A rant of fiscal insanity

[sabrinathecat]

I wasn't planning on posting anything for a bit, but it's being an interesting month.

Chase Bank is not accepting cash.

(blink) a bank is not accepting cash. (blink)

OK, the background:
Friend A was making a deposit into Friend B's bank account because Friend B was in the hospital. Chase said they couldn't do that unless Friend B was present, or unless Friend A also had a Chase account.
Seems this is part of some Anti money-laundering scheme, and Chase will proudly tell you that they are the first and currently only bank with this policy. (Guess they drew the short straw over who was going to be the first in the fiscal insanity set up to see how well it would go down with the general public.)

Now, it took half an hour of arguing, and the intercession of a branch manager to come up with an insane workaround involving purchasing a money order (complete with processing fee, though that was waved after another 5-minute argument), in order to deposit a few hundred $ into an account, because the bank couldn't accept cash.

Please tell me, does this actually make sense to anyone?

 

[Janx]

I wasn't planning on posting anything for a bit, but it's being an interesting month.

Chase Bank is not accepting cash.


Please tell me, does this actually make sense to anyone?

on the face of it, that does not make sense. Though as you hinted at money laundering, there may be some sideways logic that makes sense if you're a criminal.

For law abiding citizens, it's dumb.

Just like they make sure you own the account that your depositing a check into. barring making a mistake and giving to the wrong person, it should not matter if the account is mine or yours, it is my money being added to an account. Nobody on the recieving end minds getting money added to their account, so it should not require high security to do so.

Now withdrawing money is where I want all the protection on so people don't take my money without my authorization.

 

[Umbran]

So, Friend A has a Chase account?

Friend B went into Chase, and failed to make a deposit, because Chase wont' take their cash?

Simple solution:

Friend A goes to their *own* bank, armed with friend B's routing and account numbers. The non-Chase bank should be more than willing to just do a wire transfer from A's to B's account. They do it all the time, and costs you nothing.

 

[MarkB]

So, they're not actually saying they won't accept cash deposits. They're saying they won't accept cash deposits unless those deposits are made by the account holder.

I can see how that makes sense. It'd be quite easy to have a situation whereby someone sets up an account, accepts a large cash deposit from someone shady, then transfers the money back out - and the account holder could claim that they were acting in good faith, and had no idea that the person making deposits in their account was a criminal. Beyond CCTV, the bank might not even have good ID on the person making the deposit.

At least if the bank requires the account holder to be part of the transaction, that person is then actually handling the cash and can probably be more easily prosecuted.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Even with a deposit slip from the correct person for the correct account, they are not accepting cash unless the person doing the depositing has a Chase account as well.

Person who was to receive deposit was in the hospital. As such could not make the deposit in person. Bills needed to be paid (which can be done from hospital thanks to online banking) immediately.

 

[Crothian]

Around 98 or so I know we had a few branches of different backs that were cashless. If you needed to deposit or get cash you could use an ATM on location but the tellers themselves had no cash. Your friend probably could have just used an ATM to make the deposit.

Also, having worked at banks I have ran into the policy where not just anyone could deposit money into an account. It was a way to protect against fraud.

Did the Chase person request ID to make sure the owner of the account was the one making the deposit? Did they require a thumb print? I've seen banks to that for their non clients.

 

[sabrinathecat]

wow, I guess no one is actually reading what I wrote.

one last time:
Chase will not allow someone to deposit cash into an account (even that of a friend who is in the hospital with stage 4 cancer), unless the person making the deposit is also a Chase account holder.

Example: Samantha is trying to deposit money into Todd's account. She has Cash. Todd banks with chase. Even though Chase has a more convenient location, and time is a pressing factor, Samantha cannot deposit Cash into Todd's account unless she too has an account with Chase. If Samantha only banks with Wells Fargo, she'd have to go to a WF location and arrange a wire transfer. OK if Samantha knows about this ahead of time. Stupid PitA if not.

Frankly, the idea that a bank won't accept modest amounts of cash (under $5000 say) at all is absolutely foreign bordering on ridiculous to me.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all. Back in January there was a story about HSBC not allowing people to withdraw large amounts of money because they were trying to protect customers or the money may be used for illegal activities.

There are banks that wont give you change for bills unless you have an account with them. Every once in a while I have to get a criminal background check to get clearance for certain things. Some times the check they want is a simple local police check. It costs $5 at a police station. One time I only had $20 bills, and the police won't provide you with change, so if you give them a $20, they won't give you change. They keep it. Any way, I went to a bank down the street from the police station to get change, and since I didn't have an account with that bank, they wouldn't change the bills. They refused to change a $20 for a $10 and a couple of $5s.

So no, it doesn't make sense, but very little about banks makes sense.

And really, how does making sure you have an account with them stop you from laundering money?

 

[MarkB]

Even with a deposit slip from the correct person for the correct account, they are not accepting cash unless the person doing the depositing has a Chase account as well.

So, it's actually slightly more generous than I characterised it. They aren't just limiting it to the account holder, they're accepting cash deposits from anyone who's gone through their ID procedures to the point of having an account registered with them.

The simplest solution here would be for Friend A to deposit the cash to their own account, then make a transfer to Friend B's account - though, obviously, it would have been helpful at the time to know about the problem in advance.

 

[delericho]

OK, the background:
Friend A was making a deposit into Friend B's bank account because Friend B was in the hospital. Chase said they couldn't do that unless Friend B was present, or unless Friend A also had a Chase account.

Seems this is part of some Anti money-laundering scheme...

Yep, that's exactly what it is. Basically, they need to be able to trace where that money has come from, which means they need a 'known' person in the loop of the transaction. So, if Friend B is present then that's fine (since Friend B has an account, and so is known), or if Friend A has an account with them then that's fine (and so has gone through their ID/security procedures).

But without either of these things, then the deposit will appear on their system as a large (-ish), unexplained deposit. And, because it's cash, an untraceable deposit.

Yes, you know there's nothing untoward going on. Friend A and Friend B know there's nothing untoward going on. Heck, the bank staff probably know there's nothing untoward going on. But the computer, that may well be looking for largish unexplained deposits, the computer does not.