Money stolen from friend's bank acct

[REWahoo]

Banks r regulated thru the state they r located in. The dept of the respective state has a complaint process.

Depending on their charter, banks can be regulated by either the state or the feds: The Banking System: Commercial Banking - How Banks Are Regulated | Investopedia

 

[Walt34]

So it sounds like anyone who knows your account number and your bank (e.g., anyone who has received a check from my friend over the last 20 years, in this case) can simply start paying their bills from his account. And there is no verification by the bank that names match, no trial deposits, etc.? The bank simply approves any and all incoming requests?

Apparently so at least at that bank. And yes your friend is on the hook for any transactions older than 60 days before he reported it to the bank.

While I doubt the FBI would take it (dollar amount too small) the local police should be able to deal with it just fine. Since where the money went is easily determined with subpoenas/court orders (depends on the state) it shouldn't be that hard. Because of the time it takes to get the information is measured in weeks these take from six weeks to several months to investigate, especially if "following the money trail" leads to other banks/financial institutions down the chain. I had one case open for eight months because of this but did nail the guy.

When I had cases like this (I used to do fraud investigation) my first question to the victim was this: "Are you willing to spend the time to come to court for this?" If they're not coming to court I immediately lost interest because if I can't put a warm body on the witness stand to say that he/she was harmed by this action then I don't have a case.

So if your friend expects the police to do anything about this, he has to be prepared to do his part - have good records and show up for court. Every time. If he misses a hearing chances are good the judge will grant a defense motion for dismissal.

Next, if the thief is convicted, the judge can, but is not required, to make restitution a part of sentencing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If not then your friend has a good civil case but as with any civil case collecting on the judgement is a different thing from being awarded a judgment. If the guy has a net worth of $2.87 there isn't much point in going after him.

Good luck to him.

 

[Theseus]

His bank has to know how the thief set up the auto-payment. And with the destination accounts known, it should not be hard to track down the thief.

Same thought I had, not too likely the thief was crediting some random accounts.

I have a story you will find interesting. A few years ago, I was not able to get into a brokerage account one day...

What I eventually learned was that there was another account holder at that brokerage with my last name...

What I have learned is that a dumb clerk doing bad data entries can wreak havoc with modern computer-run financial systems.

This reminded me of a similar situation I ran into with a local credit union. I noted a withdrawal I knew was not mine (by checking my online account access) and called my local branch - and they said yes, it was. When I asked when and where they told me which branch, and I immediately understood what had happened. An individual with same first and last name as myself lives relatively nearby, they apparently had an account with same CU but did banking at a different branch and had made a cash withdrawal. The teller must have not bothered to check account numbers and simply stopped looking when finding a matching name on an account, which happened to be mine.

While on the phone, I stated where I was on that date and time, which was no where near that branch. Could hear some keystrokes being keyed in, followed by a few moments of silence that were quite telling, and then an apology coming from the person on the other end. In the minute or two it took me to log back into my account, all sign of that phantom withdrawal had vanished.

 

[Meadbh]

Same thought I had, not too likely the thief was crediting some random accounts.



This reminded me of a similar situation I ran into with a local credit union. I noted a withdrawal I knew was not mine (by checking my online account access) and called my local branch - and they said yes, it was. When I asked when and where they told me which branch, and I immediately understood what had happened. An individual with same first and last name as myself lives relatively nearby, they apparently had an account with same CU but did banking at a different branch and had made a cash withdrawal. The teller must have not bothered to check account numbers and simply stopped looking when finding a matching name on an account, which happened to be mine.

While on the phone, I stated where I was on that date and time, which was no where near that branch. Could hear some keystrokes being keyed in, followed by a few moments of silence that were quite telling, and then an apology coming from the person on the other end. In the minute or two it took me to log back into my account, all sign of that phantom withdrawal had vanished.

That's an interesting story. I don't think it could happen at my bank, though. When I visit the teller I am required to insert my chip card into a reader and verify it with my PIN before the teller gets access to my account.

 

[kramer]

Update: It was all done by one guy with a common sounding name, it is probably a false identity. The location is a large city about 250 miles away from my friend in the same state. The credit cards are the type given out to people with bad credit.

My friend cannot get more information due to privacy laws, but that is what the bank told him so far.

Police say it might be 4 to 6 months to get subpoena to get required information.

 

[Senator]

The banks will cover losses for ~90 days. The rest you will have to recover in Civil court. It should be easy to track. You know who received the money.

 

[Mulligan]

Apparently so at least at that bank. And yes your friend is on the hook for any transactions older than 60 days before he reported it to the bank.

