$10K withdrawal, yes, but not deposit or transfer. There’s even a specific form to fill out (can’t remember the exact title now). But not for deposits.
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An early version of the story said that when they scanned the checks the scanner showed “void” across the check. And this was the reason for calling the police. The thing is, modern scanning and copy machines are designed to do this when you try to copy a check. I see that that absurdity is missing from the story now.
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I have deposited both personal checks and checks for business for which I have worked that were much larger than the $9999 max and not once in my 38 years as an accountant has anyone ever questioned me. Yes, I am a forgettable looking white male.
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Bank also said he had 58 cents in his account - also the bank notified the world how much the checks were for - despite the amount being a under an NDA - so - kudos on the bank for telling the world how much the other side settled for, and how broke he was.
The bank is an asshole in many ways in this - and there so many ways they could have handled this without being an asshole - that I am loathe to give them the benefit of doubt in this situation.
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Do you have a link to that? My understanding is that FINRA oversees securities dealers, not banks.
The only $10,000 rule I’m aware of comes from the Currency and Foreign Transaction Reporting Act of 1970, which only applies to cash transactions. And those don’t trigger any due diligence investigation by the bank—they’re required to get the person’s identification and file IRS Form 8300.
I haven’t worked in the financial industry for awhile, so I’d be interested in any links showing this has changed.
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It does apply to deposits, but only deposits of cash as far as I know. Transfers also require reporting when they come from a foreign source. Domestic transfers do not.
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It’s for any request for deposit, transfer, or withdrawal. But ya know I’ve only been working at the same financial firm for 20 years now. Wtf do I know.
I don’t know the external links. We do this training twice a year and I’ve taken it for The past twenty years. Again, one of the rules is to flag it if over 10k regardless of the type of transaction. Not that it will be investigated or questioned. Merely to flag it as potentially suspicious. Very rarely does any financial institution consider a large check from a known established corporate entity to an individual as something to worry about. It’s just the arbitrary standards they came up with.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but is this not a common fraud prevention device? Prevents photocopying and such?
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Cash or check. And as others have noted, the client is not to be notified. Some bankers will tell the client there’s a temporary hold due to the amount, but they’re not supposed to indicate any suspicion of fraud. And while it’s theoretically possible an improperly trained teller didn’t know checks have anti-photocopying watermarks, the supervisor and shift manager damn well knew about it. Calling the cops is completely inappropriate.
No, this is just racists cooking up bullshit excuses for their racist conduct after they got publicly called on it. Don’t fall for it.
Also, reporting guidelines for cash or check deposits used by FINRA (which is a private self-regulatory organization and not a government agency) exist to punish anyone too poor to have a private banker by making a separate set of financial rules for anyone who has to use branches or do their own electronic banking. The excuse of guarding against criminal enterprise is merely a thinly veiled pretext for de facto enforcement of class privilege. It presumes that criminals are working and poor class people with money. See also civil forfeiture, which is literally nothing less than legalized theft from the poor and working classes by state thugs.
Actual lucrative criminal enterprises are operated by people to whom those rules simply do not apply…
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When a bakery flat out refuses to serve a gay customer, there is at least enough cause of action there to take them to court.
With this fig leaf of, "protecting our customers from fraud’ the bank is going to be a lot harder to go after.
I wonder if maybe an audit of this bank would show theyve participated in red-lining their home mortgages?
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I’ve never lived in metro Detroit. In fact, I’ve never visited except once in the 70s.
Maybe Livonia is in the news more often than you realize.
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And about 15 years ago I worked for a company which printed their checks on paper which had “Void” printed on it in special ink which started out transparent, but after 3 months or so slowly became visible. The bank was just bullshitting to try to excuse their racism.
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It’s definitely a Alanis Morissette type irony (in not being ironic at all), though I suppose the real irony was in thinking that the racial discrimination he faced at work was somehow a rare, notable event. Also there’s a certain… poetic justice? in his secret settlement with his job being subject to a bunch of scrutiny because of this further discrimination.
Yep. There were some basic things that the first bank didn’t do that would have resolved the situation pretty quickly. Someone clearly assumed fraud and didn’t bother to actually check.
Not so much, because their explanations of why they thought it was fraud don’t hold up to any scrutiny. At all.
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Yes, exactly, good catch! That’s what I meant but I was typing quickly under a time constraint. As you say, it’s $10K or more of CASH in a domestic transaction that triggers the reporting. The cash is the important part.
Very good points.
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I notice you didn’t say you work at a BANK. @mototom has it right.
And I’ve been working in the financial industry for over 30 years. Regulations are very specific to the different areas of finance. A brokerage firm follows different rules than a bank, etc.
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It’s one of the whitest places in the US. If anything remarkable happens there, it’s probably something racist.
So maybe.
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