Dude, I’m talking nonconsensual here. NOT cool. 
What on earth world do you live in? You really can’t conceive that one payee on a dual-payee cheque might try to shaft the other by cashing it without telling them? You really believe this is such an unlikely circumstance that banks shouldn’t even consider protecting against it? And you really can’t see that cheque fraud might be the more important consideration, regardless of how frequent it is?
I tell you what: tell me, if you can, how the bank benefits from going to the (apparently) bizarre length of insisting on paying out only to the named payees (y’know, like they’re supposed to). I realise you think that people running companies do so largely so they can irritate customers and twirl their moustaches menacingly, but presumably there must be some actual reason you have in mind why a bank would actually like to turn its customers away.
Remember: the person who wrote the cheque is a customer too. They instructed the bank to pay out to two people for a reason. If their bank arbitrarily decides to hand the money to just one of them, and the other comes to the cheque writer asking where their money is, what then for your idiotic Evil Corporation view? Tell me; which customer should the bank be serving?
If it’s on the up-and-up, can’t the person not going to the bank endorse the check “Pay to the order of John Doe,” in addition to signing, and then let John Doe cash it?
Where does the OP live and where does he bank? As far as I can see most banks are open until 6pm every weekday. Where do banks still have only “banker’s hours”?
Or even “banker’s locations” any more? There are quite a few banks that have branches inside supermarkets that are open into the evening and on weekends.
You notice he says he only does that when he knows both parties personally. That’s called individual judgement, and has fuck-all to do with rules. If I don’t know you from Adam, I’m not assuming your motives are pure just because you say so.
You’re goddamned right they’re looking for protection, and it’s hardly just theirs. If this particular case happens to be one of the (more common than you seem to think, I assure you; you should see the stupid-ass scams people try to pull on banks on a daily basis) times where it’s NOT a harmless mistake, the bank then has to answer for why exactly they decided it’d be cool to let somebody take their customer’s money unauthorized. “Why can’t we just be a grownup about these things?” doesn’t really work as an answer to that question. Just imagine the Pit thread that would result if some Doper’s bank allowed someone to pull a fast one on them in this manner. “Those fucking incompetent assholes GAVE MY MONEY AWAY!”
Further, I would submit that the “grown-up” thing to do would be to make sure the check was properly signed.
Yeah, you got 'em, they do it just to piss you off. Banks are trolls like that.
I still think the answer to all — it’s certainly what a lot of people seem to want, if my experience teaches me anything — is for some bank to offer the new, exclusive No Security checking account. No ID checks, no signatures required, no having to come into the branch, no questions, no hassle. Just come on in, say your name, and take all of your money. We won’t bother you, because, hey, the vast majority of people who conduct transactions every day are exactly who they say they are, so why shouldn’t you be? After all, we’re all grown-ups here! We know you’re a responsible adult! That’s why, the moment your pissed-off ex walks off with all your money because we didn’t follow any security procedures, we know you’ll take it in stride like the grown man you are, because that’s exactly what you wanted us to do!
Vinyl Turnip, no doubt you’d be a candidate for this account, because otherwise I can’t figure out what you’re on about. Sure, the terms and conditions could be made a lot more reader-friendly — and I would heartily endorse the idea of doing so — but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically nonsensical or wrong. Also, dense rulebooks are hardly unique to banking. Ever read state legislation?
Yes. This is functionally the same as writing “FOR DEPOSIT ONLY”; the bank is mostly just looking for some indication that both parties are aware that the check exists and are okay with its being cashed/deposited.
Look, I’m hardly a defender of standard corporate idiocy. I’m more than willing to call it where I see it, and will vocally support complaints about rules and regulations that make no sense…I’m a civil libertarian, for fuck’s sake. I do require, though, that the rule actually be stupid before I decry it as such. Verifying that people who want to access a customer’s money have the permission of the customer to do so? I think I can fathom a reason we might want that done.
From Frenzy:
Roland Orzabal, I’ve said before, but it bears repeating.
From the bottom of this teller’s little heart, thank you for being the kind of manager we all hope for. From reading your posts, I see you actually care about the rules and why they are in place, yet without forgetting the humans who have to follow them and the frustration it sometimes causes.
