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A Man Walks into a Bank

ft.com

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Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#51

Post by mseebach »

Symmetry wrote: post #23
wrath wrote: post #7

Am I missing something here? The transit, bank and account number on the check must all be fake (or I would hope that this get-rick-quick company didn't actually send their real bank information!). So whether or not the check has non-negotiable printed on it is a mute point. The check cannot be routed anywhere and would have been flagged immediately. This is not the good ol' days of bank fraud, ala Catch Me If You Ca…

They might have just Photoshopped an image of a check the company had laying around, in which case the routing details, etc, would all be correct for some unlucky entity out there.

If that was the case, the company sending out the checks would be due for a lengthy prison-term on a couple thousand charges of mail fraud.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#53

Post by stinkytaco »

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…

I have not used a check for several years, nor has anyone I know. My bank gets a deposit from my job and I use a bank card to withdraw cash or a credit card to make purchases (the credit card is paid everymonth with an automatic bank draft). I think that's pretty standard unless you're a small business or require some sort of paper trail.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#54

Post by bryanlarsen »

DeepDuh wrote: post #4
corin_ wrote: post #3

Good story, shame (though understandable) that it cares more about promoting his show than actually finishing the tale for readers.

"So... WHAT HAPPENED?" If you want to know what happens next, order our DVD now!

That's not fair. He makes it quite clear at the beginning that the whole story is free but that you will see requests for tips or to buy the DVD.

Remember that this story was written in 1995. Internet advertising was generally not available then, and neither was proper etiquette for advertising. I do not blame him for trying to partially monetize his thousands of hours of effort. After all, it's not like he kept the money.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#55

Post by akandiah »

This does not always work in the favour of the client. As mentioned in the bottom of the article, a similar incident took place in New Zealand. The couple involved have been arrested, found guilty on multiple charges of theft and are currently awaiting on the sentence: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7083997/Runaway-millio...

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#56

Post by veyron »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #9

I'm sorry, but from what I know of banking law (ianal, nor do I play one on the Internet, but it helps to know enough to defend yourself from banks)... why isn't he in jail? I thought knowingly doing what he did constitutes bank fraud and numerous other charges?

He didn't generate a fraudulent check, so he didn't do anything illegal. It's akin to receiving a forged bill and then using it at the next place.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#57

Post by usefulcat »

daigoba66 wrote: post #16
petenixey wrote: post #10

This story was from a little while back but what's to stop you just printing a cheque from someone else and paying it into a bank today? There's no alerting to the originator that a cheque's been paid out and there are no obvious authentication tokens on the cheques. Frank Abignale only had to get past an initial look-test so what techniques protect against (and are consistently used) to prevent cheque forgery today?

That's the thing, I'm pretty sure check clearinghouses are near real-time these days. At least in the US. Deposit the check and within a few minutes it'll either clear from the other bank or bounce.

Unless it's a large check, in which case it's normal practice for a bank to put a hold on all but a small portion of the funds for several days. The exception is for deposits which occur regularly from the same source, like payroll.

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#58

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: A Man Walks into a Bank

#59

Post by bryanlarsen »

fishercs wrote: post #31

Most systems today are completely automated, they'll check that the routing number is valid but not the account number the check is drawn on. Routing numbers don't change, but hundreds of thousands of account numbers are created every day throughout the US.. banks are different on how they do their internal account numbers, different algorithms are used when generating these account numbers. I work for a relatively s…

"suddenly made aware". According to the long version of the story, FICAL was made aware of the error within the 24 hour window, but did not notify Combs until almost 3 weeks later.
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