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A Man Walks into a Bank

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Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#161

Post by inoop »

zalew wrote: post #73

Heh, a check in 1995 you say. Ok, hear this. This year 2 guys here in Warsaw put a bag full of newspaper into a cash deposit and walked away with 1.5 million Euro on their account. By 'their' account I mean an account set up on a fake or some bum who gave them their ID for a few hundred. Supposedly they had an insider who thought them how to build trust on the account, so after some time the deposits are cashed in be…

I remember a much less spectacular, but related 'hack' that worked here in the Netherlands until it was patched years ago. The trick was to withdraw 125 guilders from your bank account (this was before the euro), which would be presented to you as a f25,- and f100,- note. You could carefully take the f100,- note, but let the f25,- sit in the slot. After a while the ATM would detect that the money had not been taken from the slot, and take the money back. Your bank account statement would show a withdrawal of f125,-, and then a deposit of f125,- shortly after corresponding to the money being taken back by the machine.

Of course, you couldn't do this too often before they caught on to you.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#162

Post by oijaf888 »

jarek wrote: post #146
duaneb wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better solution? Also, many banks now allow cashing photos of checks.

> Do you have a better solution? I don't personally, but there's lots of accounts in these comments about systems in other countries that have free or nearly free near-instant wire transfers provided bank account number and name. Charities soliciting donations include their account number in ads. If you don't have a bank account you can make a deposit into the account at the post office. It doesn't get much simpler.…

I'm not sure a physical copy actually has to exist anymore, with the Check21 regulation a digitized copy containing the relevant information is considered to be the same thing as a physical check. I don't think there's anything in the regulation that would prohibit a consumer from creating the digitized version themselves. Now getting a bank to accept it from an untrusted source (a customer) as opposed from another bank might be hard.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#163

Post by zalew »

vacri wrote: post #160
zalew wrote: post #73

Heh, a check in 1995 you say. Ok, hear this. This year 2 guys here in Warsaw put a bag full of newspaper into a cash deposit and walked away with 1.5 million Euro on their account. By 'their' account I mean an account set up on a fake or some bum who gave them their ID for a few hundred. Supposedly they had an insider who thought them how to build trust on the account, so after some time the deposits are cashed in be…

I'm surprised that there wasn't some kind of rangecheck for ATM deposits. I can see that you might want to take 5-figure deposits on faith and this could realistically happen, but by the time you get to 6 figures, is an ATM really where you want the deposits to be happening?

This service is called a 'nightly drop box' or sth, I suppose it's useful f.ex. for for grocery/liquor store owners, I believe a successful branch or two can easily make 6 figures income in a day. This one was actually 7 figures (1m EUR ~~4.5m PLN), around here gas station networks have private security companies to handle the pickups and drops, and I can easily assume a 1hr ride around a few branches (gas stations handle CCs, so there's probably less physical cash while the income is bigger than a liquor) will easily make a few mil, but I don't know if the sad guys drop it nightly in bunches or secure it on their own and transport it to a bank vip area during the day.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#164

Post by jarek »

oijaf888 wrote: post #162
jarek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have a better solution? I don't personally, but there's lots of accounts in these comments about systems in other countries that have free or nearly free near-instant wire transfers provided bank account number and name. Charities soliciting donations include their account number in ads. If you don't have a bank account you can make a deposit into the account at the post office. It doesn't get much simpler.…

I'm not sure a physical copy actually has to exist anymore, with the Check21 regulation a digitized copy containing the relevant information is considered to be the same thing as a physical check. I don't think there's anything in the regulation that would prohibit a consumer from creating the digitized version themselves. Now getting a bank to accept it from an untrusted source (a customer) as opposed from another b…

Hm... this isn't very scientific, but I've read through a bunch of Wikipedia articles on the topic and nothing says explicitly this will be possible. Everything appears to be written under the assumption that a physical check exists to begin the process, and the article on substitute checks [2] explicitly refers to a "digital reproduction of an original paper check." Maybe someone who knows the actual regulation can chime in.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_21, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_deposit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque_truncation [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_check

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#165

Post by rtkwe »

mbateman wrote: post #93
shin_lao wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry I don't understand the scam. How did they make the cashier believe the newspaper was actually cash?

ATMs don't scan a deposited check or cash. They wait for someone in the bank to open it and determine whether it is legit, then the account is credited. But after a while your account becomes "trustworthy" and any deposits are credited to the account before it is checked.

