1. Apply for loan under Bob Smith's name using stolen/forged identity
2. Company providing loan will only send to a bank account in Bob Smith's name
3. Provide the company with Bob Smith's real bank account details
4. Message Bob Smith, "oops, we accidentally sent you $x in error! please send it back"
5. Bob Smith now on the hook for proving they didn't apply for a loan
Bob fell for a con by transferring money to someone
So even if the loan is forgiven to bob (which it should be), the bank could argue that those funds that were transferred were bob's own money, not the loan
You don’t need to prove that you didn’t create the loan. It’s up to the company to prove that it was you. Having private information isn’t enough. At most you need to file a police report to expunge it off your credit report.
$250k is also the amount that involves the Feds. Most scammers won’t hit that amount since they know the state/loc police don’t have the capability/resources to investigate electronic funds transfer type scams.
Creating a bank account (fully, not just the application to do so) generally requires going into a bank branch. At least in Australia and UK anyway.
Going into a bank branch would mean real potential risk for a scammer, as they'd then be caught on camera. And if the bank figures out they're a scammer before hand... potential police waiting.
My point being that the post you're replying to makes a good point. A scammer could do a bunch of things that aren't all that risky, compared to creating an account in person... which seems like it would introduce a _lot_ more risk.
Regular banking is pretty indifferent to the future profits of a new account that can pay out cash as it examines risk, while a loan salesman's interest in believing he has a sale..
Also pushing $250k to a bank/sweep account won't set anything off because the risk to FI handling the money is minimal. There's minimal risk it can be clawed back and the risk is on the FI that pushed the money. If you pull the money, thats a different story due to rules around ACH clawbacks. I assume fidelity lets you fund your account with no max though a push either ACH or Wire but to pull, you're limited to $50k or a lower amount per day. If you try to transfer that money out from a pull, it will get locked down till the ACH clawback period expires.
Not true, wheres the bank branch for ING? https://www.ing.com.au/
I did say generally requires going into the bank in person though. ;)
And your scenario doesn't match the original:
> There is a scam where people put money into your account.
The constrained message length and lack of edit feature on Twitter means you have to forgive people if their wording isn't exactly as accurate as you might want it to be.
If the person does look up the details and just transfers the money back to the loaning bank, that doesn't cost the scammer anything.