While I doubt the FBI would take it (dollar amount too small) the local police should be able to deal with it just fine. Since where the money went is easily determined with subpoenas/court orders (depends on the state) it shouldn't be that hard. Because of the time it takes to get the information is measured in weeks these take from six weeks to several months to investigate, especially if "following the money trail" leads to other banks/financial institutions down the chain. I had one case open for eight months because of this but did nail the guy.

When I had cases like this (I used to do fraud investigation) my first question to the victim was this: "Are you willing to spend the time to come to court for this?" If they're not coming to court I immediately lost interest because if I can't put a warm body on the witness stand to say that he/she was harmed by this action then I don't have a case.

So if your friend expects the police to do anything about this, he has to be prepared to do his part - have good records and show up for court. Every time. If he misses a hearing chances are good the judge will grant a defense motion for dismissal.

Next, if the thief is convicted, the judge can, but is not required, to make restitution a part of sentencing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If not then your friend has a good civil case but as with any civil case collecting on the judgement is a different thing from being awarded a judgment. If the guy has a net worth of $2.87 there isn't much point in going after him.

Good luck to him.

Although I have never been a victim, I have an odd fascination with tv show "American Greed". The sentences handed out for ruining peoples lives makes my blood boil. And then like you mentioned, judgements never get dispensed to the aggrieved party. Stealing peoples money really fires me up. In my fantasy world the criminal unable to pay back would receive a public whipping he wouldn't forget. Yea, I know I was born a few centuries too late.


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[NW-Bound]

In my fantasy world the criminal unable to pay back would receive a public whipping he wouldn't forget. Yea, I know I was born a few centuries too late...

Like the following photo shows? It's still happening...

 

[Mulligan]

Like the following photo shows? It's still happening...

If that guy was the one who stole the $35,000 I say give an extra swing for me!


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[NW-Bound]

Would the victim of the theft feel better if he is allowed to be the flogger?

How about "the flogging will continue until all the money is paid back"?

 

[Mulligan]

Would the victim of the theft feel better if he is allowed to be the flogger?

How about "the flogging will continue until all the money is paid back"?

Personally I would leave it to the expert, but I would be there to witness the same yell I would have made after I found out my money was gone.


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[NW-Bound]

I dunno. Some guys still willfully risk this flogging to get $35K, I am sure.

And if we increase the penalty with the loss, you will have to cane these thieving CEOs to death. White collar crimes cause really big losses. What do we do?

 

[pb4uski]

...What else should he do? ...

He can probably take a casualty loss deduction on his taxes for any unrecovered losses.

 

[kramer]

Regarding casualty loss, my understanding is that you can only deduct the portion above 10% of your MAGI. So he may not even be able to deduct any, or perhaps just a small amount. OK gotta get on my flight now . .

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[Badger]

Although I have never been a victim, I have an odd fascination with tv show "American Greed". The sentences handed out for ruining peoples lives makes my blood boil. And then like you mentioned, judgements never get dispensed to the aggrieved party. Stealing peoples money really fires me up. In my fantasy world the criminal unable to pay back would receive a public whipping he wouldn't forget. Yea, I know I was born a few centuries too late.


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I'm not as kind and forgiving as you. On something like this I'm probably more old testament. Stealing gets a hand removed. It only takes a couple of times before they would require voice recognition to continue and there is a solution for that too.

Cheers!

 

[Backpacker]

+1

In addition to getting emails on every bank transaction above $50, I usually reconcile the transactions with Quicken weekly so anything unusual would stand out.

We also have email notification if any pay to account is added, any user changes, etc.

This is terrible for your friend, but incredible that he didn't notice the activity for so long.

Not having online access probably worked against him in this case. Someone else would have not as easily been able to set up online access if it were already set up. Plus he could have been getting notifications.

All the above++

I get e-mails if a bill is scheduled to pay and if a "vendor" is added. One other side note - the 60 days should be the most recent 60 days not the first 60 days. If it started small and last 60 was much higher amounts, this may be a small blessing. Seems like the police should be able to subpeona the receiving financial institutions records and see who is benefitting from this and go after them. Not that they probably have assets to make restitution but maybe they still do public hanging in his state

 

[JLoft]

Here's an interesting story. I once observed 2 small deposits into my checking account. While wondering what that was all about, I got a voice message on my phone recorder, asking to know the values of these small random deposits!!!

Years ago that was the verification that Paypal used to verify that you were the owner of an account that was being linked to their system. With that information they could have basically cleaned out your checking account with no real trail to follow. (Instead you were smart and probably made 30 cents on the deal).

