someone gave a friend or ours a personal check written out of their personal checking account at BANK OF AMERICA (5 corners). so........our friend goes to BANK OF AMERICA to cash it. They wouldn't cash it UNLESS he gave them his THUMB PRINT!!
our friends exact words....'i thought i'd sh!t'.
our friend told the teller that she could readily enough look up the account on their computer to see if there were funds in the account....NADDA!!
our friend told them....'you are the least reputable bank....and you think i'm gonna give you MY THUMB PRINT'?????
our friend said it wasn't the idea that they wouldn't cash the check.................IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE THUMB PRINT!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I know someone who recently tried to purchase a house that was vacant for two years, would've been a short sale, BoA involved, BoA dragged it out and jerked him around so bad he backed out. The poor owner is in the military, got sent out of state, can't wash her hands of the mistake.
What possible use could a thumbprint be to them anyway? Would they run it by the FBI just to cash a lousy check?
have you not been paying attention?
Quoted Text
Bank of America requires finger print to cash a check. Submitted by sentinel on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 22:35 in Daily Paul Liberty Forum Charlie Breitrose MetroWest Daily News January 2, 2009
Ariel Sarousi felt surprised and dismayed when asked to provide a fingerprint to cash a check at a Framingham Bank of America branch on Monday.
The 25-year-old Framingham native, who lives in Virginia, brought a rent check to the Bank of America branch on Beacon Street. He does not have an account with the bank, but the check came from a Bank of America account.
“They asked for an ID, which I provided, and after that they brought out an ink pad,” Sarousi said. “I asked why, and they said they wanted to take a fingerprint. I said, ‘Get out! Please!’ and they said, ‘No, we’re serious.”‘
Sarousi said he had other forms of identification and that should be enough to cash a check.
“I said, ‘You can’t expect me to provide fingerprints to cash a check,”‘ Sarousi said. “I took my check and left.
Anne Pace, a Bank of America spokeswoman, said the company does not comment on individual customer situations. She also said she did not have information on the use of fingerprints.
The Massachusetts Bankers Association has a program to install thumbprint touch pads, intended to deter people passing counterfeit or fraudulent checks, according to the organization’s Web site.
Sunday, January 24, 2010 Bank finally gets it right on fingerprints Print 0 Comments Share 0 Telegraph Editorial KEY POINTS
BACKGROUND: Bank of America intends to stop its practice of requiring fingerprints from noncustomers when cashing checks in New Hampshire.
CONCLUSION: A Litchfield woman who shared her complaint with us last year can take some credit for the change.
It may be one of the shortest bills debated in the New Hampshire House of Representatives during this legislative session. The operative section of HB 299 consists of a single line: “(c) Reasonable identification shall not include finger prints.”
The bill, which passed the House 255-93 on Jan. 6, also had one operative target: Bank of America.
Since late 2008, Bank of America branches in New Hampshire have been requiring noncustomers to provide a fingerprint as identification even when cashing checks drawn on its accounts. It is the only bank in the state using the so-called “Thumbprint Signature” program, but the program is not uncommon elsewhere.
Biometrics, the process of capturing intrinsic physical traits such as fingerprints or retinal patterns, is on the increase around the country with corporations and governmental agencies rushing to create systems to record and verify identities.
HB Bill 299 would add that single line to the state law that dictates what is acceptable required identification when presenting a “negotiable instrument” for payment. Fingerprints would no longer be acceptable if the bill were to become law.
The Senate has yet to take up the measure, but the bill’s goals already have been met. BOA New Hampshire President John Weeks told a House committee last week that the fingerprinting would stop Feb. 8.
The bank deserves some credit for voluntarily changing its policies, albeit in the face of a public shaming. But its action may also derail the bill’s momentum in the Senate, leaving some opening for thumbprint identity verification in the future.
Still, the original question stands: Who thought fingerprinting citizens was a good idea in the first place?
The Telegraph spotlighted the practice of fingerprinting bank customers in a story published in July 2009. Litchfield resident Gail Jozitis was incensed when she tried to cash a check drawn on a Bank of America account and was asked to provide a thumbprint in order to get the money.
“I told them, ‘In a pig’s eye!’” Jozitis said at the time. “How in the hell can they ask me for that?”
Kevin Dolan, a regional executive of BOA, responded that the practice was “effective at curbing fraud” and the resulting financial costs for both customers and banks.
The bank stressed the database is not searchable for the purposes of comparing fingerprints, as might be seen on TV crime shows when a suspect’s prints are matched against those found at a crime scene.
Those assurances may be true, but promises like that are often empty, even when well intentioned. In 2005 alone, Bank of America lost more than 200,000 confidential customer records in three separate incidents.
Under state law, companies that suffer similar data breaches of confidential customer information affecting New Hampshire residents are required to report and explain the incident to the New Hampshire Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau.
In 2009, more than 100 reports were filed, though none involving BOA. Nationwide, since 2005 there have reportedly been more than 250 million customer records lost or stolen from corporate or governmental databases.
