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Email this5:47 am
March 30, 2017
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Edit by admin: this thread was split off from a conversation about Wealth One Bank of Canada
Actually a lot of sites you have the option of declining the cookies and the site still works. Of course the default is "accept" if u just click "ok" on it when it "warns you" about their use of cookies.
I started unchecking all the cookies whenever I go to a new site. For bank sites, I think a lot of them require the minimum cookie to identify your PC as a legit connection.
Paper copies are NOT any safer than online. I rather have online statements which are pdf files and then print a copy of whatever I need.
I do understand for certain age group, they just wont accept online banking as it is outside their comfort zone.
6:37 am
September 11, 2013
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People use social media and online to post all sorts of stuff about themselves, down to almost every micro-thought or experience they have. We use our connected devices to do any task we can get them to do. So we elect leaders who are not big on privacy either, we don't really care even though we might sometimes profess otherwise. Might be a very good idea to have a record of every single financial transaction, might stop things like politicians and their families accepting money on the down-low for appearances at charity pep rallies, and on and on - I like it!
11:58 pm
November 18, 2017
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"That's the way it's going to be" is something we don't have to agree to.
Loonie: I'm in my late sixties, but I got started in the computer industry in 1969 and have been involved in it ever since - and seen the results of careless use. I have used, and now use, lots of computers - but keep only one for internet use at any time, a hardened Linux box with no user data on it. I use E-mail, but never use the internet for anything involving my real name or identification. No social media, no smartphones (it sure is getting hard to get a good flip-phone not pwned by Google or Apple these days), no on-line shopping or banking. Never missed them. A great many in the tech professions and banking follow the same practices, and some even refuse to have mobile phones at all because they are by nature always connected.
I'm not that extreme! But I urge everyone to listen to warnings from skeptical IT professionals. theregister.co.uk is a great place to start learning about privacy protection. Mozilla's Firefox browser is always at the forefront of privacy protection - make a habit of reading their new feature announcements, as they are very informative about new threats.
Those new web-site boxes offering choice in cookie collection are the result of new US laws - especially in California - and the European GDPR laws. We don't have those in Canada yet. We CAN, however, set our browsers to clear history and cookies when shutting down, or manually nuke cookies during a session.
Note that, in the US, postal mail-order laws are incredibly strict and ruthlessly enforced, but the internet is still The Wild West. I've never had a problem with mail ordering.
It's true that much of our financial system is integrated with the US, though there are still '80s-era laws requiring certain government data to be kept in Canada and never cross the frontier. The parliamentary debate about that was how I first learned that all data communications into the US were already being read by US agencies. In the eighties! But in the case of Wealth One - with their founders having strong People's Republic ties - is any of their data going into the PRC? Scary.
savemoresaveoften: I would not use any electronic document such as a .PDF as documentation because I know how easy it is for me to fake one (including the hidden metadata), and I am a long way from the savviest geek out there. Anything we print is hardly proof to be trusted. It IS possible to use public-Key encryption "digital signatures" to validate documents, but nobody out there is doing it yet. (That's what all the blockchain experiments are trying to do.) (And don't confuse cryptographic "digital signatures" with the digitized analog signatures used by couriers and motor vehicle bureaux.)
Losing cheques would indeed disturb me, but I know that debit-card transactions are an equivalent in most cases, where they provide a printed receipt. Not being able to mail cheques would be a major loss, though. One of my clients (I'm semi-retired) recently advised he was stopping all use of cheques for business, but he agreed to issue personal cheques when he wants to use me in the future.
Keep complaining when they try to change things. Pulling our money DOES get noticed, however big the entity is. With a tiny outfit like Wealth One, it makes waves. Same applies to letting government agencies know how you feel. Europe is way ahead of us in privacy protection, Asia far behind.
RetirEd
RetirEd
2:17 am
September 29, 2017
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This is an interesting discussion.
RE: Cheques... I have learned over the years that cheques are VERY insecure... Why? because the banks have abandoned a lot of the checks and balances (sorry for the pun)... How?
Did you know that any cheque that is processed via an ATM or other form of electronic deposit does NOT get the the following verified:?
- date of issue
- name of recipient
- signature
All this in the name of efficiency.
