No one wants to be a Barney Fife
DAVID SILVA
I came home from work a few weeks ago to find my roommate sitting at
her desk, fuming.
“Someone,” she said bitterly, “just cleaned out my checking
account.”
Elizabeth said she had tried to buy something with her check card
earlier that day only to have the card returned to her as rejected.
After spending the next three hours making increasingly frantic phone
calls and visiting her bank branch, she was able to determine that
someone had a) gotten ahold of her personal identification number; b)
deposited a counterfeit check for $980 into her account through an
ATM machine; and c) withdrawn more than $1,000 from that account over
a four-day period.
The bank official who talked to Elizabeth told her she was the
fifth customer to come into the branch that day with the very same
complaint, and they were starting to suspect something was amiss.
Elizabeth’s account was credited the sum of the stolen money, but she
was far from mollified.
“This is inexcusable,” she said. “If my bank can’t protect my
money from any lowlife who comes along, I’m changing banks.”
I told her that while I understood her feelings on the matter, I
doubted switching banks would make her any less vulnerable to ATM
fraud.
“This probably has nothing to do with your bank being careless,” I
said. “The problem is that no matter how many crack security measures
the banks put in place, it’s never enough, because this is the work
of organized crime. We like to think only unsophisticated lowlifes
commit these types of acts. But what we’re really dealing with are
well-financed, professional criminals who have made ATM fraud their
bread and butter.”
That’s what I believed then. But a couple of things have happened
since that have caused me to reconsider my mob theory. Now I’m
thinking that maybe ATM fraud is really the work of a gang of
troubled fourth-graders who have discovered it’s easier to rip off
ATMs than other kids’ milk money.
My change in thinking began when Elizabeth’s bank mailed the
counterfeit check to her. Don’t ask me why, but I had assumed the
check must have been some masterpiece of forgery to get past the
bank’s crack security measures. I envisioned confidence- inspiring
watermarks and clean lines on paper of the perfect bond and texture.
I envisioned well-financed professionalism.
Instead, what my roommate received looked like it had been
scribbled on the back of a cereal box. The only watermark on it came
from what I assume was the bottom of a coffee cup. It bore the
address of a bank in a certain California city, except the name of
the city was misspelled. But worst of all was the endorsement
signature on the back of the check -- a signature that bore no
earthly resemblance to my roommate’s signature but was in the exact
same handwriting as the signature on the front.
A nearsighted mental patient flying past that piece of paper at 90
mph in the back of an ambulance could have spotted it as a work of
fiction. But somehow it had managed to buffalo every bank employee
who handled it, right up to the time it was returned to them “address
unknown.”
A few days later, I was about to leave the apartment for work when
I got a call from a representative of my own bank. It seemed that I
had used my check card at a store under investigation for ATM fraud.
Not to worry, the representative told me. My account was intact, and
as a precaution the bank was canceling my cards and issuing me new
ones in the mail. I felt a flash of anger, but realized my bank was
only trying to protect itself and my money. I thanked the
representative, and asked for the name of the store under
investigation so I’d know not to shop there again.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but we can’t give out that information,” the
representative said.
I repeated my request three more times until I realized the voice
on the phone was serious. Confidentiality laws protected the identity
of the business suspected of ripping off its customers. So now every
place I’d used my cards in the past month was under a dark cloud of
suspicion, and this was in the middle of the Christmas shopping
season. The list of suspects is long, and if you’re the owner of one
of the shops I’ve recently patronized, I’ve got my eye on you.
The woman on the phone suggested I visit my bank branch to get a
temporary ATM card. So that morning, I stopped by the bank, and was
directed to the woman who handled such requests. I explained to her
what had happened, she asked me for some information about my
account, and in less than five minutes she handed me a temporary ATM
card. Then she told me she was happy to be of service and turned
away. I now had at my disposal a brand-new card capable of
withdrawing hundreds of dollars a day from my checking account, along
with a brand-new PIN of my choosing.
All without having once been asked for my ID.
Clearly, I had stumbled onto a weakness in my bank’s crack
security measures.
The woman noticed the expression on my face, and asked if there
was some problem. When I answered that she had never asked to see
some proof of identification, she seemed puzzled by my concern.
“Well, you gave me your information, so I pulled up your account,”
she explained. “It confirmed for me that your cards had been
canceled.”
“But ... but ... I could have had those cards canceled,” I said,
dismayed. “I could be anybody, but you wouldn’t know it because you
haven’t checked.”
“Why would you want to cancel your own cards?” she asked.
I blinked. It was clear that I was wasting my time, so I simply
put the temporary card in my wallet and left.
Identity theft is the bane of the Information Age, disrupting
countless lives and costing financial institutions billions every
year. You would think banks might find this troubling. But
apparently, my bank and my roommate’s bank aren’t living in the
Information Age. They’re living in some happier place where nobody
locks their doors and asking for papers is considered the height of
rudeness. Nobody wants to be a Barney Fife in Mayberry.
Instead, our banks use the honor code system of ATM security. Just
give us your name! We trust you! The system works very well unless
you’re dealing with someone without honor. Like a criminal.
I told my nephew, who works at a bank, about what had taken place.
He shook his head like he wasn’t surprised. Then he told me most
banks allow customers to request that every in-person transaction on
their accounts require a check for ID. All I had to do was request
it, he said.
It seemed astonishing to me that I would have to make a special
request for something like that. I would have thought it a given.
Having to ask my bank to check for ID seemed as strange as having to
ask a boat builder to make sure the boat was watertight. But there it
was.
So the next day, I called my bank and made the request. From now
on, anyone trying to make a move on my account will have to first
prove that he or she is me. That’ll show those fourth-graders.
* DAVID SILVA is a Times Community News editor. Reach him at (909)
484-7019 or by e-mail at david.silva@ latimes.com.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.