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Comment by OutOfHere | Hacker News Reader

Never keep more money in your checking account than you can afford to lose. Based on my reading of the news, it often gets stolen.

There is however the question of a potential negative balance. For this, do not allow overdraft protection beyond a small amount. Also, don't have a linked account such as a savings account that gets used for potential overdrafts.

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Or do.

If a victim of fraud, file a police report, go to the bank with it and get your money back. Then change banks as they are incompetent.

It's the banks problem now.

It's always the banks problem to keep your money safe and authenticate things.

It's insane this kind of theft is possible.

Also, OP got the money back:

"two and a half months after the theft — the stolen $5,000 was back in my account."

After a fairly ridiculous roundabout.

You deserve to lose it. Not everyone gets it back.

I wont, in europe its pretty much impossible to do that identity theft scam.

Someone taking cash off my debit card would need to do it via 3d secure and me approving it via phone.

Someone doing this via check in a bank would get them laughed off... I'm not sure people even know what those are still.

Someone trying to use my identity to withdraw money at a bank agency... they'd need an inside man and police would catch that idiot on complaint... plus since corona going to bank agency is via appointment...

I can also complain to government entities if banks wont help, that would lodge official complaint from consumer protection agency and they need to do due diligence to not get fined...

That's great. The original comment was exclusively in the context of the US. It's a backward country with inconsistent use of ID verification.

The customers are not the problem. The banks are. Having worked with and for banks around the world, I can say with some confidence that US banks are soooo far behind most Western and Asian banks. Heck, even many African banks outshine US banks in terms of IT infrastructure, security, and customer features.

Then where do you put it?? Your couch??

Have several bank accounts. Keep the bare minimum in your day to day account, and higher sums in the other ones.

Amusingly, there are languages where the word for bank and couch are the same: bank (Dutch).

You know you can have more than one bank account.

You can have separate account that doesn’t have any cards attached.

Give that account number to your employer and then when you need transfer amounts to account with debit/credit cards.

With regard to a separate account, I would consider having one of these, in order of most preferred to least preferred:

1. An investment account to move money into, even if it's not invested.

2. A savings account at a second bank from which transactions or even withdrawals cannot be done, only transfers to your checking account at the first bank can be done.

3. A CD (Certificate of Deposit) at a bank, although this locks up your funds for the designated time.

Any checking account leaves you most at risk.

With the attitude that you have, a couch or even a shoebox will do. For others I will advise other choices.

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