Two signatures vs one on a joint account
Bernie Cosell
wife's and my joint brokerage account and they required two signatures. I
wasn't trying to do anything sneaky, but I realized that I don't exactly
understand when *one* of the joint owners can act and when it requires the
unanimity of *all* of the joint owners. [e.g., I know I can withdraw money
from the cash account individually and we do not need two signatures on
checks that draw against the account, but it appears I can't withdraw an
_asset_; I have no idea about whether I could had the broker _sell_ the
asset [depositing the funds into the cash account [from which I could
individually withdraw it].
Are there general rules for what can be done individually and what requires
the consent of all joint owners?
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
ber...@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
nos...@isp.com
>I was a little surprised recently when I went to remove some assets from
>my wife's and my joint brokerage account and they required two signatures.
>I wasn't trying to do anything sneaky, but I realized that I don't exactly
>understand when *one* of the joint owners can act and when it requires
>the unanimity of *all* of the joint owners. [e.g., I know I can withdraw
>money from the cash account individually and we do not need two signatures
>on checks that draw against the account, but it appears I can't withdraw an
>_asset_; I have no idea about whether I could had the broker _sell_ the
>asset [depositing the funds into the cash account [from which I could
>individually withdraw it].
>
>Are there general rules for what can be done individually and what requires
>the consent of all joint owners?
Yes. More or less, at least within the U.S.
(Despite the availability of internet facilitated transactions, wire
transfer and related options, and increasing globalism more generally,
I presume you are not asking about a brokerage or related fund
management account with a financial services institution located in
Switzerland or Liechtenstein or the Cayman Islands or Dubai or the
United Arab Emirates or Israel, etc.)
But surely you must be aware by now that "general" and "general rules"
in this context refers only to what mostly or at least very commonly
and so not always pertains depending on what jurisdiction's law
applies (an issue only often and thus not always dependent on where
the relevant parties reside) AND, for the purposes about which you
ask, (almost) ABOVE ALL on what all the relevant parties have AGREED
(in this instance, of course, on what your and your wife's and the
brokerage institution's written contract[s] between/among one another
state).
Frequently even more importantly (hence the above parenthetical
"almost" qualifier), the sort of uncertainty you express ordinarily
can (and often should) resolved as a PRACTICAL matter by some
elementary advance planning that includes, at the least, reading
carefully institution -with- depositor/customer agreement(s) and also
face-to-face questioning and discussion between the customers and a
knowledgeable/authorized institution officer exactly the sorts of
questions you (in your case some belatedly) pose above.
To the extent your posting requests a summary of what in general U.S.
laws dealing with these subjects provide without regard to what may be
jurisdiction to jurisdiction variation, it is important not to
overlook that almost all such laws in the U.S. these days have been
drafted as the result of banking and related financial industry
lobbying primarily to try to protect such institutions from liability
to their customers.
>From a typical customer's viewpoint, many such (mostly state but in
some circumstances and for some purposes also federal) laws that apply
to the sorts of transactions to which you refer are written in (at
least in effect) potentially contradictory ways.
Indeed, (although one cannot tell only from what you so far post
whether the relationship between the brokerage institution in
question and you and your wife is governed by Va. law) your state's
law is illustrative.
E.g., OTOH, Va. law defines a "joint account" as one which by its
terms shall be payable on request to one or more of two or more
parties without regard to whether the otherwise mutually agreed
terms/conditions of the account refer to any right of survivorship
(re. which "request" is deemed to mean what any one joint owner may
communicate unless the parties have agreed otherwise*).
---------------------------------
* Note, however, that you don't actually say above that
you have verified what would occur if only you or only
your wife were to try to withdraw all funds in what you
seem to suggest is a money-management/investment
account in question.
OTOH, that same law is to the effect that a joint account of two
persons legally married to one another belongs to each spouse
"equally" (i.e., not in proportion to the net contributions of each
joint owner of a joint account of persons who are not married to one
another) but with the additional caveat that "equally" as used in this
context actually is only a presumption which, as such, may be rebutted
by "clear and convincing evidence" of some other allocation . . . .