Banks actually act ONLY if there is a complaint AFTER the fact... after processing the cheque and withdrawing the funds. Learned this the hard way in a fraud case starting back in 2005 and a few cheque mishandling since then.
So, they are fraught with problems whereby a cheque intercepted, say in the mail, can be redirected, or a post-dated cheque processed in advance, or late beyond the 6-month stale period.
Of course, the alternative, using Interac e-transfer is also fraught with problems and people need to learn how to use it so as to not fall into some of the lack of security inherent with it (and there are a few). The other problem though is that this is limited to $3000/day. $10,000/wk and $20,000/mon. So until these limits are addressed, this is not a suitable alternative for all cases.
And if cheques are abandoned, what implication is that for drafts/money orders etc?
Raises a lot of questions.
re: PDF records... so this ties into electronic records.
I do not understand the issue here, in this context. A PDF from the bank contains the records of your transactions. I make sure to keep a copy of all bank PDFs on my computer, with backups. If this is reconciled with personal records, then where is the concern of anything being changed? The key here is to make sure to keep a copy and to reconcile to personal records, such as personal finance software.
I do agree with some of the concerns with all this online and smartphone issues but not sure how you have succeeded in avoiding their use. Being retired might be helpful given that you possibly have more time, or at least more flexibility, BUT I have found it hard to find some items that I need WITHOUT going online and ordering from places like China directly or even Amazon. With all the M&As and closure of many traditional vendors, it is harder and harder to find local sources for more and more things. OR time also becomes an issue... having to deal with mail can be VERY slow and it too is has its own problems... lost items, lack of visibility to process, etc. And some companies and making it harder and harder to do business any other way, even insurance... So this is becoming more and more of a conundrum.
7:40 am
March 30, 2017
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If my smartphones tracks where I go, browsing the internet means Big brother knows what I have been interested, thats fine by me in most cases. While privacy is totally important, I am not a criminal either and just a normal Joe. So someone out there knows where I have been or doing is NOT that offensive for me or a showstopper.
I rather take the risk (which are always exaggerated by those IT specialists) and use all the technologies that to me enhance my standard of living more than hurting it. If you are important enough and someone MUST find you, they will. Perfect example being Bin Laden who lives in caves, no electronic communcations of any kind, still got hunt down at the end, it just takes longer...
My apologies to those that may be offended by the Bin Laden reference, but I cant think of a better example of someone who purposely AVOID all types of possible electronic communication / tracking is still exposed...
10:05 am
April 6, 2013
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Loonie said
…All indicators are that we are moving towards cashlessness and eliminating cheques. AltaRed said recently that this is the position of the Cdn Bankers Association - they want it. And AltaRed, a bank stockholder, also wants it. I don't want it but I will have no choice, it seems. When that happens, every solitary financial transaction will be a matter of record accessible to goodness knows who, and probably accessible to at least one foreign government.
…
It will be a long time before cheques are gone.
About 814 million cheques and other paper items were cleared in 2012 in Canada. It was down to around 467 million last year. However, the amount of money being transferred has been steady, around $2.8 trillion to $3 trillion each year.
There's no privacy advantage with cheques. Financial institutions now routinely scan them and store the digital images instead of the physical cheques or microfilms of the cheques. The images of cheques are available online.
If one wishes, one can process the images through optical character recognition software to read the payee. Banks already do that for the amount of the cheque.
At these same time, people should not worship the security of paper documents. It is inexpensive now to forge ordinary paper documents. The scanner beside me can scan down to 1/1200 of an inch. The colour printer can match colours to higher precision than the eye can distinguish. Signatures and color logos can easily be lifted from existing documents.
10:33 am
March 30, 2017
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Just want to add, re cheques, I write maybe 5 cheques per year these days and my signature definitely does not "really match" whats on the signature card given how infrequent I actually need to sign anything. Yet not a single check got bounced. That shows you "how secure" cheques are in reality. In terms of paper trail, its an entry in your bank account, so does a ETF. The image of a cheques does not make it a better trail.
Its inevitable banking in a digital way is the only way to go forward, one should always embrace technology changes. If there is a ever a catastrophic data loss by the banks, I can guarantee you just because you have physical a bank book, you will not be prioritized or have better protection than someone who has a pdf record only
12:51 pm
April 6, 2013
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I suspect the banks don't bother verifying the signature on modest cheques. There will be lots of such false "non-matches" and it would be expensive to handle the resulting complaints.
