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I'm not sure I agree. How should anyone know that it might take six months for their bank to know whether a check is real or not? Does anyone who isn't actual

I'm not sure I agree. How should anyone know that it might take six months for their bank to know whether a check is real or not? Does anyone who isn't actually a bank employee know that? (What percentage even of bank employees know that?) It seems to me that a person ought to be able to reasonably rely on a bank acting like a check has cleared, at least after some clearly stated period of time.

TylerE 6y ago
As far as the bank and the law is concerned, they are two separate issues. There isn’t a dependency. The legitimate account holder said “Send $x from my account to y” and the bank did. There was no fraud in that transaction. As for your second point - funds are required to be available before the check clears by federal law. Complain to your congresscritter, not the bank. Not sure why I’m getting downvoted for stating simple facts...
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  > Not sure why I’m getting downvoted for stating simple facts... Welcome to HN.
- paultopia 6y ago
  Fair points, but not directly on the issue raised by the complaint. Its not about the legitimacy of the sending money off transaction, or about the funds availability policy. What the victim was complaining about---and what I was agreeing with---is the bank's failure to have any mechanism to communicate when a check actually cleared. Fixing that wouldn't require a change to the funds availability policy, and wouldn't require it to dishonor any transactions. As the original complaint indicated, it would literally just be a UI tweak: the online banking system could highlight provisionally available funds differently from really really available funds, and in that way communicate to customers what is actually cleared and safe to spend. This isn't a big ask. In addition to protecting account holders from a massive range of fake check scams, that would also protect them from a bunch of other crooked stuff. For example: did you know an employer can reverse a direct deposit of a paycheck for some amount of time after it seems to go through?[1] Employees get screwed all the time when their employer randomly decides "oops, we paid you too much" after the money is already spent. Which is insane and unfair but---we wouldn't even have to change the system to protect many employees. Just have banks clearly indicate which direct deposits are final and which might still go poof if the employer unilaterally decides. [1] old example https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/23/business/turning-direct-deposits-into-direct-withdrawals.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/23/business/turning-direct-d... --- but I know people to whom this has happened this year.
  - sgerenser 6y ago
    Checks actually “clear” quite quickly nowadays. As in, the money gets pulled from the check writer’s account and made available to the depositor within a day or two (notwithstanding whatever the depositor’s bank hold policy happens to be). The problem is, if the transaction proved to be fraudulent (as in the check was written by a fraudster on a random persons bank account) the real account owner can dispute the transaction weeks or months afterwards. This is normally going to be long after the check has nominally “cleared.” Once the check is disputed, the money gets yanked back from the depositor’s account. That’s why personal checks are just a completely unreliable method of payment and should only be used between trusting parties.

TylerE 6y ago

As far as the bank and the law is concerned, they are two separate issues. There isn’t a dependency. The legitimate account holder said “Send $x from my account to y” and the bank did. There was no fraud in that transaction. As for your second point - funds are required to be available before the check clears by federal law. Complain to your congresscritter, not the bank. Not sure why I’m getting downvoted for stating simple facts...

jlgaddis 6y ago
> Not sure why I’m getting downvoted for stating simple facts... Welcome to HN.
paultopia 6y ago
Fair points, but not directly on the issue raised by the complaint. Its not about the legitimacy of the sending money off transaction, or about the funds availability policy. What the victim was complaining about---and what I was agreeing with---is the bank's failure to have any mechanism to communicate when a check actually cleared. Fixing that wouldn't require a change to the funds availability policy, and wouldn't require it to dishonor any transactions. As the original complaint indicated, it would literally just be a UI tweak: the online banking system could highlight provisionally available funds differently from really really available funds, and in that way communicate to customers what is actually cleared and safe to spend. This isn't a big ask. In addition to protecting account holders from a massive range of fake check scams, that would also protect them from a bunch of other crooked stuff. For example: did you know an employer can reverse a direct deposit of a paycheck for some amount of time after it seems to go through?[1] Employees get screwed all the time when their employer randomly decides "oops, we paid you too much" after the money is already spent. Which is insane and unfair but---we wouldn't even have to change the system to protect many employees. Just have banks clearly indicate which direct deposits are final and which might still go poof if the employer unilaterally decides. [1] old example https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/23/business/turning-direct-deposits-into-direct-withdrawals.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/23/business/turning-direct-d... --- but I know people to whom this has happened this year.
- sgerenser 6y ago
  Checks actually “clear” quite quickly nowadays. As in, the money gets pulled from the check writer’s account and made available to the depositor within a day or two (notwithstanding whatever the depositor’s bank hold policy happens to be). The problem is, if the transaction proved to be fraudulent (as in the check was written by a fraudster on a random persons bank account) the real account owner can dispute the transaction weeks or months afterwards. This is normally going to be long after the check has nominally “cleared.” Once the check is disputed, the money gets yanked back from the depositor’s account. That’s why personal checks are just a completely unreliable method of payment and should only be used between trusting parties.