How NOT To Bank.

[Diggin It]

Swanigan saved at least $18,000 in the account before criminals reportedly withdrew $23,000. These transactions apparently took place in places around the world that he had never visited.

He told the broadcaster: "It was 2, 3, 4,10 transactions a day. Every day of the week."

At first, you sort of feel sorry for this guy until you read:

The mechanic was also reportedly unaware of the withdrawals because the deposit slip he receives when he puts money in his account does not have a bank balance. He said he does not use online banking services.

Swanigan added that he had not opened stacks of bank statements recently because he believed his account was secure.

He said: "I just don't have time, I mean, I know I got money in the bank. And why do I have to check it if I feel comfortable with my money in the bank."

The bank also said it was a whole year until he told them of unauthorized transactions.

Man Loses $18K Savings After Bank Says He Waited Too Long to Report Theft

He takes no responsibility whatsoever for checking his account or balance. It's fine to not use on-line or digital services, but he had the paper statements and never even bothered to open them. I suppose you could fault the bank for not asking about foreign transactions, but is that really their responsibility for small amounts? Some people have family overseas that they allow to use their accounts. I'm sort of mixed on the bit about no current balance on deposit slips. Some have them, others don't. But why didn't he ever ask?

 

[oosik]

That is sad. The bank should have been more proactive in notifying their customer.

 

[3Ts]

He takes no responsibility whatsoever for checking his account or balance.

While I feel sorry for him, he also bears some (most) of the responsibility of making sure his account is as it should be. Periodic checking of account status to ensure his account is secure is simple and does not take long. Just opening the statements and checking the balance takes less than a minute. Anything within the last 2 months the bank should fix. Anything beyond that is on him. This is similar to warranty issues and workmanship on projects - just how long should one be "on the hook" after a job is completed?

 

[seville009]

part of my morning routine is to check my bank and credit card activity online; I’m the one affected by any mistakes/thefts, so it’s my responsibility.......

takes all of five minutes at best

 

[kenmbz]

When you give money to a bank, they are holding it and making money off of it.
They should be responsible for it at all times.
I don't see why the person with the account is at fault.

I went paperless and the bank gave my money to the state, in under the 2 years that is mandated. They told me to talk to the State and file a claim. I wish it were enough to sue them and make it VERY public. I no longer do paperless banking. Although most of my bank transactions are on line.

 

[grsthegreat]

Oh brother. I reconcile my accounts every month. On top of that, i get an email notification whenever a withdrawal or deposit exceeds $0.01. Ive had this set up for years.

Anyone who trusts all their money to someone else is asking for trouble.

 

[Fuddy1952]

While I feel sorry for him, he also bears some (most) of the responsibility of making sure his account is as it should be. Periodic checking of account status to ensure his account is secure is simple and does not take long. Just opening the statements and checking the balance takes less than a minute. Anything within the last 2 months the bank should fix. Anything beyond that is on him. This is similar to warranty issues and workmanship on projects - just how long should one be "on the hook" after a job is completed?

I agree with this.^^^^^. As my late Dad used to say it was "a comedy of errors".
Too many mistakes here but to list a few:
1) he should have had interest checking, not a debit card.
2) have a cashback credit card
3) deal with one branch near your home. Know the people there, they know you, etc.
4) check every statement
5) never keep your life's savings in one account that doesn't pay interest/dividends
6) in life never assume anything, always think "what if". As Ronald Reagan said "trust but verify".
7) The bank isn't your Mommie. How can they know suspicious activity? How can they call 1000's of customers "did you buy this or that?".

 

[kenmbz]

Banks have algorithms to find these things, they probably knew and did not care.
Same bank who Escheated (yes a real term for stealing by the State), also gave my wife's money to another person since they put her account number instead of hers (off by one digit).
They did not catch the error, they did not check the signatures (or name, since I doubt the male they gave the money too had a female name).
They also did not apologize and made it difficult to get the money back and fought us on the bounced check charges.
This was the "most convenient" bank to give your money to someone else and then walk away instead of helping when they made the mistakes.

 

[ruffdog]

With the latest government hacking through security software (solarwinds), people should assume nothing is secure anymore.

Trump'''s reluctance to name Russia in SolarWinds hack will hamper recovery - Axios

 

[grsthegreat]

It amazing they spend billions on cyber security, and use Solarwinds123 as a backdoor password.

 

[jmc]

I've lost track of my balance and overdrawn my account. My local bank of 30 years (albeit, purchased by a larger bank) notified me by mail, covered the many checks that woulda otherwise bounced, and charged me $35/check for their service. Near as I can tell, the reason they notified me by mail is because Pony Express is no longer available. Good money in soaking a loyal customer that they know isn't going anywhere.

I can't prove this second part of the transaction scam but I've read about the following banking stunt and my bounced checks did fall in this particular order:

A bank sets up an algorithm that recognizes a checking overdraw, then the algorithm goes back in time to reshuffle the arrival of your bounced checks. The biggest bounced check will now be reportedly "received" by the bank before the smaller checks. Point is, those big bounced checks deplete your account earlier and once depleted, they get $35 for every reportedly subsequent check, no matter how small the later checks are.

At the risk of flogging this:

Say you have a checking balance of $500, the bank receives 5 checking withdrawals for $100 each on Monday morning and another one for $500 on Monday night. Bank should get a $35 fee for the last check for the $500 overdraw.