While they may not be that interested in verifying the signature on a $20 cheque, the bank will likely feel differently about verifying the signature on a $200,000 cheque.
The buck actually stops at the account holder. In older times, some waiters and waitresses would "edit" the signed credit card slips. A $41.50 slip, for example, could be easily changed to $47.50, by a pen stroke, for an extra $6 in tip! No card issuer was analyzing the card slips for such "edits".
A reporter was amused on learning about the scam. He never checked the individual charges on his card statement. The amusement evapourated after he checked some restaurant charges and found that he had been hit multiples times with the scam over the past months.
8:06 pm
November 18, 2017
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smayer97: Right. They tell me they don't bother correcting errors under $20, but they often miss larger errors too. And once or twice I accidentally deposited a government cheque before its issue date and they never blinked!
I consistently find about one deposit or credit card charge error a year, but oddly enough they happen in about the same volume in my favour as the merchants'. I always report them though many merchants don't bother correcting small ones in my favour.
A .PDF that can be checked against a bank record it agrees with is fine. A situation where the bank's claims don't match your accounting is the problem. Hence the problem with credit card receipts printed by thermal printer that don't have direct signature copies, which is why my carbons helped convince the card issuer that the clones were fraudulent. I don't do that any more... because the cards no longer use signatures!
The paper, watermarks, holograms and microprinting* on bank documents make them extremely difficult to fake. My cheques carry similar features. When my credit union puts images of my deposited cheques on my statements, the images clearly show the errors induced by the copying.
Last I looked, the UK was sticking to signature-and-PIN cards, not signatureless ones. The contactless system is a real mess: the banks simply limit transaction values and only enable it for stores the customer has already shopped at. The losses are not their worry, since the customers give them more than enough money to cover them.
I've found that the card in my hand was picked up, for example, when the person in front of me tapped a pad with a non-contactless card and let it pick up the nearest card to be found. And, once you have used contactless at a merchant, you have no PIN protection for an undetermined amount of time there.
I had already disabled contactless payments on all my bank cards, but Amex refused to do that on their cards. Then I made a wonderful discovery when Amex switched to transparent cards for two of mine: I could see where the antenna loop wires were! There are two types with antennae in different positions, but if you slit the wire or use a hole-punch to knock out a piece of the wire, the card will work in the machines but not contactless. One can readily assert that the hole was to put the card on a lanyard. It's hard to find the exact place to slit the wire next to the contact pad on a non-transparent card, but both types can be contactless-diabled with a standard punch hole at the opposite end of the card from the contact pad, in the exact centre of the card's narrow edge and 1/4" from the edge. If this obscures the little "yes I really have the card in my hand" number the issuer will sometimes ask for on the phone, so much the better; a thief won't have the number either. You can record it elsewhere or write a coded version of it (as we do with passwords) on the card with a felt pen. Don't use any easy or familiar code, and you can add extra characters for obfuscation.
Note: financial institutions often re-enable contactless payments when replacing cards or making account changes. Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
RetirEd
* see: toronto.ctvnews.ca/the-security-features-to-look-for-on-canadian-currency-1.4312283
RetirEd
4:28 am
September 29, 2017
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Norman1 said
While they may not be that interested in verifying the signature on a $20 cheque, the bank will likely feel differently about verifying the signature on a $200,000 cheque.
NOPE! Guess again. I had 2 cheques for $45,000 each altered with fake initials and the bank never checked... that was one of the scams I mentioned.
4:35 am
September 29, 2017
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RetirEd said
...
The paper, watermarks, holograms and microprinting* on bank documents make them extremely difficult to fake. My cheques carry similar features. When my credit union puts images of my deposited cheques on my statements, the images clearly show the errors induced by the copying.
...
True until someone intercepts the original doc and modifies it. Banks don't check... Again, strictly respond to complaints after the fact. So checks are not that secure from that perspective.
5:38 am
October 21, 2013
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The reason I don't want cheques to go out of style is not because I think they are more secure. I just find them efficient for certain kinds of transactions. Blank cheques never leave my house.
Anyone who doesn't check their statements monthly for discrepancies is asking for trouble IMO.
