Something doesn’t make sense. His account was closed for bad checks? Yet they only took $600 to cover checks and there was still over $8000 in the account. Doesn’t sound overdrawn to me. If his account was back in the black, it doesn’t follow that they’d bother to close the account.
It sounds like he was in the hole $600 when the bank closed his account. And then when his automatic deposit tax refund showed up they took the $600 they were owed and sent him a cashiers check for the what was left.
Banks work hard to get you to bounce checks. They cover them for a $25 to $50 charge. It’s just about the most profitable line of business in a bank. One ATM withdraw which will give you the money you asked for even if it’s not there, will domino into a $500 bill in a hurry if you forgot an autodraft for your car insurance payment hits your account. The banks will even putt an autodraft into limbo if it gives them the contractual opportunity to structure your debits to hit your account in just the right order to maximize their fees. They have a computer software program to do just that.