Lost or stolen cheques or direct deposit payments

This section describes the various roles and responsibilities of parties involved in processing lost or stolen cheques and unreceived direct deposit payments.

On this page

• Employee responsibilities
• Finance responsibilities
• Trusted source responsibilities
• Pay Centre responsibilities

Employee responsibilities

An employee should notify the Pay Centre if a cheque has either been lost or stolen or if a direct deposit has not been received. Depending on the situation, the employee should complete the following forms (accessible only on the Government of Canada network):

• for direct deposit:
  • Undertaking and indemnity – for direct deposit payments issued by the Receiver General (accessible only on the Government of Canada network)
• for lost or stolen cheques:
  • Undertaking and indemnity: for cheques issued by the Receiver General (accessible only on the Government of Canada network)

Submit the completed forms to the Pay Centre along with the completed pay action request form.

Finance responsibilities

Once the cheque or payment has been re-issued, finance personnel must authorize the transaction in Phoenix, under Section 33 of the Financial Administration Act.

Trusted source responsibilities

Trusted source personnel must confirm that signatures are authenticated on paper requests sent from departments to the Pay Centre. For example:

• the section 34 signature is authenticated for any request affecting financial results and/or manager’s budget before it is sent to the Pay Centre
• the human resources delegated signature is authenticated for all requests being submitted by departments, unless these are submitted directly by the employee

Pay Centre responsibilities

Pay Centre personnel are responsible for:

• requesting a trace of the payment from the Ottawa Pay Support
• pre-populating form PWGSC 535 or PWGSC 536 and for sending the document to the employee for its completion (forms accessible only on the Government of Canada network)