I know the banks don't check signatures any more. But this conversation has given me a new perspective into what may be going on at my mother's Big Bank.
When I took over management of the account recently as her POA, I was given a stern (and, I felt, inappropriate) lecture by the bank rep, telling me I could only debit the account for expenses where a bill was made out specifically to my mother, I could not have access to online banking, and I could not have access to ATM.
Many necessary purchases don't come with a receipt made out to an individual, and, if it were, it could quite likely be in my name be in my name, not hers. I was told I had to submit such bills to the bank.
I found another workaround so as not to have to deal with the bank, but it is temporary. I am now thinking that they will probably never look at the cheques I write to reimburse myself, certainly not for the small amounts that are normally involved. So I'm thinking I may just go ahead with them and essentially dare the bank to stop me. I can only do this because cheques have not been eliminated and because it is a chequing account. Remember, I have been denied access to online and ATM banking.
When I first told the bank rep that I would be writing a cheque every month to pay for the retirement home, she stared past me as if thinking and then said, "I wonder if it will get stopped." Clearly even she didn't know what the criteria might be, and she is one of those people in the bank who has a small office, not frontline staff. The cheque was not stopped, nor should it have been as it was duly signed by her POA whose signature has been on file with that bank for 40 years.
Now, I'm thinking that the bank was mostly trying to intimidate me from potentially taking advantage of my mother, not something they were going to actively enforce. They've said other things that held no weight when push came to shove, so this would be consistent. I am very annoyed at their attitude and lack of clarity.
5:59 am
September 7, 2018
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If you have a full Power of Attorney. why can't you do the online banking and ATM?
What is the use of a full POA if you cannot manage the person's affairs? Maybe you need to see a lawyer.
11:44 am
April 6, 2013
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RetirEd said
...
The paper, watermarks, holograms and microprinting* on bank documents make them extremely difficult to fake. My cheques carry similar features. When my credit union puts images of my deposited cheques on my statements, the images clearly show the errors induced by the copying.
...
smayer97 said
True until someone intercepts the original doc and modifies it. Banks don't check... Again, strictly respond to complaints after the fact. So checks are not that secure from that perspective.
It is also not true. There's no special paper, watermarks, holograms, or microprinting on most bank documents.
The original bank statements I used to receive from the bank in the mail have none of those. Just printing on a preprinted colour form with ordinary paper. Such bank documents are very easy to fake.
Cheques with such features just increase their cost. Holograms are like signatures. They are only effective if one knows what the real hologram or signature looks like. Someone could just substitute a toy hologram sticker that one can buy at a dollar store!
Even better, one can scan the cheque, digitally edit out the hologram, digitally remove the any text on the cheque that says there should be a hologram, and print a new copy. How is a teller supposed to know there was even a hologram?
Those low-resolution cheque images one gets with statements are intended to be informational and not high quality reproductions.
Same with thermochromatic ink that disappears temporarily if one rubs it. If the bank staff don't check the date on the cheque sometimes, they are certainly not going to spend the time rubbing the thermo ink patch to see if it disappears. As well, there is no requirement for banks to image a cheque at 15°C and again at 30°C to detect and record thermo ink.
4:29 pm
October 21, 2013
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canadian.100 said
If you have a full Power of Attorney. why can't you do the online banking and ATM?
What is the use of a full POA if you cannot manage the person's affairs? Maybe you need to see a lawyer.
Basically, because the bank says so. They have put themselves in the position of POA. I said as much to her (the bank rep) and she was silent, did not even offer an excuse. Bottom line, they hold the funds and they control their use and disbursement, like it or not. No reasoning was offered as to why I couldn't use the ATM or online banking, and I was so astonished at the time that I didn't ask. I was also told I couldn't open any other kind of account for her, not even a savings account.
I DID talk to a lawyer, the same one who helped mum with the POA. The lawyer said she was having a similar problem with the same bank in regards to a relative's affairs over which she herself holds POA. She was very interested in the fact that this behaviour was more widespread but had no solution. She speculated that it might be just one bank employee who was saying these things, but I have spoken to the manager and can confirm that it is not.
My plan is to take mum to a credit union and set up another account and we will simply drain out the one at the bank. She is still well enough that I can do this. I have already spoken to the credit union and they are much more cooperative. For the moment, the bank had some usefulness for me, so I have been continuing to deal with them for now, but that phase is almost over now.
