter scam.

TD sued Anthony Runyon for the $114,245 he transferred from funds on hold in his business account at the bank. Runyon alleged that the bank’s loss was due to its own default, misconduct or negligence and that it breached its fiduciary duty owed to him when it negligently failed to exercise a duty to enquire as to the status of the funds in his business account.

Runyon, an auto body technician, was a long-time customer of TD in Abbotsford, B.C. In June 2001, he received an e-mail from Nigeria asking for his help in clearing US$45 million through Amsterdam, in exchange for 25% of the transfer. Runyon testified that he believed that he would be provided with funds that would permit him to travel to Amsterdam and pay a customs fee to allow a “consignment” of four suitcases containing US$45 million in cash to be released.

In mid September 2001, Runyon received a cheque drawn on a British bank, National Westminster Bank, for £50,000. He set up a business account at TD to deposit the cheque, telling the bank that his business was “consulting”. The cheque was subject to a 30-day hold period, and it did not clear because a stop payment had been placed on it in the U.K. as stolen. On October 18, TD informed Runyon that there was a problem with the cheque and that he could not have the funds.

On November 6, Runyon went to a different TD branch and had an inexperienced teller make out bank drafts which effectively drained the account. Around the same time, he twice visited Amsterdam, but the Nigerians failed to appear.

The judge found in TD’s favour, saying, “There can be little doubt that Mr. Runyon was the victim of unscrupulous characters prepared to take advantage of him. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Mr. Runyon’s greed motivated him to deceive the bank so that he might take advantage of an opportunity which he knew was too good to be true.”