Bank of America ejected reader Tycho after he refused to give the teller a thumbprint while cashing a check.
“Your are not a customer and I don’t have to help you.”
I asked, “What good is a BofA check if BofA wont cash it? Checks are bound by federal guidelines, it seems to me like not honoring a check to your own bank would be fraud.”
“Those rules tell me I have to get your thumb print to cash a check.”
“Show me that rule.”
Question: Can a bank legally refuse to cash your check? Can a bank legally require a thumbprint as a prerequisite for doing business?
Tycho’s letter, inside…
Tycho writes:
- “I went into a Bank of America branch on my lunch break. I had with me a check, written to me, that draws on BofA. I wished to cash it. I waited in a line of about 10 for about that many minutes. I was asked for a few forms of ID, one state issued photo ID and one other like a credit card. I produced the needed ID and was asked then for a thumb print. I politely declined. The teller was astonished. She reacted to me as though I had asked her to take the rest of the day off, completely expecting her to do so. She was totally bewildered. The exchange was polite and brief,
“To cash this check I need your thumb print.”
“I’m not going to give you my thumb print, how bout some more ID?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Do you not think I am who I say I am?”
“I need a thumb print.”
At this point she waved the next person in line to her. I asked to see the branch manager.
The manager came up to me with a stack of papers she was busy with and set them down on the counter. I told her I had a check drawn on BofA that I would like to cash and the teller refused to do so. We went through the above exchange. When I offered extra ID to prove I am who I say I am, very discreetly, almost imperceptibly, she glanced at the security guard. When we got to the second “I need a thumb print.” the tete-a-tete’ took a different turn.
“Your are not a customer and I don’t have to help you.”
I asked, “What good is a BofA check if BofA wont cash it? Checks are bound by federal guidelines, it seems to me like not honoring a check to your own bank would be fraud.”
“Those rules tell me I have to get your thumb print to cash a check.”
“Show me that rule.”
To that she made no response, glanced at the security guard who was right behind me at this point, and went about her work as if I had never walked into the bank. I asked the security guard if he could cash my check. He said no and that if I had no business at the bank, I would have to leave. I turned to the manager and said that her security guard cannot help me either. She walked away keeping her head down to avoid eye contact.
I left, check in hand, frustrated and insulted.
This branch is in Miami Beach. I don’t know the managers name.
Regardless of the thumb print, each person I spoke with was amazingly quick to ignore me and let someone else deal with my vigilance. It was really only a few sentences when the manager gave the security guard the glance and he came creeping up behind me. It was not anything about how I behaved, I was certain to remember my manners and to be polite.
It was only what I said (and it wasn’t much) that quickly warranted me being ignored with a security guard at my side.
-Tycho”
— BEN POPKEN
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You can’t just open an account and then close it the same day. If you do, then you run afoul of the little section in your contract you signed to open that account, that says “I will keep this account open for at least one year’s time, failure to do so will result in a minimum $200-250 charge (I forget the specific dollar amount, but it is ridiculously high). They do this even on “free” checking accounts.
The Thumbprint Signature Program has been enacted in every state and is 100 percent legal.
The teller was following the same policy that most major banks have – no thumbprint = no check. The thumbprints are only used in the event that a check is stolen to track the thief. Most banks require any non-account holder to use a thumbprint to cash a check. The thumbprints are not put into any database…they are only used in the event that the check is stolen. It is a security measure that ensures that the customers of the bank do not get ripped off. By law, the bank can refuse to cash it if you refuse your thumbprint. In fact, most banks policies say that if a customer refuses a thumbprint, either offer to open an account for them or refer them to another institution.
You can complain all you want to BoA, but they aren’t changing this policy.
Give them the print and rotate your thumb when you press. Smudge it nice so it can’t be used. Whos to say its not a thumbprint? Are they fingerprint experts?
ElizabethD: “EyebrowsMcGee (who also has one of the best screen names ever).”
Thanks!
Everyone commenting on screwing with the prints: You can also sand your fingerprints off. When I was gigging as a bassist, I routinely had no fingerprints on my left hand because I literally played them off. Coarse sandpaper accomplishes the same thing, although it hurts like a mofo if you don’t have bass player calluses.
So maybe someone can sand off the fingerprints (I hear snipers do it too, so their fingers are even more sensitive on the trigger) and see what BofA does with that.
(I used to work for BofA, incidentally. Nice place to work, but I’d never bank there.)
Hasn’t been challenged… doesnt make it legal. I can think of hundreds of things enacted in every state that was later ruled illegal.
