Selling a car to an overseas buyer.

[Spinal]

News to me, a bankers draught is a cheque backed by the bank, as mentioned earlier, as long as you do the deal at your own bank, and get them to phone and verify the BD is legit you are in the clear. Can't see how anyone can dupe you with a forgery in that scenario.

With international bankers drafts, it can take days, weeks and months for your bank to "find' the forgery. They don't just call over, the actual draft is used.

Now immagine what would happen if I were to print a BD from MBclub Bank in Nigeria... how long would my bank spend trying to find/contact MBclub bank before realising it doesn't exist?

M.

 

[NISFAN]

Hmmm, that is probably why I said recognised bank. Like it would be OK for Santander, etc.

 

[tylerdurden]

best way is bank to bank transfer using BIC/IBAN

unlike a cheque, its fully cleared funds the minute it hits your account. Well thats my understanding

 

[Spinal]

Hmmm, that is probably why I said recognised bank. Like it would be OK for Santander, etc.

Again, there is no system in place for a teller to just "call up" the bank in Spain. It needs to go through the proper challens which takes a while. "Ringing up" would be as close as you get to a "wire transfer" (which got it's name from the copper wire used in the olden days for the message to be sent. A bit of trivia: checksums were also invented/used then, when a transfer occured some "random" numbers were also sent, to verify the authenticity of the message. Only the sender and recipient would know that the numbers would equal all the digits of the transfer accounts added together, or some other code. Hence, if the someone at one of the repeaters modified the transfer, it could be detected)

best way is bank to bank transfer using BIC/IBAN

unlike a cheque, its fully cleared funds the minute it hits your account. Well thats my understanding

Again, bank transfers also have issues. A common scam is to use a stolen bank account. Another is to cash in a large foreign cheque from a "fake" or nonexistent bank. Let's say Bank42 is the fake bank and BankH is the real bank.

I'll print a cheque drawn on Bank42 funds, in China (much less suspicious than Nigeria, but with different enough systems and regulations to throw a spanner in the process). I will cash this into a real account at BankH (set up just for this under a fake identity), which is a real bank. BankH will duly put the money in my account a few working days after, with a note saying that the money can be reversed at any time until they cash the money from Bank42.

I then initiate a wire transfer to the sellers account/bank, the money goes through, I pick up the car, ship it to Nigeria and dissapear into the woodwork.

A few weeks later, the whole thing is discovered to be fraudulent and money is lost all round. Depending on the legal rights in the various contries, the banks may need to stump up the money, but more often than not, it's the seller that's out of pocket.

M. (not a bank robber by career... I do ITSec consultancy... some of the work I do is for the PCI)

 

[tylerdurden]

Does that also apply to a SWIFT transfer. I thought that was cleared funds only

 

[robpow]

Does that also apply to a SWIFT transfer. I thought that was cleared funds only

Just wondering, does it matter how secure or 'cleared' the transfer is if it's the originating instruction that's forged? Let's say someone hacks my bank account and wires a couple of grand to someone, I then find out a week later and tell the bank that it's a non-authorised transaction. Would they go try and claim the money back?

I guess it comes down to what, if any, transfer methods are treated as cash. Using that analogy when the money has left the account it's like you have given away a wad of cash with no hope of getting it back. The more options for clawing the money back from the seller such as with credit cards the harder it is for the seller to be sure he's going to get to keep the money.

 

[Spinal]

Just wondering, does it matter how secure or 'cleared' the transfer is if it's the originating instruction that's forged? Let's say someone hacks my bank account and wires a couple of grand to someone, I then find out a week later and tell the bank that it's a non-authorised transaction. Would they go try and claim the money back?

I guess it comes down to what, if any, transfer methods are treated as cash. Using that analogy when the money has left the account it's like you have given away a wad of cash with no hope of getting it back. The more options for clawing the money back from the seller such as with credit cards the harder it is for the seller to be sure he's going to get to keep the money.

It depends on the country's legislation. In some countries (I believe the UK being one, but don't quote me on that. I can find out though if you wish.) the bank would need to stump up the money. That said, if the bank can prove that you enabled the attack (i.e. giving away your PIN, credentials, etc) then the responsability may fall on you. (and by stump up the cash I mean refund you and then hire a firm to recover the money)

The big problem lies when you start doing international transactions, as most of these are. The UK is actually quite a nice place to bank, and consumers are relatively well protected. I know that for forged cards, the bank would need to stump up the cash (or their insurance company).

So far, UK banks have found it cheaper to insure against fraudulent transfers than actually spend real money fixing it. That said, fraud is on the rise, and of growing concern to all in the financial industry (just look at the PCI DSS (payment card industry data security standard), which has gone from practically nothing to a "rule you must obey or pay crippling fines" in just a few years). In countries like Japan, biometric, 3-factor authentication and 2-way authentication are all quite commonplace (i.e. fingerprints, or retina (something you ARE), a token you OWN (e.g. a card), a password (something you KNOW) and the bank showing pictures you chose in your browser).

Regarding SWIFT: I'll be frank; I'm not sure. I'm not that familiar there as I tend to deal more with cards. I can ask though if you wish; there are a few people in my team with banking backgrounds which will surely know...

M.

 

[Benzowner]

My son sold his car to someone living in France, I sold my BMW motorcycle also to a Frenchman. On both occasions, cash only and when the banks were open so we could pay the money in to see if that was counterfeit. Can't be too careful.