Bank of America has done the right thing by rescinding its fingerprint policy in New Hampshire. It ought to reconsider it in every state until our laws and technology have advanced to the point where biometrics can be used to safeguard both identity and privacy, not one over the other.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
I haven't been paying attention to BoA as much as possible, because it gets me thinking about lousy scam artist thieves who get away with crimes you or I would go to prison for because they hide behind a corporate front. Again, what good does it do them to have a thumbprint on file? I don't like how the article concludes that we shouldn't let our fingerprints, etc. be stored YET.
I haven't been paying attention to BoA as much as possible, because it gets me thinking about lousy scam artist thieves who get away with crimes you or I would go to prison for because they hide behind a corporate front. Again, what good does it do them to have a thumbprint on file? I don't like how the article concludes that we shouldn't let our fingerprints, etc. be stored YET.
they are collecting information for the police/lawmakers/policy makers etc.........
it's wrong.....they take chance doing business as every other common joe....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Thumb-Print Banking Takes India Scott Carney 01.19.07 CHENNAI, India -- Banks and ATM machines are an unfamiliar sight in the rural countryside here, but the government hopes to change that with new technology that could ease the transition from cash to computers. A pilot program will put 15 biometric ATMs at village kiosks in five districts across southern India. The machines are expected to serve about 100,000 workers who will use fingerprint scanners, rather than ATM cards and PINs, to obtain their funds. Biometric ATMs are already in use in Colombia and a few locations in Japan, but haven't caught on in much of the rest of the world. As a result, biometrics companies are watching the experiment closely as a potential watershed for the industry. Nagaraj Mylandla, managing director of Financial Software and Systems, which helped design security protocol for the new system, said there are 35,000 non-biometric ATMs in India today. In three years the number of machines is expected to triple to more than 100,000, leaving a window of opportunity for suppliers to make the new technology standard issue for all new machines. The increase will mean that just about every rural village and outpost will have access to the world's financial backbone and, if the pilot program is successful, fingerprint identification could become standard, even for private bank transactions. "Many banks here are keen on this idea of doing away with ATM cards," said Sunil Udupa, CEO of AGS Infotech, the company supplying the first batch of ATMs to the five districts in India. "Whether it is practically possible is a very different question, but the interest is huge." Officials hope the plan will bring billions of rupees currently being held in private hands into the banking mainstream, and that it might even shelter the country's poor from the ravages of inflation, theft and widespread corruption. For example, some believe e-banking will help eliminate several layers of middlemen who manage, and often siphon off, government-allocated funds earmarked for low-income workers. Under the current system, money gets sent from the government coffers and passes through the desks of dozens of bureaucrats and private contractors. Each tends to take a cut along the way so the money that reaches workers is usually only a fraction of what was allocated. Electronic banking will eliminate the middlemen, and provide a real increase in rural wages. "This is really meant to cut down on corruption," said Mylandla. "The whole structure is designed so that only the people at the end get the money. No one in between can steal it along the way." The program is not without its critics, however. For example, privacy issues may arise in switching from user-generated numeric codes to bio-data. According to Mylandla and Udupi, law-enforcement agencies have already expressed interest in having access to the data for fraud prevention and to track known criminals through fingerprint transactions. It is unknown what other agencies might be able to see the data. Another concern is that in some of the more crime-ridden areas of the country, fingerprint IDs could give rise to a new sort of crime where bandits chop off digits in order to withdraw cash from ATMs. Without a PIN code, a robber would be able to enter an account using a severed thumb. In the last several years there have been several incidents of bandits chopping off hands to retrieve gold bangles from women's wrists, and last year in Malaysia bandits cut off the thumb of a man driving a sports car in order to activate the biometric thumbprint ignition. Those implementing the biometric machines in India scoff at the idea that this could become a problem. "I have heard of instances where people get held up and gunpoint and told to enter their ATM pins with ordinary cards," said Gopal Shekar, director of corporate communications at FSS. "The danger of violence is the same with biometric cards. Besides, the most anyone can withdraw in a day is 10,000 rupees ($230). Who would kill someone for so little?" Whether that proves true or not, bringing poor farmers into the banking fold won't be easy. The project will have to overcome communication barriers posed by the thousands of dialects in the country, not to mention illiteracy and unfamiliarity with computers. The first prototype ATMs used PIN codes and written instructions, and failed miserably. "The main problem is that most farmers are illiterate and only speak local dialects," said Udupa. "The farmers couldn't remember their PIN codes and didn't understand the on-screen instructions. So we developed a fingerprint interface with audio and visual instructions that they could understand." Udupa thinks farmers are comfortable with fingerprint technology because they have already been introduced to other government projects that use biometrics. Bhoomi, a widely accepted land-record program in the state of Karnataka, uses fingerprints to verify owners of land records.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Using Thumbprints to Secure Cards Print Reprints Email
inShare 1 Vietnam's rocketing economy seems to have dropped closer to earth, growing just four percent in this year's first half versus the more than seven percent the nation notched on average annually over the last decade. A pile-up of non-performing loans to state-owned enterprises, corruption and inflation appear to have curbed the country's recent ascent.
