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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I'd put it as much on the state. From the bank's perspective it's just an ACH transfer. The state knows what it's for and is arguably in a better position to detect anomalies. And the state should be doing better due diligence to verify identities and eligibility.

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States are processing claims in cobol on mainframes from the 1970s. I think you overestimate their data science ops.

They were wiring large amounts of money to people in Oklahoma rather than their own state. That there is no effort put into preventing fraud, which was guaranteed to happen, is down to negligence of the state government. Part of that is on the voters who allocate tax dollars in an idiotic fashion whenever given the chance.

There are plenty of cases where someone would be paid unemployment insurance out of state. The most common one is moving back to be closer to a family support network after losing a job since many people don't have much in the way of savings, at least not enough for a few months rent while they look for work. In most states, unemployment insurance is paid for by employers per worker and after paying in for a certain time, the UI program essentially owes the unemployment benefits to the worker once they lose their job. Where that worker chooses to go with their checks is up to them.

Banks already have fraud protection on credit cards and are responsible for reporting suspicious amounts of depositing (above a certain amount). Thus is the basis of my shock that something similarly obvious isn’t covered.

Why aren't all public transaction public?

Money paid from central government should all be publicly viewable, shouldn't it? Then anyone who wishes could look to see if an account had more than $X or more than $Y transactions, or more than one stimulus cheque, etc?

This is a good question that I’d like answered.

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