Recently I happened to see a vintage 1970s era movie, at one point of which the main character can’t find the passbook to her bank account. IIRC it turns out to have been stolen, and somebody else withdrew all her savings.
Was that ever possible? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an actual “bank book”, as we usually called them, and undoubtedly there’s a cautionary warning that one should treat it like cash. But was it really necessary? Would a bank really have given your money to someone else if that person had your bank book? I suppose so if the person were a very skilled con artist. But barring that, would that scenario have been possible in real life?
And suppose Frank Abagnale or Charles Ponzi did steal your bank book and clean you out. Would the bank be obliged to cover the loss, since they paid out your money improperly?
This happened in the movie Dolores Claiborne (which had flashbacks to the 70s), but in that case it was a custodial account she had opened for her daughter. The father came and took all the money, which the bank explains was legal since it was a custodial account. Dolores gives a speech about how sexist this is and undoubtably if she had been the one trying to take money from an account in his name they would have called before releasing the funds.
I guess that doesn’t really answer your question but if that was the movie you saw, it might help shed some light.
Yes that was the other movie I was trying to think of, which I realize wasn’t really of that era but only a period piece. The other movie, though, was actually from sometime around 1975 I’d say. The main character was a rape victim who was afraid to testify but was being pressured to. In the Kathy Bates movie, I can understand how that would work on a custodial account. If you want to deposit money and do other banking for a person who can’t get to the bank, you list them as a trustee and they can withdraw some or all of it any time they want.
The bank book is insufficient for withdrawing money. One would also need a withdrawal slip, filled out with the name, account number, date, amount of withdrawal (in both words and digits), and most significantly for this thread: signature.
It seems to me that if Frank Abagnale found my bank book, and had no way of accurately forging my signature, it would be pretty simple to show that the bank screwed up and would have to give me my money back.
Many years ago, my grandmother found several thousand dollars mysteriously missing from her savings account. The passbook had never been out of her possession, but it turned out to be an inside job. My mom took her to the bank, and after a short meeting with a manager, they returned the money to her account. As I recall, they showed her the phony withdrawal slip, which had a forged signature that looked like the one they had on file for her, but the file was years old, and her current signature was somewhat different.