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Comment by maxaf | Hacker News Reader

This can't possibly be legal or even technically feasible. The victim can call her bank and report a fraudulent transaction, which pits the bank against a warrantless seizure that's impossible to defend in court. Surely banks can catch on and frontload an "identity protection" mechanism that'll simply block transactions from anything matching "ERAD" or however they identify themselves to the ACH.

It's doubtful that local or state PDs have enough political pull or money to battle banks over this through the court system.

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> which pits the bank against a warrantless seizure that's impossible to defend in court

Your argument could equally be applied against regular (cash) civil asset forfeiture. The outcome is the same either way.

"Sorry, it was authorised by the authorities, nothing we can do".

You'll be short of the money until you sue, same as in regular civil asset forfeiture. When you do sue, you'll have to prove that you're entitled to the money, same as in regular civil asset forfeiture. What you get back will be less legal fees, same as in regular civil asset forfeiture.

> it was authorised by the authorities

It was not authorized by the card holder or a court order, so it is fraud.

> It was not authorized by the card holder or a court order, so it is fraud.

Sorry, you're wrong. I've had the IRS steal money directly from my bank account to pay for taxes (and fees, and fines) I didn't owe. The bank won't help you, and I had to pay a tax lawyer $1,800 to get back $3,200 in taxes (and fines) from the IRS for a stock sale I never made.

The bank treats withdrawals by government agencies as legitimate transactions. They won't recognize it as fraud, and you won't get the money back from the bank.

I think the IRS is a special case; I'd add them to the list I gave above.

A local police department or city government does not have this power.

Update: few more examples: http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/bankruptcy/wage-garnishm..., apparently this is quite common; still don't think PD can do it for this reason

The IRS should NOT be a special case. They should also pass trough a court (for what it's worth).

The 'authorities' you're referring to, do not in fact have any legal authority to conduct that transaction. You're wrong entirely in your premise. What they're doing, is using force to steal property without any authorization.

The line you'll get in fact will not be that it was authorized by the authorities and there's nothing that can be done. Banking is federally regulated, it is not regulated by the state police in Oklahoma. The matter of jurisdiction when you start fraudulently stealing from bank accounts (which in many cases would naturally also be out of state and otherwise national banks, and or even virtual banks) is without question: it's a federal matter.

Cash and card are not the same. The very obvious difference between cash and card is that you can charge back via a card. The cash is physical and must be physically recovered from their possession (protected by their guns). That's a very substantial and fortunate difference for the card holder.

Asset forfeiture is explicitly provided for by the law in most states. It can and does routinely stand up to being challenged in court.

If it's against prepaid cards not all have the ability to dispute transactions.

What incentives do the banks have to fight on behalf of their customers?

Every time I've had a fraudulent charge on my account, I've contested it and had the money returned to me. I can only assume that in some cases the bank simply bites the bullet and writes this off as a cost of doing business. There's probably an upper limit to their general benevolence. Given enough fraud-like losses stemming from asset seizure, the reasonable action would be to simply block the charges before they can post to the customer's account.

My bank does call me every now and again to verify charges on my debit card. Some of these calls make me wonder if the system has a hair trigger, which also means it's probably smart enough to just blanket block anything that looks like an asset seizure. This can't be too difficult, and will save banks money. The incentive to save money is a powerful one and has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting customers.

This is not a fraudulent charge, though. It's perfectly legal, under state law.

Exactly, if a bank blocked the charge it would be conceivable that they could be charged with conspiring with a criminal or some business of that sort. It would be so much easier and safer to just let the police take the money and say 'sorry, there's nothing we can do.'

The constitution trumps state law. This is illegal everywhere in the US.

Yes, and this would fall under the 4th amendment, but until it makes it to the SCOTUS the practice is going to be alive and well.

True but it will always be illegal.

Yup, but the fun part of constitutional rights being violated is you can continue to do so until the SCOTUS declares said legislation unconstitutional. Checks and balances are great, but they really don't work as well as they should.

You've entered into federal territory here. Banks are not regulated or controlled by the Oklahoma State Police, they're regulated by the Federal Reserve, Congress, the Treasury etc.

Once the state police start stealing funds from banks, they're very obviously crossing a line that will quickly get the Feds involved on a 'personal' level. It's actually a plus, the big boys in banking (which rule over an increasingly larger share of all banking nationally) will put an end to the state police theft very quickly as the numbers climb. Wells Fargo or JP Morgan, as far as the federal authorities are concerned, are drastically more powerful than the lowly Oklahoma State Police.

>You've entered into federal territory here. ... will put an end to the state police theft very quickly as the numbers climb

until of course they make a "profit sharing" deal with federals similar to the one in supposedly DEA related asset forfeitures performed by locals.

If it's a wire transfer then there's not much your bank can do. The money is gone by the time you have them on the phone just as much as if you had sent it to a Nigerian Prince.

> The victim can call her bank and report a fraudulent transaction

This only works to seize the funds on prepaid cards, not bank accounts.

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