. . . which brings one back both to the general significance of the
parties' mutually controlling AGREEMENT(s) and, as a PRACTICAL matter,
to what ought be meant by your use of "can" above -- i.e., and as
evidently most relevant to you here, to "what can be done" in two
sometimes significantly different senses:
i) in terms of contract-drafting which, if done (and
do not overlook that "if"), almost certainly will be lawful
including redressable by way of law remediable means
(but the latter of which might entail expense and delay)
and
ii) what the husband and/or wife joint owner very
probably can predict dependably about what one or the
other will be ABLE (unilaterally) to do in the future
(withdraw whatever dollars sums are on deposit s/he
unilaterally chooses? direct the sale of an illiquid
but marketable security or other asset? etc.) AND
what the financial services institution is enabled by
the parties' agreement and by applicable law "can" do
if the institution chooses in its own self-defined self-
interest.
In formal while also potentially very practical terms, it is very
likely that your reading your brokerage account contract will confirm
that you and your had agreed explicitly (regardless whether it can be
argued that this was already implicit by reason of otherwise
applicable law) that the institution may deem each of you and your
wife as the other's agent for the purpose of endorsing, depositing,
withdrawing, otherwise directing the disposition of assets on deposit,
and in all other respects to conduct business for the account and (if
in the circumstances arguably superfluously) also that each you
jointly and severally shall indemnify the from a claim by a spousal
owner to the effect that the bank ought not have acted on the
instructions of the other spouse; etc., etc.
If one would be correct to make such assumptions about your and your
wife's joint account, then your expressed puzzlement about the
different treatment to which the institution subjected you re.
withdrawal of cash (or the equivalent) on deposit and a direction to
sell some particular security would of course be fully understandable.
But what arguably is not (adequately) understandable is your
implication that you had chosen until recently to refrain from doing
the sort of careful reading and discussing/asking suggested above.
In sum, given that currently prevalent realities pretty much
countrywide are that the days of the local banker or stock-broker not
entirely fantastically distilled in Frank Capra's and Jimmy Stewart's
"George Bailey" are long past (and that even the original Messrs.
Merrill and Lynch and Pierce and Fenner and Smith very probably would
be shocked if they were alive today and saw what has become of the
company they created not least in light of how they operated it), a
resumé of what (even if correctly reported about the recent past and
also if correctly predicted for the reasonably foreseeable future)
pertains and probably will occur "in general" will not tell you what,
as a PRACTICAL matter, the bank or other financial institution(s) of
interest to YOU very PROBABLY will (actually) DO in the future if,
e.g., one joint owner your account attempts to withdraw all funds on
deposit or to direct the sale of all the account's marketable
securities or otherwise request action on the basis of an instruction
not communicated by both owners; yet it may also be fair to guess that
your puzzlement can be resolved in a way that may be reliable for the
future less as a matter of trying to gloss present law or of trying
to learn "in general" about rules/regulations elsewhere than via the
sort of direct communication suggested above.
Deadrat
news:mp12s5delguvhjb3s...@216.168.3.66:
> I was a little surprised recently when I went to remove some assets
> from my wife's and my joint brokerage account and they required two
> signatures. I wasn't trying to do anything sneaky, but I realized
> that I don't exactly understand when *one* of the joint owners can act
> and when it requires the unanimity of *all* of the joint owners.
> [e.g., I know I can withdraw money from the cash account individually
> and we do not need two signatures on checks that draw against the
> account, but it appears I can't withdraw an _asset_; I have no idea
> about whether I could had the broker _sell_ the asset [depositing the
> funds into the cash account [from which I could individually withdraw
> it].
>
> Are there general rules for what can be done individually and what
> requires the consent of all joint owners?
