Someone needs to send me money. I have a Bank of America account. What numbers do I give him? Does he send to my account number, wireless routing number, and/or paper & electronic routing number?
The BoA site doesn’t give me a description for the account number but for the other two:
Paper & Electronic
Use this routing number to order checks, set up direct deposits and outgoing payments to other financial institutions
Wires
Use this routing number for all incoming wire transfers
I didn’t find that li to be very helpful as it just goes to the BoA main portal.
Here’s a link in their FAQ that actually addresses the question. They also list their SWIFT code for international transfers.
Congratulations on winning the UK e-mail lottery!!!
Or helping that widow of that Nigerian diplomat get her funds to the U.S.
Or claiming those international funds held in your name.
Either way…best of luck…I hope that your life savings is not in that account your about to send the information about.
My thoughts exactly Wilbo.
yokan, you can have money wired to you via Western Union, or if you have a Paypal account, someone can email you money. Just FYI.
NinetyWt / Wilbo523
It is really odd that American bank security is so lax. I give my European bank account number out all the time - nobody can take money out unless they have: My digital key generator device, my mobile phone, my client number and two different passwords.
The bank account and routing information only allows people to put money IN to the account.
Of course my US bank didn’t know what a Euro was so it’s really no surprise I guess.
I can’t find the story any more, but a few years ago a popular british commentator proudly and loudly proclaimed the same thing. To the point where he publisized his bank account information. You can probably guess the result. When he started to lose money he complained to the bank and was told they were valid withdrawals and he had no recourse. Turns out in Britain at the time donations to charity could be made with nothing more than one’s bank account number. They were legal withdrawals. Don’t know whether the law in Britain was changed, but both his bank account number and his tone on the subject did change… 
short answer-never assume a bank is safe or sane.
None. As others have said, there’s never any good reason to give this info to another person.
Have him send you a check or money order or send it through a third party like western-union or paypal. If you give him your account numbers, he can take all of your money out and you’ll have a tough time recovering it.
If you give him your account number and the wire transfer routing number, he can send you a wire transfer. Yes, there is a good reason for this - wire transfers are guaranteed funds. Once that money is in your account, nobody gets to take it back. If you’re worried about him later making up fake checks with your account number on it, then go open a free savings account somewhere for just this purpose and close it again after you take the wired money out. (Probably only worth doing for a large amount of money. If it’s a smaller amount, just go with the Western Union suggestion.)
I hear this all the time, but… Don’t you do just this any time you write someone a check? Your account number is printed right there on the document. (I realize that writing someone a check is transferring money out, rather than accepting a transfer in; my point is that we give our account numbers out as a matter of course with a frequency that seems inconsistent with the oft-heard warnings to keep such information private.)
I’m skeptical that mere knowledge of an account number is all that’s needed to easily drain the funds.
You are correct to be skeptical. Withdrawals from checking account can be done using paper checks with the proper routing/transit number and account number. They can also be done electronically using the same numbers by authorized ACH (automated clearing house) originators, of which my company is one. Paper checks with your account info can also be created by others who have the correct equipment. My company prints about a million checks a day to make payments for customers to payees who do not accept electronic credits. These checks are printed to be drawn on the customers checking account just like a hand-written check. If one of our customers disputed one of these checks because it does not have his signature on it, we would be protected by the fact that we were electronically authorized to make the payment by the customer. If a nefarious third party acquired the ability to print bogus checks, the customer could successfully dispute those checks. If a similar third party decided to attempt electronic withdrawals via ACH, they would be rejected as coming from an unauthorized source. Bank accounts are not so easily drained.
For the OP, I’m pretty sure that the routing number for incoming wireless transfers is a Bank of America corporate account, from which they will credit your personal account. Your account info does not need to go to the sender, just the wireless receiving account for BoA.
BUT… the bank will honor the ACH and fraudulent checks at first. The bank account will be drained. It will be up to you to dispute the transactions after all of your money is gone. You’ll probably get your money back, but you’ll have a heck of a time buying groceries in the meantime.
If you’re going to follow the bolded advice, you shouldl make sure that, when you close the temporary account, the bank customer service rep puts a hard hold on the account: that is, that both withdrawals and deposits are blocked. This will prevent someone from making a small deposit into the account to re-open it and then writing checks. The reason you care is that, if you open that free account in teh same bank where you do your regular banking, and the account is re-opened without your knowledge and then overdrawn, the bank may well raid your actual account to cover the overdrafts. A reputable bank will probably help you correct that after the fact, but that could take a while, and if your rent’s due you may not be able to wait for the money to be returned.
The bank would never see the ACH transaction. The fraudster would have no way to transmit it to the Fed, which validates such transactions before sending them to the banks. Originating depository financial institutions like my company jump through a lot of hoops before we get connected to the Fed.
There are other reasons that checks are not a good tool for draining accounts, like the fraudster having no idea how much is in the account. A bounced check means zero dollars for the crook. Disputes over fraudulent checks are pretty easily resolved in the account holder’s favor.
Then what about those articles we read wherein someone gives their bank account number to a scammer and then finds their money drained out? Are those urban legends? Is there some different number the victims are giving out - one that’s not printed on our checks?
Can you link us to one?
Like brad_d says, you do give out your account number and routing number every time you write someone a check. I work for a small bank with only one routing number, but a larger bank like Bank of America will usually have many routing numbers. Even if you don’t personally write checks, millions of checks are written every day and these accounts are not drained.
A fake check will be fairly obvious to a bank. They don’t get John Smith’s account number and then make checks that say John Smith, and try to sign with John Smith’s signature. They’ll put John Smith’s account information at the bottom of a check that says ABC Corp. and sign anything they want to sign (might be a foreign address on the check too). When John Smith’s bank sees it (either because the signature on the check looks nothing like his signature on file, or because they’re returning the check for insufficient funds) they won’t mistake it for his check.
I’ve seen this kind of fraud get caught once - the check did not get paid and I believe the police eventually traced it to a student at a nearby college.
Sorry for the double-post, but I think this article is talking about the kind of fraud EdwardLost is talking about: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60345-2004Jul18.html, electronic fraud rather than fake checks. If you read the whole article (it’s 3 pages) you’ll see that the criminals were shut down within 3 months. Also there’s talk about what the victims could do to get their money back and what changes were being talked about. The FDIC has things to say about this kind of fraud: http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnsum04/key.html