Check this reply: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4347383

Basically it wasn't an ATM but a Nightly Drop box that allowed them to declare the amount of money they were depositing.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#166

Post by rtkwe »

spacemanaki wrote: post #105
sudonim wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that process work? Check gets deposited in ABC bank (issued by XYZ bank). ABC bank sends a scan of the check to XYZ bank. And XYZ bank has an employee whose job it is to look at every inbound check to make sure the signature matches? Or maybe they have computers to recognize the signature and compare them for similarities. If it's too different, then it's flagged and sent to an employee for further review?…

> Or maybe they have computers to recognize the signature and compare them for similarities. If it's too different, then it's flagged and sent to an employee for further review? Yeah, that'd be nice, and I think it's well within the grasp of the big banks to deploy some image recognition software to do this, and yet I'm fairly certain they do not. Anecdata to follow... I recently had a blank check stolen from me and…

The thing with doing that it it requires the person signing the check to have a /single/ extremely consistent signature. Personally my signature changes a lot depending on the pen I'm using or even how quickly I go. And I doubt I'm the only one.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#167

Post by stephen_g »

veyron wrote: post #49
derda wrote: post #45

It amazes me everytime, that in the US day-to-day banking still consists mostly of writing, sending and cashing cheques. In germany (I dont know about the rest of Europe, but I guess the situation is similar), cheques are virtually non existent. You can still get and cash them, but you will get weird looks from the person behind the bank counter, most of the time there will be a hefty fee associated with it(I once ca…

Checks are still useful because most online transfer mechanisms cost money. For example, my bank recently started charging for ACH transfers, and wires are always expensive.

That's interesting, because it's the opposite in Australia. I would have to pay a fee to get a chequebook (I'm not sure if it's per-annum or per book, probably depends on banks) but on my accounts I have unlimited free transfers to any bank in Australia. Pretty much all personal accounts here get that - some business accounts still have to pay a few cents per transfer, but free online transfers are becoming a lot more common for those.

I also have a free EFTPOS (Maestro/Cirrus) and Visa Debit card, and can pay bills at no extra cost using the BPAY system from my online banking, so I never write cheques at all...

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#168

Post by rtkwe »

mrweasel wrote: post #88
veyron wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Domestic bank transfers are pretty much free for all private people and almost everyone pays all their invoices electronically via their online bank." In the US, domestic bank transfers cost money (for example, Bank of America charges 3 dollars for ACH and 25 for sending wires; most banks charge 15 for receiving a wire), which explains to a great extent why cheques are still used. "What's more, credit and debit car…

Credit card fees aren't onerous, not here in Denmark at least, I think Finland has a similar deal. Credit cards are issued by your bank, you pay one yearly fee, 175DKK around 30USD. More often than not the bank will give you a VISA debit card for free, or a Master Card with 30.000DKK limit, no interest if you pay the debt of each month (The bank will do the transfer from your account for free, assuming that you have…

The fees for the person carrying the cards aren't bad but the processing companies, at least here in the US, probably in the EU too since they're all basically the same companies, charge quite a hefty fee on the business end.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#169

Post by mortenjorck »

Why, in August of 2012, is the Financial Times running a piece by Patrick Combs himself rehashing the same story he's been telling for the better part of two decades? I mean, it's a cool story and all, but... The Financial Times?

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#170

Post by jacques_chester »

stephen_g wrote: post #167
veyron wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checks are still useful because most online transfer mechanisms cost money. For example, my bank recently started charging for ACH transfers, and wires are always expensive.

That's interesting, because it's the opposite in Australia. I would have to pay a fee to get a chequebook (I'm not sure if it's per-annum or per book, probably depends on banks) but on my accounts I have unlimited free transfers to any bank in Australia. Pretty much all personal accounts here get that - some business accounts still have to pay a few cents per transfer, but free online transfers are becoming a lot mor…

While it's true that the personal cheque account is 100 kinds of dead, they're still used for some businesses. Especially if they're cash-y.

In particular they tend to be used for small businesses, associations and the like because they won't have proper accounting systems set up to track transactions. The cheque stubs form a useful source document for book keepers, accountants and auditors.

Also, a chequeing account can have a requirement for multiple signatures. This matters a lot for partnership-style businesses and of course incorporated and unincorporated associations. Indeed most model constitutions for incorporated associations specifically mention the chequebook, who possesses it and who must sign cheques.

Even so, it's dying out there too. Bank statements have gotten progressively more descriptive as time goes on. Plus the banks are grasping thieving mongrels who use "but it's paper" as an excuse to slug you for stunning fees for every node in the state chart of cheque deposits.

I have cheque books and deposit books for my Pty Ltd accounts and I have never had occasion to use them. I pay bills with the corporate credit card and since I deal with large creditors they prefer to convenience and reliability of direct deposits.

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