>
> /Bernie\
There are probably at least 51 general rules. My wife and I once used a
bank that insisted that JTWROS accounts listed as Deadrat AND Wife required
two signatures and those listed as Deadrat OR Wife required only one. Many
banks have account forms on which you can check one box for one signature
and another to require two.
Figure out how you want it to work and ask the account holder how to effect
that.
AndyS
>
> Are there general rules for what can be done individually and what requires
> the consent of all joint owners?
>
> /Bernie\
> --
> Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
> ber...@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
> --> Too many people, too few sheep <--
Andy comments:
It's been my experience that banks have their own "policies" in such
matters as joint ownership, power of attorney, etc. Some banks have
their own POA forms and may be governed by laws of their state, which
may not be the same state where the depositor resides , making a
"local" PoA effectively unuseable.
I suppose one can always hire an attorney and challenge the bank
policy, and maybe win, but that isn't really an effective way of
dealing
with the situation.
You should ask the bank or investment firm what there policy is,
what your would like to accomplish, and then have the account
re-structured in compliance with whatever makes the wheels turn
smoothly for you. And this should be done with each individual
institution.
It's like paying for your hamburger with a $2 bill, and having the
cashier refuse it because he/she never saw one before. What's in
compliance with the law may not be what the person you are dealing
with understands it to be....... I've even had a cashier at a bank
refuse to deposit a check into a joint account I hold with my wife
because
my wife's signature wasn't on it..... I just went to a different
branch
and did the transaction....
Andy in Eureka, Texas
Seth
AndyS <andys...@juno.com> wrote:
> What's in compliance with the law may not be what the person you are
>dealing with understands it to be....... I've even had a cashier at a
>bank refuse to deposit a check into a joint account I hold with my
>wife because my wife's signature wasn't on it..... I just went to a
>different branch and did the transaction....
I had one try that once (on a non-profit's account that required two
signatures on checks). I pointed out that I could deposit checks with
a rubber stamp and NO signatures, and the deposit was accepted. (The
clerk may have gone to ask an officer, it was year ago and I don't
remember the exact details.)
Seth
Mike Jacobs
> AndyS <andysha...@juno.com> wrote:
> >I've even had a cashier at a
> >bank refuse to deposit a check into a joint account I hold with my
> >wife because my wife's signature wasn't on it
To whom was the check written? For a deposit or other negotiation of
a check or other negotiable instrument, the person accepting that
instrument may require _endorsement_ of the instrument being deposited
by all the "payee(s)" whose name(s) appear as such on the face of the
instrument itself; it does not matter at all whose account it is being
deposited _into_. If the check was made out payable to order of
AndyS, then only AndyS had to endorse it. If the check was made
payable to "Andy and Mary S," then _both_ Andy and Mary had to sign
(endorse) the back of it. If the check was payable only to "Mary S"
then only Mary's endorsement was required. And, a check made out to
"Andy S _or_ Mary S" would be legally acceptable on _either's_
endorsement, without the other. And all that is true whether the
check is being deposited into Andy's account, Mary's account, or Andy
and Mary's joint account.
> I had one try that once (on a non-profit's account that required two
> signatures on checks).
Signatures as _makers,_ I assume Seth means here (i.e. the
signature(s) required in the lower right corner of the _front_ of a
check, when it is drawn on the maker's own account at that bank).
Which, as we now know from the above discussion, is irrelevant to
determining whose signature is required as an _endorsement_ on the
_back_ of the check received from somebody _else_, which one wants to
_deposit_ into one's account.
> I pointed out that I could deposit checks with
> a rubber stamp and NO signatures,
A "signature" is anything that the parties recognize as a mark made by
a person or entity indicating the signer's intent to be bound (by
whatever the legal effect is of affixing that signature). It does
not have to be a florid John Hancock of exquisite calligraphy, for
that matter does not have to be recognizable as a sequence of
individual letters (many handwritten signatures clearly are not
legible if one tries to read them as words, although still easily
recognizable as being a particular individual's unique signature), nor
does it even have to be a pen-and-ink hand-made mark of any kind at
all.
