Jebus! Aaaaaand the Good Banking Times Just Keep On Rollin'!

God, banks are a pain in the ass.

So, my roommate gives me a check to cover two months-worth of his rent. Says I can go ahead and cash it today.

So, hoping to avoid more transactions than necessary (I need $3.00 in quarters for laundry and I also hate depositing a check in my bank, because - as noted above - my bank is a pain in the ass. Figure I’ll cash the check and get a roll of quarters while I’m at it), I make the hike to his bank to cash the check there.

Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. First I’m asked for two more pieces of ID apart from my DL. (Huh? How does my DL not establish my identity, considering I had to provide my old DL, my birth certificate, my SSN card, and a utility bill to even get the damn thing). Ooooookay…

Then they wouldn’t cash the check until they could call my roommate. (???)

WTF?

So, I just take the check back (because my roommate is a FT student and isn’t home during the day. And they won’t cash it without his verbal approval), walk all the way back to my bank, and deposit it there.

Of course, I understand that all this bullshit is supposedly to protect the customer -when it reality it’s about protecting the bank. And I also understand that the teller has no power over policy…

But, just so I’m clear:

I cannot, in fact, present a check to the bank on which it’s drawn and cash it. Even though the teller can verify the balance in the account. And even though it has the endorser’s signature on it, which they can verify. But I can cash it by directly depositing it at my bank. With no such verification nor approval.

I can follow the rules as long as I know what the rules are.

Which seem to be:

You may access your money if you have ID. Unless we don’t need your ID. Or by establishing your identity, but only if you have two other items with your name on them, and don’t really establish your identity (because if your DL is fake, probably your SSN is, too). Further, you may transfer cash to the endorsee, approved by you via your signature. Unless your signature isn’t good enough. We will also honor your check unless we won’t. Your signature is binding, unless it isn’t, as long as we can talk to someone who can easily claim he is you, even though we can’t verify that, because if some man just calls us back, we’ll accept that. We will also not give your money to someone with a valid ID, unless we don’t have any way to verify that, in which case we will.

Oh, and cashing a check for three bucks in quarters? We know you signed that check and presented us with valid ID, but we still need you to endorse it on the back…

::pat:: I’m sorry for the sucking.

This is why I give my roommate cash every month. I was tired of getting phone calls from the bank. And how do they even know it’s even me on the line?

That smilie was not supposed to be there.

I was trying to be supportive! Agh!

You’re not really appreciating how banks work here.

His Bank - According to them, you’re just Joe Blow off the street. You hand them a (possibly forged or stolen) check, they hand you $200 in CASH, you walk out the door. If the check is bad, they have nothing but a bad check, and you (who they will never see again) have $200 in CASH, which is perfectly good and which the bank will never see again.

Your Bank - You are a customer. They know you, they know where you live, they know your SSN, they have a bunch of your money already in their coffers. If you give them a bad check, and they give you $200, they still have the rest of your money sitting around until the check clears. You’re actually not cashing the check, you’re depositing the check and withdrawing from your current savings. Even if you wind up overdrawn, they know who you are and can try to get their money back.

But he was carrying DL that identified him as Joe Blow.

What other forms of ID did they want, niblet_head?

Unfortunately for the non-account holder, the bank is well within their rights to make his/her banking life as inconvenient as possible, short of sicking guard dogs on you. And I think even that is legal in Alabama.

Ughh!! Reminds me of why I don’t like to do business at Wells Fargo. The have the same policy of asking for two IDs, a thumb print, blood sample, stool sample…

The one I used to hate the most was Bank of Asshol…er America. They have at their San Leandro Marina Branch, what I like to call the Leper Line. If you’re a non-account holder, you’re regulated to this line. You get to stand in this line while they serve four of their own customers while helping one Leper. Then you get up to the window and they ask if you want to open an account. “You gotta be fucking kidding me, right?”

Just stuff the check in the ATM. You may get lucky and the company that processes the checks will just cash it without comment.

cj

Anything that had my name on it. I mean, fer crissakes! My ferrrrrrrickin’ DL has both my picture AND my signature on it. But I guess just any old piece of paper that also has my name on it confirms that my DL is, in fact, me. Because my signature and picture don’t. Does it seem like I’m just going around and around in this paragraph? Yeah, I KNOW!!!

Yeah, I’m gonna start having my roommate give me his payment in cash. And then when I go to deposit it, and they ask me for an eyescan, or don’t credit it to my account for five days… ah, fuck it.

But, of course! And if some random guy - how do THEY know he’s not random? The teller said I COULD HAVE HIM CALL AND ASK TO SPEAK WITH HER AND ALLOW THE CHECK TO BE CASHED. He could’ve been calling from anywhere! and be anyone!!! The point of my pitting is “What Is the Fucking Difference???”

They only seem to “know who I am” sometimes… Other times I have to prove it. And then the next day I don’t. But then the next day I do…

Trust me, I completely understand why they have the policies, but it’s farking annoying that each seperate policy for each seperate type of transaction seems to have been written by a wholly seperate policy-writing cabal.

PS - I DID deposit it in the ATM. Which just further proves my point!

Any day now, we should have a rant popping up:

My fucking stupid bank cashed a stolen check for some shithead I don’t even know just because he had a driver’s license and told them I was his roomie. I mean, hell, if people can forge and steal checks, the dimwits at the bank should know that they can forge and steal drivers licenses. I can’t believe they don’t ID people more carefully. Why the hell didn’t they check with me to be sure I wrote the check?

