Theft | Ted Rall's Rallblog

My Stolen Rent Check Shows Why America Is Broken

May 24, 2024•

When my landlord’s management company informed me that they hadn’t received my rent check, I was surprised. As for most Americans, housing is by far my biggest expense. So of course I noticed when the money vanished from my account. The mystery deepened when I conjured up an image of the canceled check on my bank’s website. There was my check, canceled and endorsed. I sent a screenshot to my management company.

Look closer, they responded. We didn’t cash it. That’s the signature of some random person—not us.

So it was. How could my bank clear a check for thousands of dollars made out to a company like “XYZ Management Corp.” but endorsed by a completely unrelated individual—one who doesn’t work there, natch—like “John Smith”? What were my rights in this situation? The answers to those two questions provide insight into state of a country that has lost its way.

There is a prequel to the first question: how did the thief access my check?

I mailed the check from the mailbox right in front of my local post office. (This, banks say, is a best practice. Clearly not.) When I inserted the envelope, the slot felt weird. I shoved it in as much as I could but I wasn’t sure it went all the way in. Turns out there is a “mail fishing” scam where miscreants put something sticky at the opening of the mailbox and scoop out items like my rent check. It’s one thing to try something like that on a box in the middle of nowhere but here we’re talking about a box a few feet from the door to a Manhattan post office. When thieves are this brazen, law and order is breaking down.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the USPS made mail fishing easier when they replaced the old-fashioned swivel openings up their drop boxes with those with skinny slots, which only take letters, in response to the fear that terrorists like the one who blew up TWA Flight 800 in 1996 would use them to mail package bombs. Actually, neither mail nor terrorists had anything to do with the crash of Flight 800. The impetus for this change was the post-disaster diktat that Postal Service customers could no longer mail items heavier than 16 ounces from letterboxes. The government solved a nonexistent problem and created a new, real one.

Half a lifetime ago, I was a banker. Back in the 1980s, there was no way any bank would clear a check that wasn’t endorsed by the payee. Forgers had to work for their/your money.

Some scoundrels still display good old American ingenuity. They wash your check and change the amount from, say $9 to $9,000, and alter the payee to themselves. But that wasn’t the case with my check. The payee remained the same. The rent was substantial to begin with; besides, when I saw the correct amount of my check go out of my account it didn’t arouse suspicion for weeks, allowing plenty of time for the thief to move my money elsewhere.

The person who stole my check deposited it via a mobile app. Check fraud through mobile banking is costing the banking system over $1 billion a year. And, like mine, many of these bad checks are so poorly executed that any moron who looked at it would flag it. The problem is, no one is looking—only a computer.

You really have to wonder whether this technology is ready for prime time. A 2021 story from Indianapolis is typical: “The type font used to alter the information on the [fraudulent] checks is clearly different than the type used on the rest of each document. And one of the photocopied checks shows the name and address of the original payee were sloppily covered by strips of paper that the perpetrator cut and pasted onto the altered document. As far as con-jobs go, this wasn’t even a good one.” The other culprit is bank executives. Technology that automatically scans for tells like this is available—but it’s more expensive. Those ridiculous bonuses aren’t going to pay for themselves.

A friend in college had a night job clearing checks for a small bank in New Jersey. All the checks went through a scanning machine but the larger sums were personally handled by a human being: Jim. Jim was handsomely paid so, naturally, all the Jims have been replaced by machines. But, like Google AI, the machines don’t do a very good job.

If banks are so allergic to hiring actual people that they’re willing to absorb the resulting cash shrinkage, so be it. But they’re not. They’d rather pass on the cost of the grift to us.

I would name my bank here—but that would only expose me to more bank fraud.

As soon as I became aware that my rent check had been stolen, I got on the phone with customer service. Not only was there no option in the phone tree to report fraud, there was no option to talk to a human being. I hit “0” several times, cursing loudly, and eventually was put through to someone in, I’m guessing South Asia, who had a lovely lilting accent I could hardly understand. She made me understand the bank would mail me an affidavit to sign and return. Which they did, though it contained several major errors. After an investigation, a process that takes months, I may or may not get back my money—which, remember, the bank gave away to some idiot without exercising the slightest iota of due diligence to make sure it was a legitimate transaction. But this should be their problem, not mine. Given that this was 100% their mistake, shouldn’t they have credited my account and gone after the rapscallion themselves? (For the record, I would be happy to testify against this creep in court.)

