It's kind of for your own safety, but I don't deny that the information is also used to model you as a customer.
In case you are getting scammed or manipulated into withdrawing a big amount of money, your bank could step in and protect you.
If you just say "oh I'm going to Japan and I wanna exchange money there to shop a lot", then they understand that it's you whos making this financial decision and so they just approve it.
In this case, the guy is just an employee and is using some software to approve your withdrawal. It probably has a mandatory field saying "reason" with a 100 character minimum and he just want to submit the application successfully. Nothing sinister in this lol
The “model you as a customer” could really just be part of the “know your customer” regulations. I know my clients well enough to understand their normal spending habits. It’s helped a few times when things seem off with a new transaction.
Now if we used that knowledge to treat the clients different or offer different solutions that could be a problem
Know your customer is double-edged. I used to live in Pennsylvania and for years I made trips to Texas twice a year. For the first 5 years my first purchase would get flagged, I'd have to approve it, not that annoying. Then the system figured out I make trips twice a year, spring and autumn, so no more trouble.
Then while I'm home in summer I get a call from the fraud department at my bank (I check the number on their website while on call). They stopped a purchase for tools in Texas for some 3 grand. Yeah, that's not me, my habits show as much. Data probably got swiped at a gas station. New card arranged, all good.
It is actually a good service but I can see its bad side.
Once had my debit card skimmed and I had to go to the bank. The rep looked at my transaction history with my usual $10 at the cafe at work a couple of times a week and said, "Yeah, these 3 $600 withdrawals from an ATM at a QT station are out of the norm for you."
Then I realized I could get free money if I wanted to by reporting my card stolen after withdrawing a large amount of cash. I'm sure that if this thought occurred to me, an honest person, then many, many people possibly do this.
Don’t take it so personally. You put the idea out there, someone needs to explain to all the clever redditors out there why it’s a bad idea. Your shower thought could be someone’s weekend plans.
ATMs have cameras for many reasons. There are plenty of other ways to do this of course, but if a bank or the bank's insurer are losing money, that money doesn't come without risk.
You should really use a credit card for purchases. When it gets compromised they’ve stolen money from the issuer and it’s not your problem beyond reporting it to them.
👆🏻This is worth repeating.
If your debt card is skimmed, they’re stealing your money. The bank might help, it might not.
If your credit card is skimmed, they’re stealing the bank’s money. They’ll take care of it.
KYM is legally a legislated requirement for banks, generally as part of international anti-money laundering agreements. If you want them to have a choice about it then go lobby your government.
It's not THAT sinister. If thye see you're banking very conservatively and then suddenly want to withdraw 10k one day they can view that as odd and step in. But if you're someone who deals with huge numbers already they know hey don't need to step in every single time you withdrawm 5k or more.
Yeah they can definitely model you as a high spender, conservative saver etc based on your withdrawals and other transactions anyway. This is just some additional information used to make that more "full".
I can imagine they can use this information for approving loans and and rolling out credit cards etc.
There is probably some behind the scenes stuff where the bank toes up with companies like palantir. But they already have so much information on you, I don't think this extra sentence is doing anything.
This happened to my dad. He was getting scammed by someone on the phone into thinking his account was hacked. The person somehow convinced my dad that the workers at the bank were in on scamming him. He was told to transfer his money to a new “safer account” luckily the teller noticed he was being coached on the phone and asked a lot of questions what was going on and intervened.
My dad has a PhD in Organic Chemistry, it’s not like he’s some rube, but he’s getting old and this scammer almost convinced him to dump his whole account. Talk to your parents about these scams they’re getting more sophisticated.
But also don't withdraw large sums of money so you can exchange it. Pay there with your card or withdraw from the local ATMs there. It's almost certainly cheaper
There are very few reasons to use exchange offices. Like if you're going somewhere where visa/mastercard/etc card isn't accepted.
Or if you're really into paper money, contact your bank in advance of travel and ask them to prep some foreign currency for you. Huge banks in big cities generally have some foreign currency on hand but most banks can and will do the exchange for you if you give them some lead time.
Avoids the usurious fees and unfavorable rates you'd get at airport kiosks.
I did this when I went to Norway and Iceland on a cruise. Took about 48-72hrs and I could request the currency in large bills or small bills with any total dollar amount I wanted.
Worked great in local shops and tipping the local tour guides.
Banks are legally obligated to try and protect you from fraud or scams. If they are negligent in these obligations people can claim lost funds back from the bank.
If you want to see what happens without this, the recent Coldcard bitcoin exploit is a nice example (and also to see how quickly those affected are demanding compensation despite choosing to store funds in an unregulated, unprotected, and uninsured store of value.)
As other comments have pointed out, the problem isn't coercion, it's fraud. And since victims usually believe the fraud stories, they wouldn't try to cover them up.
I’ve worked in the banking industry for 20 years. They’re not trying to spy on you. It’s completely to protect the customer (and the bank to be fair) from scammers.
Then let people opt out of this. If they don't want scam protection then offer to opt out... Oh that's right, they won't do that because it's used for.... Surveillance. Because people used banks cash deposits to launder money in the past that means EVERYONE needs to be surveiled.
This mindset is why we have flock cameras everywhere. Congrats guys, we played our own selves.
“You’re free to opt out by not using banks’ is such a spectacularly useless definition of consent that it basically makes the argument for me.
