Is Your Money Safe in the Bank?

Ten years ago this month, Intrust Bank — the area's largest locally based bank — launched online banking, one of a handful of banks in the area to offer such a service. What began as a service limited to customers of a few banks has emerged into a service complete with a whole range of new profit making fees the bank can now charge it's customers.

"I guarantee if you don't have (online banking) you could very well lose customers," said Tom Morrison, Intrust senior vice president and director of e-commerce.

Online banking has become a favorite scheme for scammers who can annonymously siphon off money from your account with little fear of prosecution.

When you trust INTRUST for your financial needs, you can have NO confidence that they place any importance on protecting your privacy or securing your sensitive information.

• They don't protect YOUR privacy, but rather the privacy of the criminals.
• They don't secure your sensitive information, but rather willingly hand it over to known criminals.

Banks don't go after the scammers because their identities are protected by privacy laws. And, the law enforcement community won't go after the scammers because they are overwhelmed with more cases than they can handle and in most cases the individual amounts involved fall below their threshold to consider it a crime worth pursuing.

Known criminals around the country routinely access some bank accounts while the banks do nothing to prevent it. Their criminal schemes are openly promoted on the Internet and discussed in online blogs, apparently all ignored by the banks and prosecutors. In fact, if you happen to fall victim to one of these scams, YOU are held accountable for the banks incompetence.

I actually had one Intrust Bank official tell me that "because we cannot prove you did not" originate a fraudulent electronic check, they were going to honor it! I provided evidence I did NOT originate the transaction and further provided proof of who did. Do you think Intrust Bank did anything with that evidence? They ignored it.

At the end of the day… the customer loses while the scammers and the bank profit.

Intrust Bank and others would seem to actually encourage this kind of theft by making your money so easily available to scammers and by their unwillingness to investigate the criminals. What might the banks motivation be for their cooperation in these popular whitecollar crimes?

They get to profit at your expense.

It's called "fee harvesting" and they get to charge YOU fees when you're the victim.

Take for example, Kathy and Robert Milton…

"It happened right before Christmas. Right before the holidays," Kathy said through tears. "So it wasn't a good time."

The couple wanted to sell their bedroom set, so they put an ad on the Craigslist web site.

Within a day they got a response from Melody Landrus, who said she wanted to buy the furniture and have it shipped to Alaska. In her e-mail, Landrus told the Milton's to expect a check for $3,500, which was much more than the Milton's were asking.

"We were supposed to send $2,000 to her mover and then the rest was ours to keep for the troubles and the transaction fees, 'cause it was all Western Union," Kathy said.

Robert said they assumed they would make a few extra hundred dollars off the deal. "It looked like a valid check, right out of a checkbook," he said.

Before wiring the $2,000, Robert and Kathy contacted their bank to make sure the check had cleared. They were assured that it had.

"We assumed when it clears, it clears," Kathy said.

A week later, when the check bounced, the bank pulled $3,500 — the amount of the bogus check — out of the Milton's account.

"After late charges and bank fees, it was well in excess of $4,000 that we got hit for," Robert said.

It's one of the biggest scams happening right now. Overseas con artists are flooding the country with counterfeit checks and are stealing a staggering amount of money.

The scam takes advantage of the fact that just because a check supposedly clears and the bank posts the money in your account, it doesn't mean the bank can't later take that money back if it finds out the check was a counterfeit.

"There's a basic lack of communication between customers and banks," says Susan Grant of the National Consumers League. The con artists know that most people don't understand the difference between the funds being available and the check being good.

Under federal law, you have the right to withdraw money after making a deposit relatively quickly - within one to five days - depending on the type of check or money order that you've deposited. But it can take weeks or months for a counterfeit to be uncovered.

And, when it is uncovered… YOU LOSE and the Bank profits!

As Intrust is proud to say, "yes you can" get fleeced by one of the leading financial institutions in the Midwest.

Banking, Intrust Bank