The rubber stamp _is_ a signature, one designed and owned by the
corporate entity that owns the account, and thus when it is affixed on
the back of a check, it indicates an endorsement by that entity but
not by any particular officer of the entity, which should be
sufficient (on a corporate account) for endorsement purposes (assuming
the stamp was previously recognized and accepted as such by the bank
where the nonprofit kept its account). It is extremely common for
businesses of all kinds to use rubber stamps (or, for that matter, dot-
matrix machine-printed endorsements, as they run their daily checks
thru a bank-number scanner) to apply their endorsement signatures to
the instruments they are submitting for deposit.
What I think Seth means is, after he signed on behalf of the corporate
entity by rubber-stamping the back of the check received by that
entity, no _additional_ endorsement was necessary, to deposit that
check into the account of that entity.
> and the deposit was accepted.
Rightfully so, and the teller should not even have questioned the
endorsement by rubber stamp unless there was some basis to suspect the
stamp (or the check that its endorsement was placed upon) was a
forgery. Even so, nobody much cares who deposits money _into_ an
account; the 2-signature requirement (where in effect) applies to
taking money _out_ of the account.
> (The clerk may have gone to ask an officer, it was year ago and I don't
> remember the exact details.)
Probably so. Probably also he or she was relatively new on the job,
if s/he mixed up the 2-signature withdrawal requirement with a 2-
signature endorsement requirement, which would apply only if the check
were made out to 2 separate payees.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Stuart A. Bronstein
> se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
>> AndyS <andysha...@juno.com> wrote:
>> >I've even had a cashier at a
>> >bank refuse to deposit a check into a joint account I hold
>> >with my wife because my wife's signature wasn't on it
>
> To whom was the check written? For a deposit or other
> negotiation of a check or other negotiable instrument, the
> person accepting that instrument may require _endorsement_ of
> the instrument being deposited by all the "payee(s)" whose
> name(s) appear as such on the face of the instrument itself;
May require, perhaps. But under at least California's version of
UCC 4-205 the bank's rights are the same whether the depositor
endirses the check or not.
Further, as you note, under the UCC a signature is any signature
with "actual, implied, or apparent authority..." There is no
requirement that such authority be in writing. So Andy's wife
could have told him to sign her name to the check, and he would be
legally entitled to endorse it on her behalf.
>> (The clerk may have gone to ask an officer, it was year ago and
>>I don't remember the exact details.)
>
> Probably so. Probably also he or she was relatively new on the
> job, if s/he mixed up the 2-signature withdrawal requirement
> with a 2- signature endorsement requirement, which would apply
> only if the check were made out to 2 separate payees.
Maybe it was being mixed up with a second-party check - many banks
these days won't accept a check made to one person and then
endorsed over to the depositor.
AndyS
> To whom was the check written?
Andy comments:
You missed my point.....
It doesn't matter to "whom" the check was written because a cashier
at one brance refused to deposit it and the cashier at a different
branch accepted it...
The whole point was that the interpretation by the "local person" may
differ from the law, or from the bank's policy, and Bernie should find
out what the policy is at each bank he wants to do business with.
If the policy is not the same as his interpretation of the law,
and
it isn't something he wants to put up with , he
should go across the street. There are more banks than Starbucks....
Being "right" is often not worth the effort of having to go to a lot
of trouble in
order to prove it....
Andy in Eureka, Texas
Barry Gold
>> I pointed out that I could deposit checks with
>> a rubber stamp and NO signatures,
Mike Jacobs <mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>A "signature" is anything that the parties recognize as a mark made by
>a person or entity indicating the signer's intent to be bound (by
>whatever the legal effect is of affixing that signature)....
[snip]
>The rubber stamp _is_ a signature...
