Since a cell phone is a tool that some find necessary and I don't have a smart phone, can somebody educate me? I've seen commercials that show that you can take a picture of a check, send it to the bank and the money is credited to your account. What's to prevent taking a picture like that and getting the money, then taking the check to the bank and cashing it at the counter? It's not your account that the money is coming out of and most likely not even the same bank, so how would they know? There's no mark of any kind on the check just from taking a picture is there? Do they hope for honesty and that the person taking the picture will do the right thing and throw it away?
The reason I ask, I checked my checking account on the bank website this morning and a pretty good sized check that I wrote last week was debited from my account twice. The first time had that AC- thing with other writing like when they run one through a machine at Wal Mart or TSC or something, the second time was after another check was cashed in between and just said Check 5*** (without the *s, just the real numbers). I had to go to the bank and sign a form so they could credit it back, but the book keeper had no idea how it happened. The check was written to a small business that I'm pretty sure wouldn't have one of those machines to run it through. He didn't give me back the check anyway like larger businesses who use them do.
I'm not accusing them of doing that, but it got me wondering what was to stop somebody from taking a picture and cashing a check that way and then cashing it at the counter. If they can do that, federal regulators need to put a stop to it right now.
The reason I ask, I checked my checking account on the bank website this morning and a pretty good sized check that I wrote last week was debited from my account twice. The first time had that AC- thing with other writing like when they run one through a machine at Wal Mart or TSC or something, the second time was after another check was cashed in between and just said Check 5*** (without the *s, just the real numbers). I had to go to the bank and sign a form so they could credit it back, but the book keeper had no idea how it happened. The check was written to a small business that I'm pretty sure wouldn't have one of those machines to run it through. He didn't give me back the check anyway like larger businesses who use them do.
I'm not accusing them of doing that, but it got me wondering what was to stop somebody from taking a picture and cashing a check that way and then cashing it at the counter. If they can do that, federal regulators need to put a stop to it right now.