[PLUG-TALK] Bank fraud

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 04:26:47PM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   Last autumn my banker called to say that the bank's fraud department saw
> two suspicious checks cashed on my business account. She then e-mailed me
> copies of the checks and, sure enough, they were the ones mis-printed by the
> company that used to print my business checks. Wrong typeface, mis-spelled
> company name, 3-digit check numbers when numbers are sell into 4 digits.
> Total amount of the two checks: $2,110.00.

I had a similar experience a few years ago.  An outbound check was
stolen out of my mailbox, and the fraudster made some atrociously
bad fake checks out of that, but managed to pass them as payroll
checks at the Happy Valley WalMart.  They had six digit zip codes,
fer Chthulu's sake. :-( My bank (Wells Fargo) refused to pay them,
Walmart threatened me with collections, the Beaverton police
threatened them back with demands for security tapes and such,
and when all was over I had a new account number, new checks, and
the fraudster (a meth dealer living on St. Helens road) was left
free, because the under-$10K amount was not worth prosecuting.

But the mailbox also had another check for another business on a
Chase account (just after the WaMu acquisition).  Chase has their
corporate heads up their butts - in order to change the account
number, they wanted my signature, but also the simultaneous
in-person signatures of both my partners, one living in Palo
Alto and the other in Orlando.  They demanded only my signature
to close the account and transfer the money elsewhere.  Which
I did, to Pacific Continental.  PacCon has their own problems
(mostly a very strange idea of online security) but they are
local (Eugene headquarters) and sound.  No home real estate
exposure, most of their customers are dental offices(!).  

I think that points out the weakness with money, bitcoin, bank
accounts, and every other form of stored value.  All banks are
managed by crazy humans.  And at the end of the day, checks or
dollar bills or integers assigned to accounts represent real
assets somewhere.  When they don't, they are based entirely on
mutually-accepted fables.  Remember that sincerity is the most
important thing;  if you can fake that, you've got it made!

As backing assets, I prefer gold, land, or capital equipment
like somebody's dental equipment, which doesn't depreciate or
go obsolete very fast.  Digging useless computational holes
may cost real resources, but it doesn't create them.  One
may as well dig physical holes, mark them with GPS location
beacons, and claim them as assets.  Bitcoin is a clever hack,
but history is littered with clever and silly hacks, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  People are nuts.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993