When the form arrived, I made my way to my local branch where an officer informed me about their hilariously Kafkaesque policy. Closing your account is a major pain, requiring you to notify all your direct depositors and automatic withdrawals of your new account information. But if you refuse, the bank will not consider refunding the lost money unless you sign a form indemnifying them for any and all fraud of any kind in perpetuity. As a worker in the dying field of journalism, I don’t think indemnifying a large transnational bank is smart. Obviously, closing the account is the right move. But if you close your account, the bank said, they have no way to return the stolen money. I asked them to close it anyway—but they can’t due to “pending transactions.” Which won’t clear because the account is blocked.

It’s really quite beautiful, an enigma wrapped in a paradox smeared with poo.
Just another indignity suffered by just a typical consumer in the naked city. And it explains everything that’s wrong with this country: humans replaced by robotic morons, American jobs outsourced to foreign incompetents, systems designed for abuse, security measures that make things less secure, corporations that never accept blame for their mistakes, all the weight of the screw-ups placed on the shoulders of individuals who can’t afford it.

To my landlord: Hopefully I’ll get your/my money back in three months.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

First They Came for the Foreigners’ Bank Accounts

May 23, 2022•

Ted Rall

Adam Smith wrote that the efficiency of markets relies on the free movement of goods. What happens when governments seize property in order to exert political pressure—or out of greed?

A major, arguably the primary, incentive of the capitalist system is that it offers the potential of accruing wealth. Individuals and companies rely on government to maintain order, keep conditions like interest rates stable and protect accumulated assets from bank failures, devaluation, fraud and theft, without regard for the political orientation of their owner. In recent years, however, the United States has increasingly been putting its thumb on the scale for ideological reasons, taking assets by ethically and legally dubious means, and imperiling its reputation as a safe haven for deposits and investments.

From the 62-years-and-counting trade embargo against Cuba to the severing of ties with Iran following the hostage crisis to the isolation of South Africa to punish apartheid, the U.S. has repeatedly turned to economic sanctions in the postwar era. The outright seizure of foreign assets held in the U.S. has increasingly become a part of the mix of pressure tactics.

President George W. Bush took $1.7 billion from Iraq’s foreign reserves in 2003 and transferred an additional $600 million to a slush fund to finance anti-Saddam Hussein factions.

Shortly before the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Moammar Ghaddafi, President Barack Obama ordered that U.S. banks freeze $30 billion held by the Central Bank of Libya and the Libya Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, and use some of the money to fund Benghazi-based anti-Ghaddafi rebel groups, some of which morphed into radical jihadi terrorist organizations.

Obama signed a 2012 law allowing frozen Iranian assets to be made available to settle claims by families of Hezbollah victims in Lebanon. “It is theft … it is like stealing Iran’s money and we condemn it,” an Iranian spokesman said.

Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the country’s sitting president, President Donald Trump attempted a backdoor economic coup in Venezuela with a 2019 order granting opposition leader Juan Guaidó—even though he wasn’t a government official—authorization to dispose of assets and property in U.S. bank accounts under the name of the government of Venezuela.

The Biden Administration recently grabbed $7 billion in deposits at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the name of the central bank of Afghanistan, Da Afghanistan Bank. The Taliban, who seized power in late August, claim they are the new government and that the money should be sent to them so they can, among other things, address mass starvation resulting from the post-U.S.-withdrawal economic collapse. The U.S., however, refuses to recognize the Taliban (or the former regime led by Ashraf Ghani) as the government of Afghanistan.

In February President Biden signed an executive order transferring $3.5 billion to a trust fund that may be used to settle civil claims by the families of 9/11 victims and the remaining $3.5 billion to a second fund that might eventually be drawn down upon by humanitarian aid organizations. China’s reaction received widespread, approving news coverage. “This is flagrant robbery and shameless moral decline. The U.S. should immediately return the stolen money back to the Afghan people, and compensate people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and more who died or suffered losses from the U.S. military invasions,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

As part of its sanctions against Russia to punish it for invading Ukraine, the U.S. has frozen $100 billion in Russian foreign-exchange reserves held at the Fed and moved to seize superyachts, luxury apartments and bank accounts held by oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), co-sponsor of a House resolution urging the sale of frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine that passed by an overwhelming majority, said that Russia should never get them back: “Can we imagine giving all of Russia’s wealth — the yachts, the bank accounts, the villas, the planes — back to Putin and his cronies as Ukraine lies in ruin, as the Ukrainians bury their dead? We cannot imagine doing that. We will not do that.”