Sovereign bank did the same to the Sheckstress and I. It was our tax return, had her sig and acct #, and I was the one depositing. I was denied, handed the check to my wife who went back and got it deposited into her account. Not the same teller, but still was cause enough for me to go to another, more Commerce oriented bank.
Sure. My second-favorite type of reading material!
Damn, and here I was hoping there’d be some middle ground between “draconian security measures” and “we give all your money away,” but I guess it got excluded somewhere.
What’s already been stated, but apparently continues to be missed, is that in this case (definitely in the case that happened to me, and I believe in the OP’s as well) that the problem is not that the check is not endorsed, but that the bank will not accept the endorsement of the party who isn’t present, nor will they accept “PAY TO THE ORDER OF” or “FOR DEPOSIT ONLY” or any other annotation on the check, but will *only * deposit the check into a joint account unless both parties show up in person to show photo ID.
I would expect this sort of security requirement for someone attempting to cash a check, or for some unknown person off the street, but for the bank to tell one of their own customers (in our case my wife, a long-standing bank customer with both personal and business accounts) that she cannot deposit a check bearing my endorsement (me being another long-standing bank customer whose signature is on file) without both of us showing ID, was a requirement that was new to me and struck me as over-the-top and unnecessarily inconveniencing.
If this is the bank’s policy, I frankly don’t see what the purpose of endorsing the check is now, since one is apparently only allowed to cash or deposit checks made out directly to them anyway. The concept of “signing over” a check apparently no longer exists— something I’ve done many times in my life with this and other banks, even endorsing a paycheck in my name to hand over to my wife or a friend for them to deposit. It was never a problem; now apparently it’s impossible.
Yes, I suppose it’s more secure. (To be even more secure, they could require photo ID for every transaction, and encode our DNA into our checks.) It’s the same “bad egg” theory championed in the recent thread on pharmacists: millions of people are inconvenienced, or at least eyed with suspicion, because of the attempted misbehavior of a few. Some people have no problem with that idea, but it rubs me the wrong way, and it feels a lot less like banks “looking out for my best interests” and more like them covering their own asses.
People, it’s cheques, gaddammit, C-H-E-Q-U-E-S.
May I suggest joining a credit union and sticking with the same one for many years? The hours are not as good as the ‘open on Saturday’ banks, but I have the advantage of funds available immediately if needed, the ability to deposit my husband’s paycheck even though he is not on my account (thanks, hubby!) as well as all those birthday and Christmas checks to my minor son. Keeping a steady, if not personal, relationship with them is beneficial if you go through some trouble like I did a couple years ago when my account was frozen because of my ex-husband and I was stuck in Texas 900 miles from home with no money and no way to get home. A couple phone calls and I was clear to at least get back home and straighten stuff out.
Yes, there are times when I would like to say “screw the rules” to some things I don’t like there (like their bizarre way of numbering accounts and transferring funds), but the good outweighs the bad, and I know about the rules I think are odd going in.
Thanques.
Agreed. We should close the fucking banks so we can bask in the squalor other third world nations enjoy.
To be honest, American banking does seem Third World to some of us. You people still use checks?
We tried using balances, but those things are really heavy to lug around.
Everything European is superior to everything American. :rolleyes:
Yes, you can use checks if you want. I’m sure, though, that nobody in the UK uses checks, since everybody is technologically savvy, including senior citizens and the elderly. Debit cards are near universally accepted at the vast majority of brick-and-mortar businesses now, except for the most Luddite of mom-and-pops. Most people can pay all their bills by checking account EFT. It’s not like it’s 1958, and we primitive, backwards Americans are paying everything with checks, metal charge plates, chickens and New Textaments.
When I saw this op I thought Banks Inc. They make upgrades for pickups with diesel engines. They do suck. It’s a pickup not a Peterbuilt. Relax, don’t worry about towing a house with your pickup. It’s a pickup. You know, 2 yards of rock, gravel etc. Try to remain calm. Don’t worry about adding a 80 gallon gas tank so you can travel cross country without stopping. Must you have a jake brake so you can be like “The Big Rigs”? Buy a penis enlargement. It’s much cheaper.
Hunter S. Thompson did not die in vain…
Some do — what with there being 300 million of us and all. It’s not your fault that you have such a parochial mindset. When you live in a walnut shell and look out upon a nation that stretches from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, you can be star-struck by the sheer vastness of it all and marvel at such things as how diverse the culture can be.