>...It is extremely common for
>businesses of all kinds to use rubber stamps (or, for that matter, dot-
>matrix machine-printed endorsements, as they run their daily checks
>thru a bank-number scanner) to apply their endorsement signatures to
>the instruments they are submitting for deposit.
Exactly. My father-in-law was a dentist in a solo practice, and hired
a dental nurse to assist him. He went through quite a number of them.
Some left on their own, and some he had to let go. One of the latter
was a woman who, when checks came in the mail, would use the plain
signature stamp ("Dr. Howard Klingstein") instead of the deposit stamp
("For deposit to my account only, Howard Klingstein").
Even after repeated explanations, she continued to stamp incoming
checks with the plain signature stamp. The checks would then sit
around the office (where they could be stolen) for a day or two before
he would get around to depositing them.
The signature stamp was for prescriptions, not for checks, but this
one nurse couldn't keep them straight, or didn't think it was worth
the trouble to follow his instructions and get out the "deposit"
stamp.
So, yes, if the purpose of a stamp is to say, "yes, this is me, I
agree to this," then a stamp is a signature and can be used to endorse
a check.
--
Barry Gold, webmaster:
Conchord: http://www.conchord.org
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc.: http://www.lasfsinc.org
blog: http://goldslaw.livejournal.com/
Mike
> Exactly. My father-in-law was a dentist in a solo practice, and hired
> a dental nurse to assist him. He went through quite a number of them.
> Some left on their own, and some he had to let go. One of the latter
> was a woman who, when checks came in the mail, would use the plain
> signature stamp ("Dr. Howard Klingstein") instead of the deposit stamp
> ("For deposit to my account only, Howard Klingstein").
>
> Even after repeated explanations, she continued to stamp incoming
> checks with the plain signature stamp. The checks would then sit
> around the office (where they could be stolen) for a day or two before
> he would get around to depositing them.
>
> The signature stamp was for prescriptions, not for checks, but this
> one nurse couldn't keep them straight, or didn't think it was worth
> the trouble to follow his instructions and get out the "deposit"
> stamp.
If I ran a pharmacy, I don't think I'd want to accept a prescription
with a stamped signature. It might be legal but I'd not want to take the
chance that it's a fake.
> So, yes, if the purpose of a stamp is to say, "yes, this is me, I
> agree to this," then a stamp is a signature and can be used to endorse
> a check.
Heck, many businesses don't even have a NAME on their stamp for
endorsing checks. They might have a signature stamp for "signing" checks
that they are giving to someone else but I'd say it's rare to have it on
the endorsement stamp. Usually, they'd have something that'd read
something like the following, in a plain text font:
For deposit only
Account: Acme, Inc
Acct #: 123456789
Held at Acme Bank
Barry Gold
>> The signature stamp was for prescriptions, not for checks, but this
>> one nurse couldn't keep them straight, or didn't think it was worth
>> the trouble to follow his instructions and get out the "deposit"
>> stamp.
Mike <prab...@shamrocksgf.com> wrote:
>If I ran a pharmacy, I don't think I'd want to accept a prescription
>with a stamped signature. It might be legal but I'd not want to take the
>chance that it's a fake.
Then it's a good thing you don't run a pharmacy. I recently had a
procedure which required taking some prescription meds in advance.
This was a routine part of the procedure. The doctor's office handed
me a form that was pre-printed with the prescription and stamped with
the DOctor's signature. And very often prescriptions are phoned into
a pharmacy, or sent by fax. The pharmacy may expect to get the
doctor's prescriber ID, but anybody who has gotten a prescription from
that doctor probably has it available anyway.
And, assume you are a pharmacy. You get a prescription form with a
doctor's signature on it. There is no centralized repository of
sample signatures. If it looks legit, you fill the prescription. Now,
it's possible that the patient signed it himself, or got it from some
guy on a street corner. From a practical standpoint, what is the
difference between a stamped "signature" and a scrawled signature that
can't (in practice) authenticate.
