Check gets deposited in ABC bank (issued by XYZ bank). ABC bank sends a scan of the check to XYZ bank. And XYZ bank has an employee whose job it is to look at every inbound check to make sure the signature matches? Or maybe they have computers to recognize the signature and compare them for similarities. If it's too different, then it's flagged and sent to an employee for further review?
I suppose it's possible that this happens. I honestly have no idea. Next time you write a check, sign it "Snoopy" and see if it still clears. My guess is that it would.
> Or maybe they have computers to recognize the signature and compare them for similarities. If it's too different, then it's flagged and sent to an employee for further review?
Yeah, that'd be nice, and I think it's well within the grasp of the big banks to deploy some image recognition software to do this, and yet I'm fairly certain they do not. Anecdata to follow...
I recently had a blank check stolen from me and filled out with a completely fake looking signature, it was really almost cartoonish. Yet the bank (Chase) did nothing to stop this from being deposited by the thief, and debiting my account. I only found out a month or so later, and filed a dispute, which they resolved. But the only reason I noticed it was that I don't use checks very often, so even though the amount was not an outrageous sum, it stood out. The bank's suggestion to me, for the future, was to NOT USE CHECKS. Ever. The low level employees at the local branch, when I was there closing the account and opening a new one, told me NOT to order checks at all, and pay rent with a direct transfer or bill-pay feature.
This is what people mean when they say the only innovation in consumer level banking is improvements to ATMs.
The thing with doing that it it requires the person signing the check to have a /single/ extremely consistent signature. Personally my signature changes a lot depending on the pen I'm using or even how quickly I go. And I doubt I'm the only one.
Fair enough I suppose, and I'd add the rest of online banking is a big improvement too.
The fact that checks are not anywhere near as secure as I would want (or apparently the bank's own tellers would want) just irks me, since they're much more convenient than bill-pay, which takes 5 business days to process while handing a check to my landlord takes less than 1.
I used to sign checks as Nickname Lastname, rather than my given name. I eventually had one bounce due to "signature not as drawn". I do have very legible handwriting though.
They definitely don't check the signature. About a year ago, I altered the way I sign cheques. I used to sign my full name, now I just initials them. I got not problem, no cheque bounced.
Only you can define what your signature looks like. That is why you didn't have any issues. They don't check the signature against anything, if that's what you mean. See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4345214
A few years ago, I was going through the process of changing my name. I was endorsing checks with my new name and depositing them into accounts with my old name -- a completely different name, and still no problems! I imagine this happens fairly often with newly-wed women.
Also, the signature on my current driver's license is a squiggly line.
> Only you can define what your signature looks like. That is why you didn't have any issues. They don't check the signature against anything, if that's what you mean. See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4345214
This may be mostly true, or even universally true now, but it hasn't always been. I remember trying to make some major modification on an account with a local bank in Chicago around 2000 --maybe closing it?-- and the bank officer with whom I dealt actually brought out a physical record of my signature to compare against what I was currently signing. (Since I'd opened the account some years ago, it took me a long time to guess how I'd signed back then and to reproduce it successfully. For some reason, the officer was perfectly willing to let me try until I satisfied her, but not to accept that I was who my ID said I was.)
Same thing with credit cards. Most vendors don't event check if you signature matches the signature that is on the back of the card. (not that it proves ownership.)
I deposited a check at an ATM recently and it was rejected (by the ATM itself) because it was not endorsed. It wasn't and I seriously doubt this is anything more than a check for some ink on the back in the endorse-here area.
The ATM then tried to return the check to me, but there was some kind of paper feed error and I never saw it again.
It's too bad there isn't some sort of reconfigurable QR code stamp thing that you can use to sign something. Say, for example, you enter in the payee, amount and date, it digitally signs it with your private key from your bank, creates a QR code with the data and moves tiny little stamp pins up/down and you press it onto the paper.
Other than a bank or cheque cashing service, anyway...
The niche seems pretty small: payments too large for cash, too small for certified bank drafts, to people taking too few payments to have technologying up make sense.
I believe that in the original write-up of this story, which spanned several pages, the author mentioned that he didn't even bother to endorse the check he'd deposited.