But amid this pause in the dynamism, one institution is betting that pioneering new biometric technology will ensure that if, as the saying goes, all boats continue to rise, so will the bank's account deposits.
Mekong Development Bank (MDB), which has provided banking to rice, vegetable, catfish and crawfish farmers and market traders in the fertile Mekong Delta for the last 20 years, has expanded since 2010 into Vietnam's major cities from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, adding government employees and small- to medium-sized business owners in urban centers to its customer base of about 200,000.
On June 15, the bank launched the nation's first fingerprint-enabled debit card. Actually, the small screens on the 33 NCR SelfServ ATMs that accept MDB's biometric-capable debit cards scan users' thumbprints. A user presses his or her thumb on a scanner on the ATM to access funds and account information. The scanners make sure customers' prints match those held on file at the bank. Temenos provided the biometric feature as a modular upgrade to Temenos' T24 core banking system to which MDB converted in January from an older proprietary system.
Here's how it works: Customers first provide their thumbprints to MDB by visiting a branch to sign up for the service. The customer receives a phone call to come pick up the new card after it arrives at a branch three to five days later. When a user inserts the card at a SelfServ ATM, the customer is offered the choice to activate and forever thereafter access accounts via thumbprint by placing a thumb on the ATM's scanner. Or he or she can use a one-time password that's immediately sent via text message to the customer's mobile phone number that's registered with the bank to set up a PIN to use the card.
MDB credits the thumbprint feature with enabling what it says was a tripling of its current account base and twice-as-high deposit balances per debit cardholder versus regular accounts since June. About 90 percent of new debit card customers have chosen the thumbprint method to access their accounts versus trying to remember a PIN. MDB wants to expand biometric authentication for cash-back options at supermarkets and in completing customer documentation inside branches.
The goal is to make it easy for local customers to tap bank products while making provision of those services as efficient and secure as possible. Biometrics can eliminate paperwork, especially for people who lack documentation or identification.
"We are constantly trying to simplify the whole process as much as we can," says Nicholas Chee, deputy CEO and head of consumer business at MDB. "Customers have said that it is very cumbersome to deal with a bank due to the amount of documentation needed, especially for loans. Vietnam, being an emerging market, tends to have more people wanting to apply for a loan than placing deposits in the bank. People are more keen to borrow money to grow their businesses, to grow their produce or their farms, and they still have the tradition of keeping cash or gold bars back at home. Documentation becomes a huge pain for these consumers.
"So we've designed our whole architecture so that we open the customer's bank account at the CRM level, not at the core banking level," Chee adds. "[Oracle EBS] is interlinked with the core banking side to ensure consistent information flow. This will minimize rubbish in, rubbish out and ensure we get it right the first time."
The practice has been controversial, criticized by some civil rights groups, consumers and lawmakers as an unnecessary invasion of privacy. Yet, banks say it’s proven an effective deterrent to the growing problems of check fraud and identity theft.
Why Do Banks Ask for Fingerprints?
When a non-customer comes in to cash a check that is drawn on the bank, banks that participate in a fingerprinting program ask the person to provide a thumbprint. Banks say the practice deters potential fraudsters, who won’t want to give a thumbprint for fear of being later identified and arrested.
The practice was originally developed by the Texas Bankers Association ten years ago, but has since caught on nationwide in response to growing problems of check fraud and identity theft. It’s now supported by most state banking associations, as well as the American Bankers Association.
Not all banks have a fingerprinting program in place. Despite its growing popularity, the practice is more common at larger, national banks.
What Do Banks Do With the Fingerprints?
Thumbprints are placed directly on the check that’s being cashed, which is later scanned into a bank’s computer system for storage, as is the case with all checks. The paper copy is eventually destroyed. If fraud is suspected at any point, the check with the thumbprint is recovered and turned over to law enforcement. It’s unclear how effective the practice has been in deterring fraud.
Despite some public concern over the practice, banking giants insist they do not keep a database strictly of fingerprints, nor do they turn they fingerprints over to a third party in any case except where fraud is suspected. They have not publicly discussed how long the prints are stored or who has access to them.
Is Fingerprinting at Banks an Invasion of Privacy?
Critics of the practice have not been shy about saying it goes too far. Civil liberties groups and some lawmakers have publicly raised serious questions about the practice. In New Hampshire, a bill was introduced to the state legislature in early 2009 that would ban the practice. As of late July, it had not yet gone to a vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, in response to complaints about the practice, issued a statement in December 2008 saying fingerprinting at banks endangers civil liberties. The statement raises several questions about the practice that the organization believes have been unanswered, including:
Are there adequate prohibitions on the sale, sharing, or transfer of the fingerprint information? Is the information stored safely? How necessary and effective is the program? Consumers that do not want to provide a fingerprint generally have two options: open a bank account with the particular bank or take the check elsewhere to be cashed. The ACLU of Massachusetts encourages consumers to refuse to cash their checks at banks that require fingerprints.
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