(NOte: there is probably an exception for "Schedule II" drugs, opioids
and suchlike. They probably call the doctor's office to verify (and
the doctor's office keeps a copy, IIRC such prescriptions are in
triplicate). Maybe they even look up the doctor in the phone book
instead of relying on the phone number on the prescription itself
(although I wouldn't count on that). Even then... suppose you want to
"prescribe" Vicodin for yourself. You insert an ad and listing in the
yellow and white pages for a deceased doctor, giving your phone
number. You print out a "prescription" form. You make out the
prescription, add a prescriber number (which you got from a real
prescription you once had from that doctor before he died or retired)
and you hand it in at the pharmacy. 45 minutes later, you walk out
with your bottle of Vicodin -- after maybe answering a phone call and
saying, "Yes, this is Dr. Jones. Yes, I wrote that prescription."
If you think this is difficult, I suggest you look up Frank Abagnale
in Wikipedia and/or see the film "Catch Me If You Can".
Seth
Mike Jacobs <mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Apr 18, 4:17�pm, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
>> AndyS �<andysha...@juno.com> wrote:
>> >I've even had a cashier at a
>> >bank refuse to deposit a check into a joint account I hold with my
>> >wife because my wife's signature wasn't on it
>> I had one try that once (on a non-profit's account that required two
>> signatures on checks).
>
>Signatures as _makers,_ I assume Seth means here (i.e. the
>signature(s) required in the lower right corner of the _front_ of a
>check, when it is drawn on the maker's own account at that bank).
Yes.
>Which, as we now know from the above discussion, is irrelevant to
>determining whose signature is required as an _endorsement_ on the
>_back_ of the check received from somebody _else_, which one wants to
>_deposit_ into one's account.
You know that, and I know that. The bank clerk needed to learn.
>>�I pointed out that I could deposit checks with
>> a rubber stamp and NO signatures,
>
>A "signature" is anything that the parties recognize as a mark made by
>a person or entity indicating the signer's intent to be bound (by
>whatever the legal effect is of affixing that signature).
I had endorsed the checks (payable to the non-profit organization, of
which I was Treasurer).
>The rubber stamp _is_ a signature, one designed and owned by the
>corporate entity that owns the account, and thus when it is affixed on
>the back of a check, it indicates an endorsement by that entity but
>not by any particular officer of the entity, which should be
>sufficient (on a corporate account) for endorsement purposes (assuming
>the stamp was previously recognized and accepted as such by the bank
>where the nonprofit kept its account).
Sure; my point was that the clerk didn't want to accept checks for
deposit based on only one person's endorsement.
>What I think Seth means is, after he signed on behalf of the corporate
>entity by rubber-stamping the back of the check received by that
>entity, no _additional_ endorsement was necessary, to deposit that
>check into the account of that entity.
That is correct; however, the checks in question had been
hand-endorsed by me with a pen.
>> and the deposit was accepted.
>
>Rightfully so, and the teller should not even have questioned the
>endorsement by rubber stamp unless there was some basis to suspect the
>stamp (or the check that its endorsement was placed upon) was a
>forgery. Even so, nobody much cares who deposits money _into_ an
>account; the 2-signature requirement (where in effect) applies to
>taking money _out_ of the account.
That was the point of the requirement (to protect the organization
against one rogue officer).
Seth
Seth
Mike <prab...@shamrocksgf.com> wrote:
>If I ran a pharmacy, I don't think I'd want to accept a prescription
>with a stamped signature. It might be legal but I'd not want to take the
>chance that it's a fake.
I suspect it depends on the category of drug involved. Abusable drugs
require much greater care than, say, pure water (bacteriostatic water
is a prescription item in New York).
Seth
Mike Jacobs
> Mike Jacobs <mjacobs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Seth wrote:
> >> I pointed out that I could deposit checks with
> >> a rubber stamp and NO signatures,
>
> >A "signature" is anything
<snip>
> >indicating the signer's intent to be bound
<snip>
> I had endorsed the checks (payable to the non-profit organization, of
> which I was Treasurer).