But their algorithm reorders the checks to claim that the Monday night $500 check arrived first, which depleted your account, and then they can collect $35 on each of the 5 checks they claimed arrived after the account was depleted.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

 

[kenmbz]

I cab believe this, unfortunately.
And Solarwinds hack was in source code, not passwords.

 

[Diggin It]

When you give money to a bank, they are holding it and making money off of it.
They should be responsible for it at all times.
I don't see why the person with the account is at fault.

You have to do your own Due Diligence. You have to be responsible. He never even bothered to open his mailed statements. It seems like he never even asked about the balance during his semi-weekly visits for deposits.

I agree with this.^^^^^. As my late Dad used to say it was "a comedy of errors".
Too many mistakes here but to list a few:

4) check every statement

To me, this was his biggest mistake. How was he keeping track of his account? Apparently he wasn't.

 

[Aquamoose]

I've lost track of my balance and overdrawn my account. My local bank of 30 years (albeit, purchased by a larger bank) notified me by mail, covered the many checks that woulda otherwise bounced, and charged me $35/check for their service. Near as I can tell, the reason they notified me by mail is because Pony Express is no longer available. Good money in soaking a loyal customer that they know isn't going anywhere.

I can't prove this second part of the transaction scam but I've read about the following banking stunt and my bounced checks did fall in this particular order:

A bank sets up an algorithm that recognizes a checking overdraw, then the algorithm goes back in time to reshuffle the arrival of your bounced checks. The biggest bounced check will now be reportedly "received" by the bank before the smaller checks. Point is, those big bounced checks deplete your account earlier and once depleted, they get $35 for every reportedly subsequent check, no matter how small the later checks are.

At the risk of flogging this:

Say you have a checking balance of $500, the bank receives 5 checking withdrawals for $100 each on Monday morning and another one for $500 on Monday night. Bank should get a $35 fee for the last check for the $500 overdraw.

But their algorithm reorders the checks to claim that the Monday night $500 check arrived first, which depleted your account, and then they can collect $35 on each of the 5 checks they claimed arrived after the account was depleted.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Wells Fargo got in trouble for this and had to pay back customers in a class action lawsuit.

I bank with a local credit union since it operates as a “member owned” business where the dividends are paid back to us.

Some years back, I had my house refinanced and I had my first suspicions that something strange happened to my account when I walked in to deposit & withdraw some cash at a different branch when the teller’s eyes widened upon seeing my account. Mind you, she was “Miss popular” at my high school (I hung with my close friends and didn’t seek attention despite being a jock). She quickly handled the transaction and proceeded to chat up a storm. I chatted for about 3 minutes and not long after, her other high school friend showed up (she texted her) and she too swooned over me. I bided my well wishes and left shortly after and not until I got in my truck was a balance of $1.7 million bucks when it should have been approx $15,000 max.

Figures.

 

[MoKelly]

I feel sorry for him as well. My credit card bank constantly calls about charges that are atypical. If I drive to Florida on vacation, I can predict a call when I charge gas at a station 2 states away. A few times they were right - it wasn’t my charge - and they canceled the amount and sent a new card overnight.

Not sure how it works with debit cards. No signature as with checks. You just need a PIN. I don’t have Debit Cards.

I agree with those who note that all those foreign transactions could have raised a flag.

In today’s day, it seems everyone should know about cyber fraud on bank accounts and look at their stuff at least every month.

Escheatment is a bad thing. Every so often our State Treasurer publishes lists of people who had money escheated. The list is many pages long. It happened to my 90 year old grandmother who had no clue. I saw her name on the list. We got the money back but, it took 4 months and was a pain.

MoKelly

 

[Fuddy1952]

That bank mistake reminds of a friend in business like mine did some work for a local television studio. It was a very small job so he billed them $150. A week later gets a check from them for $150,000. He immediately called their office and was told "we don't make mistakes like that". So he goes to his bank and deposits it in a savings account (years ago when banks actually paid 4-5% interest.
A year later he gets a call from them "we made a mistake". So he said no problem. I will send you my check for $150,000 less the $150 so $149,850. They said fine!
Meanwhile he made interest on the mistake they didn't make.

 

[Jstpssng]

His experience is why I no longer have a debit card associated with my main checking account. Most of my paycheck goes into that account, and all of my bills get paid from there. My savings account is there, and overdraft protection allows them to transfer money automatically if I mess up. My mortgage is through them, my tractor and one pickup were financed through them. Come to think of it, I now have a snowsled loan through them. The only thing which I used my debit card for was paying my power bill, and an occasional withdrawal.

One morning this spring I checked my accounts, as I am prone to do. No money was taken out, but Amazon had made a querie against my debit card. There is no possible way they could have legally gotten that card number. I pay bills when my paycheck hits the account on Friday and don't keep much in the account but had about 13K in savings, which my OD protection could have taken. As soon as my CU opened that morning their phone was ringing and I said "Shut off the card, NOW!"

I have another checking account with the same CU, which does not have OD protection. I can go online and slide some money into it if I want to use the ATM machine, or it also works with my savings account.

 

[BoylermanCT]

My financial services company has a guarantee that if money is taken from your account due to no fault of your own, they will reimburse the account and make you whole. The one requirement is you have to log into your account and setup your own username and password. The easiest account to hack and take over is the one that has never had the username and password set.

 

[riptides]

Electronic xfers are an issue for me. I tried to track one down from my bank, "who is blah blah" and they could not help. Plus, I found out they have a limited amount of time for reimbursements on "fraud".

 

[Diggin It]

^^ That's my issue with vapor currency and gift cards among others. They claim there is no way to track who the end receiver/user is and no way to recover funds from them.