[HacktionLab] [Ttfa-discuss] Issues with publishing bank details and direct debits.

Adelayde Skidmore adelayde at riseup.net
Fri May 18 16:09:23 UTC 2012


Thanks for the stories. 

I guess I'm flabbergasted that it's not possible to stop the bank from
accepting the requests in the first place. 

"Dear Bank,

Please don't set up any direct debits on my account.

Thank you,

Customer"

Seems sensible enough and surely would save a lot of issues with money
laundering and lost money.  So who recovers that money that was taken
from our account?

Anybody out there know of a type of account where direct debits aren't
allowed?  I guess a savings account...

If there's no corroboration of signature, that's one thing, as digitally
this is harder to do, but surely you'd have to get the person's name...
so this is why people do organisation accounts, because you know the
name, and because the AUDDIS system appears to have no checks beyond
account name, sort code and number: details that anyone can get.  It's
woefully inadequate.

I'll guess I hope Clarkson can put some pressure on them to get this
sorted then, he's got considerably more clout than us lot (sadly).

M



On 18/05/12 15:03, protag wrote:
> On Fri, 18 May 2012 14:18:28 +0100, Adelayde Skidmore
> <adelayde at riseup.net>
> wrote:
>> Anyone else had similar experiences, or had a different story from their
>> bank?
>>
> Hi All
>
> We had this at the 1in12, with our Co-op account.
>
> We went through a whole drama trying to work out a palatable way to
> receive internet donations for our Fire Safety Emergency Work fund - the
> only thing which didn't get blocked was putting our bank account details on
> the front page of the website.
>
> To be fair, we knew it wasn't foolproof (didn't Jeremy Clarkson do the
> same thing, to prove a point in a column, and end up proving the opposite
> point?) but we reasoned any income would exceed any fraud, and any fraud
> would very likely be a problem for the bank more than for us.
>
> All of the above turned out to be true: making it easy for people to give
> us money worked brilliantly, but there were also bogus direct debits which
> the bank had to refund.
>
> Amazingly (it seemed, at first) the items were traceable to identities:
> RAC membership, mobile phones and car insurance etc.
>
> But then I remembered how money laundering works: pay for something with
> dodgy money, then cancel the transaction and direct the refund somewhere
> else. So imaginary money pays for an item or service which is never
> delivered, instead it sets up the scenario where a refund can be directed
> to an imaginary identity, before the money moves on and gets laundered a
> few more times.
>
> Hey ho.
>
> We need something like Paypal for activists but who's going to do that?
>
> cheers
>
> Protag
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ttfa-discuss mailing list
> Ttfa-discuss at lists.aktivix.org
> https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/ttfa-discuss


-- 
--
adelayde at riseup.net
https://we.riseup.net/adelayde




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