I post all this information as a warning to others that your wishes may not be honoured. It's clear that what the bank really wanted was for mum to have a joint account with me. It's actually me who doesn't want that. But it makes life easier for the bank.
6:23 pm
April 6, 2013
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canadian.100 said
…
What is the use of a full POA if you cannot manage the person's affairs? Maybe you need to see a lawyer.
The challenge is that the POA document is just a piece of paper. Just like an unprobated will, it really has no confirmed legal authority.
For wills, there is an established probate process that confirms the will and gives legal protection to those acting on directions based on a probated will. Unfortunately, there isn't such an established "probate" process for a power of attorney document.
A stranger shows up with what looks like POA from a friend that I'm safekeeping some valuable belongings for and wants me to hand over the belongings. I'm not going to comply right away.
It kind of looks like her signature. Don't recognize the witnesses. The stranger says I can't call my friend to confirm because she is unconscious in a hospital in Europe because of a serious car accident. Yeah, right! Come back when you have a court order I can ask my lawyer to verify.
7:10 pm
October 21, 2013
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You are citing one possible extreme, Norman.
But in this case the POA was done with the assistance of a lawyer at the lawyer's office. It's a small town. The lawyer and the witness are known to the bank branch staff as there are very few lawyers in town, maybe five. In addition, the witness who is an employee of the law office sent along a current letter confirming that she had witnessed it and that it was her signature on the original. The POA document was also accompanied by a letter from the doctor specifying that the customer was in need of this assistance from her child and specified my name - a letter I did not even request. What more could anyone do?
If the bank had any legitimate question about the POA, their first course of action should have been to simply call the lawyer's office. They didn't.
While some POA documents may indeed appear questionable, we can't have FIs rejecting them willy-nilly just because they can get away with meddling in the affairs of their clients.
If someone else feels that they are entitled to the POA instead, then they should be keeping alert to the patron's condition and putting forward their case.
Any POA who mis-handles someone's money is legally liable. THAT is the safeguard, not the bank's over-reaching and their assumption that they are wiser than the person who delegated the POA.
In this case, the bank didn't reject it completely. They accepted it, but they put so many conditions on it as to make it difficult to manage - conditions which the customer had never specified and would not have anticipated.
5:25 am
September 11, 2013
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When my parents wanted to give me POA I took them to their bank and we did it all there. Same with their investment guy, he came over to the house and we did up all the docs. Easy peasy, never had any problems, everyone was very co-operative.
I'm happy banks are overly sticky about this, my default mode goes to suspicion as well when someone agrees (or wants!) to have a hand in someone else's finances. A guy up the street lost his (substantial) inheritance. Maybe about 20 years ago, his brother convinced parents to give him POA over the parents' finances (their bad judgement about their several kids), he took all the remaining money just before the last parent died, family still not sure where he took off for, they think maybe out west somewhere.
8:05 am
March 30, 2017
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but the beauty of online and ATM is u dont need the actual person to access the account, so dont understand the bank's stupid adamant about no ATM or online even with a DOA. How do they even reinforce it ??
8:20 pm
November 18, 2017
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Norman1 and Smeyer97: My cheques have all those protections (save for the rubbing ink and eradicator-develeoped tell-tales) and make non-carbon copies that stay in my chequebook. Ordinary statements from some financial institutions are usually on watermarked paper, often special letterhead with particular colors of ink. In any case, they are unlikely to be on the exact same paper I buy to print with at home. Some are printed on color lasers, but pre-printed letterhead is much cheaper for them.
I'm not sure how someone intercepting mail from a bank to me would even know what to alter to enable fraudulent or erroneous transactions. I'm basically concerned with the bank trying to alter records I can't disprove. I'd be happy with asymmetric-key encrypted PDFs if anyone were using them, though I'd keep multiple copies to guard against storage corruption.
Items like certificates and confirmations usually have more protection features. I've never had anyone try to use forensic confirmation on documents I brought to prove my version of events when disputes arose; it was literally "read it and agree."
Savemoresaveoften: This is just a chuckle, not a serious point: you typed "DOA" instead of "POA." It's hard to argue with a DOA* client. 
RetirEd
*Dead on Arrival
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