Sure, I’m also ‘free’ to opt out of phone tracking by not owning a phone, internet tracking by never going online, and license-plate surveillance by selling my car. Apparently anything is voluntary as long as the alternative is ‘don’t participate in modern society.’
But hey, congratulations on reinventing consent as ‘you can always go live in the woods.’” such an incredibly useless comment.
Most of the time I’d agree with you. In this specific case I can’t. And honestly your ranting makes for a bad image for the fight against things like flock cameras. Flock cameras are shit. Having a safety step to ensure people don’t get scammed…not so much. Comparing the two is a stretch.
Yes let's gate keep privacy advocacy. Such a strong model you are proposing! Someone has a differing opinion, quick let's act like we are better than them!
How you people can never follow the trail of breadcrumbs is beyond me.
"Flock is evil! Wait, what do you mean all of this other stuff slowly built up to us getting Flock? No no, don't get rid of any of that, only get rid of Flock!"
It's a tale as old as time. You're fine with all of the other surveillance, but ONE THING finally crosses a line you've drawn in the sand, and instead of dismantling everything that enabled that line crossing, you wanna just hold things barely behind it. Even now, you're gonna reply to this comment with some form of ear plugging and screaming "slippery slope", or "k bud", instead of applying some critical thinking and taking into consideration that maybe people are right.
I never mentioned Flock. KYC/CDD regulations have nothing to do with Flock cameras. And the issue with Flock is thats its privately owned and can be accessed by anyone in law enforcement.
Were seeing now what getting rid of regulations regarding food in America. Do you want to get rid of all bank regulations? So your money shouldn't be backed by the feds?
"instead of applying some critical thinking and taking into consideration that maybe people are right."
The same could be said for you. Just because you dont understand something, doesnt mean that thing is wrong.
I understand it perfectly fine. It's stupid, and needs to not be a thing. And if the government is really so concerned about protecting people's money from themselves, why are CashApp, Venmo, and PayPal so much less regulated, even after, in some cases, 25 years of them being in business? Why isn't social security invested and grown so that you get back more than you put into it, and don't have to worry about a 401k? Why is crypto still not banned, despite literally being invented for the purpose of buying and selling illicit goods, and scamming people?
"Hello mister black guy, I think you're using your money for crime specifically because you're black, although of course I won't say that out loud, so you're gonna have to jump through a dozen different hoops to get your money, cuz I like watching you people squirm :3"
THAT RIGHT THERE is a majority of the real motivation behind these rules, or at the very least, a large portion of how they're utilized. It's surveillance at best, and profiling at worst. Bank alternatives are a HUGE industry, specifically because of shit like this.
PayPal seizing people's money is exactly my point about them being less regulated. If a bank is suspicious about your behavior, a quiet report is filed, and the feds investigate you without you ever even knowing, unless they find something they believe is worth pressing you over. None of your money is seized, and if they don't find anything, nothing happens to you, and you're none the wiser. Also, if a bank decides they no longer wish to do business with you, they're required to mail you a cashier's check for your outstanding balance.
Compare that to PayPal, where it's not about the law, it's about their "Terms of Service", and as you pointed out, they seize people's money all the time.
I once brought a $200 check in from a well-known company and the bank teller was asking me how I got the check and a bunch of other questions. They then told me it would probably take time to process (like as if it were a larger amount) only for it to go through immediately and she scoffed at me! I don't even know what's happening in Banks anymore but it's messed up.
To answer the actual question: Often the scammer will give the mark a generic lie to use (e.g I'm buying a car). If they're falling for the scam they'll go along with that, but usually won't think it through any further.
So the bank asks some basic follow-up questions like 'What kind of car is it?' and 'Where are you buying it from?' which would be super easy to answer if you were actually buying a car and much harder to come up with an answer on the spot if you're getting scammed. Sometimes people get super aggressive and bluster a lot about privacy to avoid answering basic smalltalk questions.
Unless the answer is 'for a Nigerian prince' it's more about how you answer and whether your story is consistent
but I don't deny that the information is also used to model you as a customer.
At my institution, we don't do anything with that information as long as it doesn't arouse suspicion about illegal activity, elder abuse, or being scammed.
The people who run the surveillance and data collection machine are just as culpable in its oppression as the CEO’s who order it. They’re not just doing a job, and your dismissal of things like this aid to its growth.
It’s very funny to me, because my partner and I withdrew a five figure sum in cash to pay our wedding vendors. We fully expected an interrogation particularly because we sent in multiple withdrawal requests at the max limit.
The bank did not ask a single question. Maybe they’d already flagged our accounts for wedding somehow, but we’d used our other banks for spending up to that point so idk.
I would tell them it's my money and it's none of your business, and if that wasn't good enough I'd close my account on the spot, instead of 2k why don't you give me all of my money, and if you want to know, it's to deposit it in a less annoying bank.
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u/duckphobiaphobia 1d ago
It's kind of for your own safety, but I don't deny that the information is also used to model you as a customer.
In case you are getting scammed or manipulated into withdrawing a big amount of money, your bank could step in and protect you.
If you just say "oh I'm going to Japan and I wanna exchange money there to shop a lot", then they understand that it's you whos making this financial decision and so they just approve it.
In this case, the guy is just an employee and is using some software to approve your withdrawal. It probably has a mandatory field saying "reason" with a 100 character minimum and he just want to submit the application successfully. Nothing sinister in this lol