 

[NW-Bound]

I was fairly upset that they were pulling this trick to snare less knowledgeable people, and did not think of playing with them by calling back and giving them the wrong amounts, keeping them in contact while alerting the police.

As I mentioned, I notified my bank, but they probably did nothing.

 

[Rustward]

Years ago that was the verification that Paypal used to verify that you were the owner of an account that was being linked to their system. With that information they could have basically cleaned out your checking account with no real trail to follow. (Instead you were smart and probably made 30 cents on the deal).

The online banks like CapOne and HSBC and others still use this technique.
. . . and there would be a trail ... the routing and transit numbers of the receiving bank and the account number of the receiving account, although getting the money back might be problematic.

 

[Alan]

I get e-mails if a bill is scheduled to pay and if a "vendor" is added.

In 2011 I noticed some charges from Amazon on my credit card that were not ours and when I called to inquire and got through to the Amazon fraud department he confirmed that the charges were not from my Amazon account. I was asked if I knew anyone called Louise as this person had created an Amazon account and was using my credit card to pay for her purchases. I replied in the negative and asked how someone could create an Amazon account and use a credit card from someone else. The fraud guy told me that it happens all the time, parents with children, friends with friends. I then asked why I wasn't at least informed by email that my credit card was being used on some person's account. (my name on the credit card matches the name of my Amazon account).

Hopefully they were able to catch the perp.

 

[NW-Bound]

We have had fraudulent charges made on our AmEx cards 3 times. One was right after my wife came back from a trip to Argentina. The 2nd time was when someone made 1 small charge for an Internet transaction with iTunes and another one with a dating Internet site. The 3rd time was for a hotel charge in Mexico, and that happened right after my wife used the card to pay for our Mexican time share annual fee.

In all 3 cases, AmEx noticed the fraudulent activity right away, and called us before we even noticed it, even though we looked at our accounts online every 2 or 3 days.

 

[Walt34]

Hopefully they were able to catch the perp.

Catching him and actually doing something about it are two different things, and since Amazon is a business that is a business decision and not a legal or moral one.

What I mean is that to prosecute this type of case Amazon (or the bank that issued the cc and sustained the financial loss) has to send a warm body representing that business to the jurisdiction where the transactions occurred. That means someone on the payroll has to physically go there so the business is looking a air fare, car rental, per diem, hotels, and the like. That gets real expensive real fast and will probably add nothing to the bottom line profit of the business.

This may make sense if the transactions were large and the suspect has the assets to make restitution. Upsetting as it is to a lot of people this is why prosecution of this type of crime is the exception and not the rule.

 

[Alan]

Catching him and actually doing something about it are two different things, and since Amazon is a business that is a business decision and not a legal or moral one.

What I mean is that to prosecute this type of case Amazon (or the bank that issued the cc and sustained the financial loss) has to send a warm body representing that business to the jurisdiction where the transactions occurred. That means someone on the payroll has to physically go there so the business is looking a air fare, car rental, per diem, hotels, and the like. That gets real expensive real fast and will probably add nothing to the bottom line profit of the business.

This may make sense if the transactions were large and the suspect has the assets to make restitution. Upsetting as it is to a lot of people this is why prosecution of this type of crime is the exception and not the rule.

Thanks Walt, that is what I would expect. What bugs me is that Amazon allow any Tom or Dick to create an account and use Harry's credit card to buy stuff, without seeking Harry's permission.

Last year when thieves cloned my card and charged $22k over a couple of days I initially dealt with someone in the Penfed fraud department who reversed all the charges, as happened the previous 2 other times fraudulent charges appeared. After the initial contact and reversal of charges I was handed over to someone else and I got the impression that they were actually going to do some investigation. No idea of course, but I would like to think so.

 

[Mulligan]

I'm not as kind and forgiving as you. On something like this I'm probably more old testament. Stealing gets a hand removed. It only takes a couple of times before they would require voice recognition to continue and there is a solution for that too.

Cheers!

If you ever run for office, Badger you got my vote! If I was caught at a weak moment though, I could be persuaded just to dump them all on a lawless island and let them do to each other what they want to.


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[Ronstar]

About 10 years ago at work, our bookkeeper noticed an error in our checking acct ledger vs the bank statement. I think it was a $100k difference. Someone had requested a $100k bank transfer overseas. The request was on our corporate fax form with the boss's signature and directed to our corporate banker at our bank. Very scary. Luckily our bookkeeper caught it before the funds were 100% transferred. I can't remember what the deal would have been if she hadn't.