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How would one "accidentally" wire transfer millions of dollars? At $10k in America, KYC and AML laws force banks to step through extra layers of verification t

How would one "accidentally" wire transfer millions of dollars? At $10k in America, KYC and AML laws force banks to step through extra layers of verification to wire such amount. It's virtually impossible for someone to accidentally wire millions, which would likely involve a mandatory in-person meeting with the bank customer to verify their credentials and purpose. If somehow you get through an in-person meeting with a bank branch manager to unwittingly wire millions of dollars, and the topic of how much money you're wiring and the exact purpose of wiring such a high amount isn't brought up, and you somehow still accidentally wire millions of dollars away without anyone ever bringing up the amount and purpose of the transaction, then I'm sure you'll still be able to recover that money back because banks are required to actually validate transactions of that size with KYC, AML, etc. laws. Only cryptocurrencies allow one the ability transmit this amount of money in seconds.

maneesh 5y ago
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/16/busi...
- djur 5y ago
  Notice that this was Citi making a mistake in a payment on behalf of Revlon, and it's Citi that's on the hook for the excess payment, not Revlon.
- tedunangst 5y ago
  So now for the fun question: who do I have to tweet at to get Citi to wire me millions of dollars?
dlubarov 5y ago
> At $10k in America, KYC and AML laws force banks to step through extra layers of verification Isn't that only for cash transfers? > which would likely involve a mandatory in-person meeting with the bank customer At least at Chase and Fidelity, wires can be done over the phone with no limit. > to verify their credentials and purpose I've never seen a banker really help to verify wire instructions, as in contacting the intended recipient. Normally they just ask the sender if they've verified the instructions, if they understand that the wire is irreversible, etc. Of course when it gets to the bank's wire department, they make some attempt to block suspicious wires. But they're guessing based on limited info, as they don't typically contact the sender or recipient. > I'm sure you'll still be able to recover that money back because banks are required to actually validate transactions of that size with KYC, AML, etc. laws From what I've heard, fraudsters will (indirectly) transfer funds to e.g. a Nigerian bank and cash out there. It doesn't always succeed, but it does sometimes, or wire fraud wouldn't exist.
- skim_milk 5y ago
  Yes, the banking industry won't do much to prevent Aunt Senile from wiring $80k to Nigeria, although I doubt they make it easy. Hell, I couldn't even phone-authorize a wire of 8k to buy a car two states over, but I guess that's just my bank. Had to bloody pay for the car on credit card, no joke. But the scenario in the OP is only possible in cryptocurrencies. You can't put a button on a website "Click here to send a JPEG through email for $3.50*" with the fine print "*and also 100 million dollars" and expect that to ever work out with the legacy banking system. Only in cryptoland could someone ever accidentally yeet 100 million dollars in a few seconds by visiting a website and clicking a button.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    It's a fair criticism. But the reverse is also true, in that money is frictionless to raise and coordinate in cryptocurrencies, such as the $45M attempt at buying a copy of the Constitution (which failed, but people simply got a refund), or the $56M that was raised for Julian Assange's defense last week. I'm able to work with total strangers, raise money, sell products, contribute to causes, commission art work etc, etc, hold those funds in a smart contract treasury and encode rules to govern the spending of those funds. Safe guards do exist for the aforementioned issue. Number one is not holding significant sums of money in a single wallet, unless it's a multi-sig that requires multiple parties to agree to transactions (like Gnosis Safe wallets, which store $100B+ in assets and are battle tested at this point).
    - ves 5y ago
      You’re aware that an enormous proportion of people’s constitution dao refunds were eaten up by gas fees, presumably.
      - chrisco255 5y ago
        No, they weren't: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/constitutiondao https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/constitutiondao The value of the PEOPLE tokens on the secondary market proceeded to increase nearly 10x in the weeks following the dissolution of the DAO. Even though market cap is declining, at $327M mcap, it is still many multiples of the amount raised. PEOPLE tokens in circulation are still redeemable for the underlying ETH, but the monetary premium has increased as a result of the dispersed liquidity to so many holders (16K+) as well as the novelty of retaining the token for a failed, yet valiant effort.
Consultant32452 5y ago
I recently bought a house. My title company made a BIG deal about fraud. Basically, people figure out you're in the process of buying a house, pretend to be your title company, and give you their wire info instead of the real info. You wire a giant pile of house down payment to the bad guys, and they walk. You will not get that $ back.
kooshball 5y ago
easier than you think. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/how-one-familys-nightmare-illustrates-the-growing-threat-of-real-estate-wire-fraud.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/how-one-familys-nightmare-il... https://www.nar.realtor/wire-fraud https://www.nar.realtor/wire-fraud
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Those are all intentionally sending money; you just have had someone tell you the wrong account. Which is just as easy with crypto. And, just like with crypto, you can always reach out to the party you are trying to send money to via another means to confirm the address. When I purchased a house, I Googled the recipient, confirmed the certificate, Googled the number found on their website separately to confirm it was listed elsewhere as belonging to the company I expected it to belong to, called it, and got them to tell me the account details for the wire transfer, confirming it matched what I had been sent. Which, to their credit, their instructions also told me to do. And I initially sent the down payment, confirmed they received that, and only later in the process sent the remainder. While there still are some ways to beat that (compromise the recipient's infrastructure, change the website, lock out the recipient from their email, insert into the email exchange, get a wire transfer done before the recipient can proactively call the target to warn them), it's a lot harder to pull off than "find a target that won't read the code very closely".
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    It's rare that buyers of houses and property are that thorough. On the contrary, my friend recently bought a plot of land for which the sellers did not own the title. The title company, who's only job is to verify this, completely missed it. The fake sellers made out with tens of thousands of dollars and the real owners, who are from Germany, are still haggling with my friend and trying to get her or the title company to pay for their lawyer fees, and she still doesn't have title to the land! At least with crypto, the chain of ownership is transparent and can't be faked. So validation is cheap and easy to do.
    - 5y ago

maneesh 5y ago

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/16/busi...