The fact that people went along with it proves how stupid Americans are of our own history and the laws of our forfathers.
Not only does BofA claim the right to demand additional forms of identification, like your thumb print, but they also claim that they don’t have to accept valid, government-issued documents as proof of ID.
I once tried to cash a large check at the drive-through teller window. I presented the check and my driver’s license for identification. The teller asked for an additional form of ID, so I sent my Concealed Handgun Permit through the tube. Now, a CHP contains my picture, my name, my address, and is issued by the State only after an FBI background check is passed. I’d say it’s a pretty solid form of ID.
Not so, said the lady in the window, and refused to accept it. We argued about this for a few minutes, until she said, “If you’d like, you can come inside and discuss this with our manager.” Just as I told her I was on my way in, the manager, who had apparently been hiding out of sight, came rushing to the teller’s microphone. She told to me to wait just a moment. A couple minutes later, my driver’s license, my CHP and an envelope full of cash dropped into the bin beside my car.
First: Eybrows, nice, here’s another of my favorites “they that can give up essential libery to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”
Next:
Where do you think said thumbprints go between me sticking my thumb and them deciding I’m a criminal.
I’m with the other commenter that said we should thumbprint the teller, or ask for their ID. Someone I know just got their CC# stolen by a hotel. Where are my security measures to ensure that I don’t get ripped off?
A cheque is a special kind of bill of exchange (which is itself a special kind of negotiable instrument). It operates as follows:
(i) Person X (“the drawer”) writes out a demand to Person Y (“the drawee”) to pay person Z (“the payee”). This is a bill of exchange.
(ii) The payee can often indorse the bill of exchange to a third party, say Person ZA, meaning that ZA becomes entitled to payment on the bill. This is why they are called ‘negotiable instruments’ in the sense of transferable.
(iii) A cheque is a special form of bill of exchange, in that it is drawn on (i.e. the order to pay it made to) a bank.
(iv) When a bill of exchange is presented to a drawee they can either pay it on presentation, “accept” it (thereby agreeing to pay on it although not necessarily immediately) or refuse it (otherwise known as dishonouring the bill).
(iv) A drawee is almost never obliged to pay on or accept on a bill of exchange, whether it is a cheque or otherwise. The reasons are as follows:
——(a) Assuming the drawee is a bank, the drawer may not have the money in his account to match the demand.
——(b) A bank which pays out on a cheque to a person who is not its true owner (i.e. not the drawee or an indorsee) may be liable to the true owner in conversion.
(v) There is a statutory exception, which is where the cheque is a teller’s cheque or a cashier’s cheque (see article § 3-312 of the Universal Commercial Code). Tycho does not appear to have had one of those.
In conclusion Bank of America were definitely entitled, legally, to act as they did. Whether it was sensible to do so is another matter.
you’ve got to love the “I’m not a criminal, so I have no problem offering my thumbprint” crowd. First your thumbprint goes into a large database along with your name, address, driver’s lisence #, address, phone number, and any credit card number you’ve offered as ID. Then the info goes to law enforcement databases like the FBI, DHS, NSA. Several possibilities exist and have been shown. If you apply for a job requiring a background check, some have been denied because they have an active FBI, NSA, DHS file alone, even though they won’t share the fact it’s just a thumbprint from cashing a check. Second, and we’ve seen the rash of law enforcement planting and manufacturing evidence recently – a digital fingerprint can easily be copied and left anywhere, like at a crime scene, even if you were never there.
What good would taking a thumbprint be anyways? They have nothing to varify it against! They might as well just ask for photo ID withing looking at the guy’s face. Also I’d like to know how they use and/or protect that kind of extreemly privet information. Is it made available to the police? Is there a database? How safe is said database? ect. This is ridicules. A person has a RIGHT to some privacy.
Just calm down and give them you thumbprint. +
Everyone can get a clearer picture of this issue by searching on: Thumbprint Identification Program
The program does appear to be Nation wide, and for solid and rational reasons. The thumbprint does not enter a data base, and in fact just travels with the check along the clearing process.
The information on the program and its success is broad and deep, and should aleviate most fears of encroaching government!
To the people who are saying go ‘head and give up the print: You don’t deserve to be called Americans. BOA doesn’t have the moral fortitude to be called American either.
BIG KUDOS to EyebrowsMcGee, ElizabethD, Falconfire, and CaptainRoin!
I shouldn’t have to provide my fingerprint for anything if I don’t want to! What is happening to our FREEDOMS? George “Doubleya” (W) and his garbage Patriot Act are making sure we Americans are losing our civil liberties and freedoms slowly but surely.