Heh. I can do you one better.

I was 17, and had just been named as a winner in a poetry contest. The poetry contest was sponsored by Gwendolyn Brooks (rest her soul), who was at the time the poet laureate of Illinois in addition to being a fairly well poet. The prize–other than getting to meet and speak with her and getting to read our poetry to an audience–was $100 dollars. This money was provided as a Western Union money order payable to me from Ms. Brooks.

I went to my bank where my admittedly custodial savings account was set up. The account had been set up after my birth by my mom. I tried to cash my money order. They wouldn’t let me.

Never mind that the other name on the money order was well known. Never mind that it was by a major institution and not from Uncle Bob’s Currency Exchange. Never mind that I had an account there, technically. Never mind that it was a freaking money order. I couldn’t cash it.

The cusdodial part came off my account the next day. I transferred out of there a couple of months ago.

My experience of US consumer banking is fairly limited: most of it I know through my wife.

First of all, while the US isn’t the only country guilty of this sin, checks are of course ridiculously antiquated means of payment. Secondly, since everybody in this scenario has a bank account, why is it not possible to just make a transfer from one account to the other?

Now I understand from talking to my wife that there are pretty high fees involved at times, especially when transferring money from one bank to another. To me, that doesn’t make sense. Surely, all the manual labour involved with check processing is a lot worse? Verifying the ID’s, checking the signature, occupying a teller’s time for a good 5 minutes…

I work for a Dutch bank, and we do anything we can to keep our customers away from our branches by directing them to our internet banking application and our 24/7 free phone service. From my computer, I can make payments to any bank account in the European Union for free, and to most civilised countries for a modest fee.

Works for me, works for the bank. The United States is a complete frontrunner when it comes to IT developments, and indeed banking as well. Why haven’t the two met more succesfully? What am I missing?

A revenue stream.

Well, a revenue stream with a huge overhead attached to it. A bank saves tons of money by being able to close a branch because less customers use person-to-person services. I haven’t seen the inside of one of my bank’s branches in over 2 years, and I work for this bank.

Sigh.

(Note where I said I understood the security issues involved.)

And you’re absolutely right. Thank god that teller is charged with the authority to write the bank’s number down on a slip of paper and tell me to tell him to call her. Yep. Airtight. Thank god we have that last step - after checking my ID, his account, my other ID, the check itself… to save us all from Fraud. So, at least now I know that when someone writes me a check, it’s best to have them personally accompany me to the bank so they can approve the cashing of said check.

Oh no, wait. How are they going to prove that HE is who he says he is???

I guess they’ll just have to call his mother.

Oh I agree with you, the aforementioned BofA incident was over two years ago. I do all of my banking online as well. However in America, we still have significant populations who aren’t net enabled. Incidentally I don’t think teller duties are that onerous except when dealing with non customers. Whenever I go into my own bank I never have to show ID I just swipe my atm card.

Same here. We do try to get people out of the “go to the bank on Thursday morning to cash the paycheck” routine. I don’t know how many thousand ATMs we own, (there’s five in our cafeteria here, for starters) and the online is always open. Do keep in mind that we’re not demanding people give up that moment of human contact with a teller if they really want it.

It will probably be another generation before nearly everyone does their banking electronically here. The US may be leading with innovations (Or not - the ATM was a European invention) but other than the “early adopters” we’re by and large, not a group that does new things for the sake of doing new things, especially if you compare us to say, Japan.

Not everyone has a computer at home. Those that don’t have one by now probably don’t want one ever, and probably wouldn’t trust online banking, even if a friend showed them how easy it was. My mother is still skittish about ATMs - think she’s going to use online bill pay any time soon? I’d have to get her online, first of all.

I’ve got one!

My employer uses the same bank as I do. My first check wasn’t direct deposited, they issued me a paper check. I took it to my bank to deposit in my account(same bank, mind you).

They took the money out of my employers account right away. Didn’t credit it to my account until the next day. I deposited it around 11. When I asked when it would post, they said “tomorrow”. When I asked why on the delay, the teller stated “We have to make sure the check is good.” Never mind the fact that this is the SAME BANK! Just type in their account number, and there ya go! Do they have enough to cover it?

Sigh.

“Thank you Mr. Roomate, please give me the mailing address you have on file… Thank you, and the last 4 digits of your social Security number… Thank you, and your mother’s maiden name… Thank you. Now that I have sufficiently verified your identity, I will ask you if you are aware of this check being cashed.”

WRT to the ATM, did you just shove the check into the ATM with a crumpled up piece of note paper, or did you insert your ATM card, and enter your Personal Identification Number??? See, generally speaking when you have the ATM card, AND the PIN they have some idea who you are. Yes, it’s a stretch to believe it, but it’s true.

Look, his bank doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you are YOU, they only care that you are the guy listed on the check. They don’t know you from Adam, and fully expect you to vanish into the ether once you walk out the door with cash in hand. They will want to verify two things, that you’re the guy on the check, and that the account holder wrote the check. Just one or the other isn’t good enough. If they don’t check your identity, you can cash a stolen check. If they don’t check with the account holder, you can forge a check.

If you are working with your bank, chances are very very good that you are providing an account number. If you’re depositing a check, they don’t care the slightest bit who you are, you’re putting money in, why would they bother preventing that? If you’re walking out the door with cash, they will likely check that you are actually you.

Banks do a lot of stupid things, this isn’t really one of them.