>
> >The rubber stamp _is_ a signature,
> Sure; my point was that the clerk didn't want to accept checks for
> deposit based on only one person's endorsement.
If that was her rationale, she was incorrect, even on a two-signatures-
required account; so long as the check was made payable to a _single_
person or entity (the NPO you worked for), it only required the one
endorsement on the back.
> >What I think Seth means is, after he signed on behalf of the corporate
> >entity by rubber-stamping the back of the check received by that
> >entity, no _additional_ endorsement was necessary, to deposit that
> >check into the account of that entity.
>
> That is correct; however, the checks in question had been
> hand-endorsed by me with a pen.
Oh, okay. I was confused, I thought you originally said you signed
it with a rubber stamp. On closer reading, I see you only said you
_could_ have signed it with a rubber stamp instead.
However, query, just _how_ did you endorse it? Merely as "Seth?"
Or did you endorse it "Seth, as Treasurer of Nonprofit Organization,
Inc.?"
If you only endorsed it in your personal name, I think the clerk was
correct to question it.
Either a rubber stamp in the organization's name, _or_ your pen-and-
ink endorsement indicating your connection to the organization (and
thus your authority to endorse on their behalf), should have been
okay.
An endorsement must match the names of the payees as written on the
face of the check. If there is any discrepancy, the clerk is doing
the right thing to question further until she is satisfied that the
endorser(s) either _is/are_ the payee(s), or is a person authorized to
act on behalf of the payee(s). In cases where the first endorsement
itself names a new payee, a so-called third-party endorsement, the
scrutiny is even more intense - and of course, both the original payee
(who may not be in the building at the time the check is presented to
the bank for deposit or payment), and all subsequent payees, must
_all_ endorse it on the back.
Also keep in mind the post-9/11 ID requirements that all US banks now
have to insist upon, per the U. S. A. P. A. T. R. I. O. T. Act.
> >> and the deposit was accepted.
>
> >Rightfully so, and the teller should not even have questioned the
> >endorsement by rubber stamp unless <snip>
Which I now understand was a mistaken assumption on my part as to why
she initially rejected it.
> >Even so, nobody much cares who deposits money _into_ an
> >account; the 2-signature requirement (where in effect) applies to
> >taking money _out_ of the account.
>
> That was the point of the requirement (to protect the organization
> against one rogue officer).
Exactly.
Mike
> Rightfully so, and the teller should not even have questioned the
> endorsement by rubber stamp unless there was some basis to suspect the
> stamp (or the check that its endorsement was placed upon) was a
> forgery. Even so, nobody much cares who deposits money _into_ an
> account; the 2-signature requirement (where in effect) applies to
> taking money _out_ of the account.
Actually, I've had issues along these lines with my credit union. When I
first opened the account, if I went into the bank (or the drive-up
window) and wanted to withdraw money, all they were asking was "Name?
Account #?" and maybe a couple other things that were all printed on all
transactions receipts. I complained about the lack of security (and this
was only maybe 4 years ago) and said I wanted ID requested for ALL
withdrawals out of the account that were done through a teller. I could,
easily, have simply picked up a discarded receipt in the parking lot and
been cleaning out someone else's account. Well, they put into my account
to ask for ID for ANY transaction (including deposits) and it took me a
while to get that changed.
I had explained that I didn't care WHO put money IN my account but I
sure wanted them to be certain who was taking money OUT of it.
Now the other credit union I deal with takes a picture of you when you
open an account and it shows on the screen when you do any transactions
at the bank (and STILL asks for ID when making a withdrawal, which I
don't mind providing.) I think that's the way more banks should do
things just to keep things more secure (I don't see it as any 'invasion
of privacy' but I WOULD see 'nanny cams mounted on every street corner
by the government' as such.)