Have any of you heard about the Real ID Act that is effective 2008? Or how about the RFID Chip? How far are we away from these types of privacy invaders? Did you know that Disney (in Florida) is asking for your thumbprint upon entry into the park now? Yes, it’s true! They say it’s so no one else can use your pass and it protects you. I guess it does, but where else is that thumbprint going? THAT is my concern!
It’s not just a conspiracy theory anymore. It’s REAL, folks! It’s happening everyday, and unless we Americans stand up and fight for our rights and our freedoms under the U.S. Constitution, they will continue to disappear right before our very eyes!
“We are not just passengers on this planet we call Earth; we are the crew. The difference is… responsibility.”
It is just like Ben Franklin said, “If we give up our freedoms for security, eventually, we will have neither.”
Ok, I’m done now…
Well said “ProtectMyPrivacy”!!! Most people have no clue as to whats going on right in front of them. The Sheeple must wake up and stop following the follower! I ask a lot of people what they really think and feel abour RealID, and the answer is ususlly, “Whats that”?!!!!!!! I see a trend happening in this Country of what Hitler was tryng to do in the 30′s. With the computer chip, GPS, ETC, its all more possible than ever before!
I LOVE MY COUNTRY, AS i EQUALLY FEAR MY GOVERNMENT!
@sherab:
interesting! just found this on socialsecurity.gov:
“The most misused SSN of all time was (078-05-1120). In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.
The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word “specimen” written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda’s number. SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Mrs. Whitcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported this as their SSN. As late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be using the SSN “issued by Woolworth.”
Mrs. Whitcher recalled coming back from lunch one day to find her fellow workers teasing her about her new-found fame. They were singing the refrain from a popular song of the day: “Here comes the million-dollar baby from the five and ten cent store.”
Although the snafu gave her a measure of fame, it was mostly a nuisance. The FBI even showed up at her door to ask her about the widespread use of her number. In later years she observed: “They started using the number. They thought it was their own. I can’t understand how people can be so stupid. I can’t understand that.”
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html
I found this forum because I needed to blow of some steam from a thumbprint nightmare I had to go through today. Yes there are a lot of legitimate, not fraudulent, reasons people need to cash a check on the issuing bank right away. My husband and I are self-employed and checks that we get from people, we did legitimate work for, that week, are sometimes the only money we may have for groceries that weekend. We have a bank account on our own bank but your own bank will not cash another bank’s check for you, even if it is made out to you, unless you have enough money in your own account to cover it. In other words if you got a check for $100 it amounts to the same thing as if you just went to your own bank and deposited the “paycheck” you just got, and waited until it cleared. But in the meantime you also withdrew $100 out of your own money for your weekend groceries. It never ceases to amaze me how naïve some of these people are thinking everyone has money in the bank and the luxury to wait on a deposit to clear. Or they never tried to navigate the nightmare of accepting checks as payment from individuals and trying to get immediate cash.
Recently I just switched banks from a, used to be friendly, small town bank, to a big corporate Wachovia. The account was in my name but we would sometimes deposit checks made out to my husband into the account by signing them over to me. We had been with that bank 17 years and never had a bit of trouble with third party checks. But then they started giving us a hard time and refusing to deposit them. NOT even cashing them. They even refused to DEPOSIT them! Turned out we were defeated anyway. Wachovia took a third party check ONLY to open the new account but we had to open the account jointly because they said they would not, in the future, accept our third party deposits either! We asked why and at least they were honest and told us that there were a lot of lawsuits and fraud and they simply didn’t do it anymore. Our little bank had just given us a run around about “getting stricter” about accepting them without any reason.
We did need the money this week from a check drawn on a Regions bank. Seems they have been steadily changing their policies once a week. First it’s a fee for cashing the check. Then it’s a fee for cashing a check if it is over a certain amount, then it’s a fee if it is over a different amount. Last night, 5 minutes before they closed, it was a new thumbprint deal and we couldn’t cash the check in the drive thru, we had to go inside the lobby. We had to be somewhere else before they closed at 5 as well so we simply asked for the check back and drove off. I was furious. Wrong thing to do though. My small town ex-bank has had their suspicious eye on us since we had a shouting match with them and they threatened to call the police!
