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Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

You’re exactly right. It’s the same reason we’re required to sign checks then the bank promptly ignores the signatures. It’s cheaper to handle the fraud than check the signatures, but it makes us feel good to do it anyways.

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I wish - a few years ago I was trying to pay for rent with a cheque and it bounced. I ended up sending another cheque, having that one get rejected, go into the bank and give them a new signature sample, and then have the next cheque be rejected as well due to the signature.

Apparently my bank checks cheques.

Yes, Indian Banks too check Signatures on anything submitted to them.

I once had to deposit cash in my own account but in different city in India. It was free if I deposited it, but fees for anybody third party. Cashier told me my signature doesn’t match with whats on file and thus either I need to re-sign or need to pay fees.

Here in US I have seen policies in Stores saying we accept check, but we will onetime use the account & routing number on check to pull the amount. I am so confused if by merely giving someone a cheque they are able to “pull” money from just two numbers, and can do it for any amount & any number of times.

> I am so confused if by merely giving someone a cheque they are able to “pull” money from just two numbers, and can do it for any amount & any number of times.

That is exactly how checks work. It's optimized for happy-path, with a big mess of a process to handle fraud. The cash equivalent would be to carry a bucket with all your money and when you pay, you present your bucket so that the shop can pull out the amount you and them agreed on.

"Optimized for happy-path" is true, but it also reveals something pretty neat about the American financial / business climate.

"Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

Default trust / happy-path optimization in turn works because of the backstop of a strong legal system, fairly clear precedent, and reasonably well defined property rights. Think: UCC across states; standardized Delaware Chancery precedent; etc.

One reason I'm not a cryptocurrency or smart contracts believer is that the robust exception-handling backstop we have in the US is a mostly-invisible but super-valuable resource.

You can expand that to other systems. For example you can walk onto a city bus in many cities without proof of payment. It is assumed the vast majority of people will have paid by tapping their transit card somewhere, or purchasing and activating some mobile-based e-ticket. Same with many commuter trains. The result is faster more streamlined service for everybody.

I find the cryptocurrency "space" fascinating for reasons like this. Because cryptocurrency gets rid of so many of societies long-evolved backstops, it is a perfect demonstration of why our society is structured the way it is and shows exactly what happens when we remove many of its features (eg: removing "trust" is very expensive).

I was initially taken aback by Moscow's gates for the subway but in restrospect they make sense and fit that model. They are (were?) gates that default to open, and stay open if you insert the token/pass. Otherwise they slam shut right in front of you. During rush hour, it's brilliantly simple as the gates just stay open as people pass through. (As a tourist, it was more "interesting" to get the occasional misfire and have it slam right in front of my legs, but that's a different story.)

> "Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

Does it though? I think there's a reason we've stopped accepting cheques - cheques were the best "easy" way to transfer relatively large sums of money at once, now that we're past that and have more secure credit and debit cards cheques are becoming banned. I don't think it was optimized for "happy path" per say, but just for convenience and was the only technology we could manage at the time.

>> "Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

> Does it though? I think there's a reason we've stopped accepting cheques

That's a very specific issue but this is a pretty general fact. With respect to checks, people still write and accept checks, we just have more convenient payment methods. Also checks are still the easy way to transfer large sums of money at many banks. More generally though, just look at how much can be done with a signature under penalty of perjury, and how relatively rarely these are forged. The trust-based system really works decently well in the US.

I just realized something -- the cryptocurrency-maximalist and antivaxx movement are born of a similar phenomenon.

Humans are great at rallying and pushing and making change when they see identify something as wrong in their direct lives. We work as hard as possible, and develop solutions (vaccines, a strong legal backstop). Then, all is well, and the problems we solved are no longer part of our lives because the system works.

Years later a vocal minority becomes very suspicious (they're inflating away my wealth!, autism!) and tries to overhaul the system. Then they learn why we do things the way we do (scams/manipulation/etc, measles) the hard way.

....and only all exists because people believe there's no alternative.

Well yes, but in India it does not work like this. If I give you a cheque for X amount, you cannot use those numbers mentioned on cheque leaf for any more txns. You can get only that X amount with only that cheque leaf.

The "one-time use the account and routing number on the check to pull money" is utilizing the data from the check to perform an ACH pull. There's a specific process called an EFT [1] where merchants can perform an ACH transaction in lieu of a received paper check.

[1] https://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/depository-se...

Canada? Or Common Wealth? Judging from how you spell “cheque”. Signatures still mean something in some countires, just not the US.

Canada. I've never heard of anyone but myself experiencing this issue though.

Apparently my bank checks cheques

One of mine, too; though only sporadically, it seems.

Now those people at the Board of Elections are hard-core about signatures. I've been hassled twice when trying to vote because my signature on their pad didn't match what is in their records.

I have a "good" signature, and one that looks like a doctor writing a prescription. I have no idea which one they're looking for.

I never understood the deal with signatures. Most signatures can be faked if analyzed by an amateur (every business). Sure there are experts who will spot fakes but how many of them are employed where signatures are verified?

I can tell you that I’ve faked a signature in harmless situations a number of times and nobody was the wiser.

I once forgot to sign a check completely, like totally blank signature line. It was cashed just fine.

I wonder if you could argue that that wasn't a valid cheque to the bank then. But then you'd be saying you were claiming fraud against yourself, so somehow you'd still end up the one in trouble.

Probably not. The Clinton-era law that relaxed check verification rules so that we could deposit checks remotely online moved a lot of the burden onto the consumer instead of the bank. That was one of the reasons it was opposed so loudly by consumer groups.

For one payroll, I completely forgot to sign a set of checks for 40 employees. Not one employee came back and said their check did not clear. Scary world we live in.

> the bank promptly ignores the signatures

You're technically supposed to sign and endorse the back of every check you electronically deposit; I have never done this since my bank offered mobile deposit and have never had a check rejected. It honestly just makes me sad.

They’re upgrading this to require you to write “mobile deposit for XYZ bank” as well, so that you can’t double-deposit without getting caught early on.

I mean, whats the point of signing the back of a check? Most businesses don't sign the backs of their checks. They use a stamp that has their business name printed in some ordinary font. At that point you might as well let the mobile app superimpose its own signature or have the ATM apply its own stamp.

My bank upgraded their branch ATMs to accept multiple checks at the same time for deposits. What surprised me was the displayed instructions said one did not need to sign the backs.

I guess the signatures are there in case someone complains? They can just pull the check and see if the signature is legit. But checking every signature is simply too much work.

It's my understanding (from hearsay) that they use software to look at signatures, and use that data as a fraud signal, among other data.

I know some banks actually do check them. Last year, my wife paid a contractor with a check from Ally, and the check bounced because the signatures were not close enough.

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