djur 5y ago
Notice that this was Citi making a mistake in a payment on behalf of Revlon, and it's Citi that's on the hook for the excess payment, not Revlon.
tedunangst 5y ago
So now for the fun question: who do I have to tweet at to get Citi to wire me millions of dollars?

dlubarov 5y ago

> At $10k in America, KYC and AML laws force banks to step through extra layers of verification Isn't that only for cash transfers? > which would likely involve a mandatory in-person meeting with the bank customer At least at Chase and Fidelity, wires can be done over the phone with no limit. > to verify their credentials and purpose I've never seen a banker really help to verify wire instructions, as in contacting the intended recipient. Normally they just ask the sender if they've verified the instructions, if they understand that the wire is irreversible, etc. Of course when it gets to the bank's wire department, they make some attempt to block suspicious wires. But they're guessing based on limited info, as they don't typically contact the sender or recipient. > I'm sure you'll still be able to recover that money back because banks are required to actually validate transactions of that size with KYC, AML, etc. laws From what I've heard, fraudsters will (indirectly) transfer funds to e.g. a Nigerian bank and cash out there. It doesn't always succeed, but it does sometimes, or wire fraud wouldn't exist.

skim_milk 5y ago
Yes, the banking industry won't do much to prevent Aunt Senile from wiring $80k to Nigeria, although I doubt they make it easy. Hell, I couldn't even phone-authorize a wire of 8k to buy a car two states over, but I guess that's just my bank. Had to bloody pay for the car on credit card, no joke. But the scenario in the OP is only possible in cryptocurrencies. You can't put a button on a website "Click here to send a JPEG through email for $3.50*" with the fine print "*and also 100 million dollars" and expect that to ever work out with the legacy banking system. Only in cryptoland could someone ever accidentally yeet 100 million dollars in a few seconds by visiting a website and clicking a button.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  It's a fair criticism. But the reverse is also true, in that money is frictionless to raise and coordinate in cryptocurrencies, such as the $45M attempt at buying a copy of the Constitution (which failed, but people simply got a refund), or the $56M that was raised for Julian Assange's defense last week. I'm able to work with total strangers, raise money, sell products, contribute to causes, commission art work etc, etc, hold those funds in a smart contract treasury and encode rules to govern the spending of those funds. Safe guards do exist for the aforementioned issue. Number one is not holding significant sums of money in a single wallet, unless it's a multi-sig that requires multiple parties to agree to transactions (like Gnosis Safe wallets, which store $100B+ in assets and are battle tested at this point).
  - ves 5y ago
    You’re aware that an enormous proportion of people’s constitution dao refunds were eaten up by gas fees, presumably.
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      No, they weren't: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/constitutiondao https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/constitutiondao The value of the PEOPLE tokens on the secondary market proceeded to increase nearly 10x in the weeks following the dissolution of the DAO. Even though market cap is declining, at $327M mcap, it is still many multiples of the amount raised. PEOPLE tokens in circulation are still redeemable for the underlying ETH, but the monetary premium has increased as a result of the dispersed liquidity to so many holders (16K+) as well as the novelty of retaining the token for a failed, yet valiant effort.

Consultant32452 5y ago

I recently bought a house. My title company made a BIG deal about fraud. Basically, people figure out you're in the process of buying a house, pretend to be your title company, and give you their wire info instead of the real info. You wire a giant pile of house down payment to the bad guys, and they walk. You will not get that $ back.

kooshball 5y ago

easier than you think. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/how-one-familys-nightmare-illustrates-the-growing-threat-of-real-estate-wire-fraud.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/how-one-familys-nightmare-il... https://www.nar.realtor/wire-fraud https://www.nar.realtor/wire-fraud

lostcolony 5y ago
Those are all intentionally sending money; you just have had someone tell you the wrong account. Which is just as easy with crypto. And, just like with crypto, you can always reach out to the party you are trying to send money to via another means to confirm the address. When I purchased a house, I Googled the recipient, confirmed the certificate, Googled the number found on their website separately to confirm it was listed elsewhere as belonging to the company I expected it to belong to, called it, and got them to tell me the account details for the wire transfer, confirming it matched what I had been sent. Which, to their credit, their instructions also told me to do. And I initially sent the down payment, confirmed they received that, and only later in the process sent the remainder. While there still are some ways to beat that (compromise the recipient's infrastructure, change the website, lock out the recipient from their email, insert into the email exchange, get a wire transfer done before the recipient can proactively call the target to warn them), it's a lot harder to pull off than "find a target that won't read the code very closely".
- chrisco255 5y ago
  It's rare that buyers of houses and property are that thorough. On the contrary, my friend recently bought a plot of land for which the sellers did not own the title. The title company, who's only job is to verify this, completely missed it. The fake sellers made out with tens of thousands of dollars and the real owners, who are from Germany, are still haggling with my friend and trying to get her or the title company to pay for their lawyer fees, and she still doesn't have title to the land! At least with crypto, the chain of ownership is transparent and can't be faked. So validation is cheap and easy to do.
  - 5y ago