I did find though that they don’t let you give your thumbprint in the drive-thru, even if you don’t object, because the people who sell the little disappearing ink disks and the “security” program do not recommend it. Apparently it just doesn’t work out well. People use the print of other people in the vehicle, they drop the disks and get them dirty, and they smear the prints and so on and so on. The program vendors though do say it is feasible IF they insist that the person in the drive-thru comes to the window lane and not one of the outer lanes and the teller physically can witness the print being made. But of course a bank doesn’t have to accommodate anybody by enacting that policy for anybody’s convenience anyway. So this Regions didn’t. We went to try and cash the check at Regions again this morning and they wouldn’t cash it at all on a Saturday because the lobby wasn’t open to allow us to be thumb printed. We were at the window lane. When I asked the teller to just send the ink thru the drawer she told us that they actually lock the little inkers up in the vault for the weekend and it was not possible to cash our check at all! Oh come on, give me a break. I almost ran around to the locked lobby doors to see if I could see the little inkers still out on the counter at the teller’s windows! I would have taken bets that the precious little inkers were NOT locked up in the vault!
I am getting really sick of banks giving me the stupidest lines of BS and lies and crap. Yes, I took business law in college and it was primarily an in depth study of the UCC and negotiable instruments. Write a check on a napkin? Technically legal, but far from any reality that a bank would accept it. I was furious that they have begun to refuse the signed over third party checks. Again technically, completely, legal and negotiable but the reality is that banks can and will do and say anything they darn please. Refuse to cash a check drawn on their bank? Refer to “can and will do and say anything they darn please.” What are you going to do? Sue them? Rant and rave and they WILL throw you out and call the police. And the poe-lice “don’t want no trouble” in a bank. Yes, they have it all sewn up that everything they say and do is perfectly legal. Challenge it and their lawyers can out wait and out spend your defense every time. Resistance is futile. The BORG
But yeah the Sheeple disgust me and I whole-heartedly agree that we are sacrificing our freedoms for some FALSE sense of added security. Criminals are just getting smarter. They don’t need your thumbprint or your physical credit cards. There is a feast of data available for them right online without ever seeing your face or touching your wallet. I don’t feel any safer for the thumbprint rigmarole. Somebody is just selling these banks a bill of goods. But to tell you the truth I’d like to think the banks are cutting their own throats by alienating people. I am certainly not inclined, now, to open an account at Regions ever. My cynical side says alas, the Sheeple are the only ones they wanted to do business with anyway. Like I told my husband this morning, if they asked to look up your butt most people would simply bend over and let them do it.
The bank fingerprint is part of an arraignment process that would be unlawful if carried out by the police. An arraignment CANNOT be done without first being charged with a crime, i.e., “arraigned with charges”. ONLY AFTER THE ARRAIGNMENT can the police power LAWFULLY remove your purse, property, etc. NO ONE in the USA is authorized to TAKE from you your property, including your car, your photograph or your FINGERPRINTS. “Due process” is standard American law, but now violated more and more. A government may not TAKE your property WITHOUT DUE PROCESS; however, a NON-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY like a CORPORATION, a bank, a hospital, etc. may at any time ask you to wave your Constitutional rights. Ever heard of “privatization”? The purpose of privatization is to make it possible for the government to obtain “process” concerning your transactions (and any actions, telephone calls, letters, faxes, etc.) without (1) violating your rights and (2) without having to drag through the hassle of observing your 4th and 5th Amendment rights: that is, THEY GET SOMEONE ELSE TO VIOLATE YOUR RIGHTS. If you volunteer to contract away your rights by paying a “fee” or giving them your fingerprints, then you’ve lost those rights (that is, the bank gained authority over you by your acquiescence to their disregard of the UCC law). YOU enabled (i.e., “perfected”) the fraud, and you did so “voluntarily”.
In the case of the bank, when they take your fingerprints, they have completed a “virtual arraignment” process. UCC Article 3 does not allow any sort of “virtual arraignment”. The whole thing is unlawful, but the bank clerks and managers DON’T CARE, and, like most Americans, few people protest much if such results in the slightest INCONVENIENCE.
This is all part of life in the fascist/communist CORPORATE STATE that became active first in 1933, then perfected with the Bretton-Woods Agreement.
The truth actually gets worse than this, since the “governments” are no longer de jure with inherent powers, but are de facto operating in contract; so you see the identical fraud and violation of Constitutional rights is carried out daily right in a courtroom or by the clerk’s office.
Traffic tickets work the same way: NO DUE PROCESS (no WARRANT and no attached AFFIDAVIT of complaint)
All is now by private contract. There is practically NO LAW in operation in America any longer.
The only solution is to stick to your guns when cashing a “draft”. The door idea is great. If they call the police to remove you, tell the police what’s happening, then put this official statement into your lawsuit.
By acquiescing to this bank fraud, the persons involved are helping to further destroy the nation.