Russia, however, has long anticipated American sanctions and has engaged in a policy of “de-dollarization” of its foreign currency reserves to soften the blow. “Crucially, the once-dominant dollar now accounts for only 16% of Russia’s currency reserves, which Moscow has replaced with euros, China’s renminbi, and gold,” reports The New York Times.

Other countries with less than perfect relationships with the United States are searching for ways to keep their assets out of our clutches. Brazil and India are worried about being targeted over their environmental policies. Do we really want to solidify our reputation as a place where your bank account and even your home can be taken by the U.S. government because you are friends with the president of your country at a time when the U.S. and your country aren’t getting along?

Kleptomaniacal economic warfare has also become pervasive within our borders. Police agencies routinely use civil asset forfeiture to take the cars, houses, boats, cash and other property of people they suspect of involvement with crime or illegal activity. More than $68 billion worth of personal property has been seized by cops over the last 20 years within the United States, all without due process. Incredibly, property is not returned even when no charges are filed or a trial ends with a not-guilty verdict.

We may not have much sympathy for Russian oligarchs or people whose flashy lifestyles attract the wrong kind of attention from the police. But it’s not hard to imagine a not-distant future when the government might seize an average law-abiding citizen’s middle-class house because they espouse the wrong politics. The way things are going, we may soon see an ill-considered tweet lead to someone’s bank account being frozen and the assets redirected to some bureaucrat’s favorite cause.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, “The Stringer.” Order one today. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Still Trust Them? Now the Government Is Tracking You So It Can Steal Your Car

January 29, 2015•

Ted Rall

According to federal government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, federal and local law enforcement agencies are using incredibly sneaky technology to track you as you drive the nation’s streets and highways. Their goal? Stealing your car.

This latest scandal — a mash-up of privacy violations on a wide NSA-like scale, corrupt asset forfeiture programs that make a mockery of the U.S. as a nation that respects private property rights, and brazen targeting of lawful gun owners — is a perfect political storm, an outrage that ought to bring liberals, libertarians and conservatives together in an alliance of freedom-loving people against an out-of-control government.

Given the collective shrug elicited by the Edward Snowden revelations, however, expecting a big reaction may be unrealistic.

In the shell of a nut: the ACLU has learned that the DEA and local police departments are scanning every motorist’s license plate as they drive down American streets. The NYPD and LAPD have each already collected hundreds of millions of time- and place-tagged license plate scans. One private security corporation sells its composite list of 2 billion scans to any police department or government agency that wants it. The Department of Homeland Security is teaming up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build and maintain a national database of license plate data to be shared with other parts of the U.S. security state apparatus.

Aggregated and analyzed, license plate tracking data forms a sophisticated model of your, and my, and everyone else’s habits, associations, shopping habits, friendships, and other activities. If you visit a porn store, they know — and their algorithms can predict when you’ll go again. But blackmail is not what’s on the cops’ minds…not for now, anyway.

They want your cash.

“Asset forfeiture” programs have become big business for law enforcement. Relying on dubious interpretations of the Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, American police agencies are taking in billions of dollars a year from people they arrest. “Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing,” according to The Washington Post.

Total take: $5.3 billion.

If you think they’re confiscating the mounds of coke and machine guns they find in a drug kingpin’s trunk, think again. Pulled over for DUI? They take your car, sell it at auction and pocket the proceeds, or keep it for the cops’ own use. That’s on top of whatever jail time and fine the judge hands you if you get convicted.

Even if you’re found not guilty, they keep your car. And/or your cash. And/or jewelry. Anything valuable. Anything they want.

“No criminal charges are necessary for such seizures, and under federal and state laws, authorities may keep most or all seized assets even in the absence of formal charges. Countless innocent Americans have been victimized by what critics call legalized government theft,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Police have made cash seizures worth almost $2.5 billion from motorists and others without search warrants or indictments since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” says the Post. “Police spent the seizure proceeds with little oversight, in some cases buying luxury cars, high-powered weapons and military-grade gear such as armored cars.”

Talk about un-American: these renegade robber-cops are traitors.

Police have been so pleased with the money and other goodies they nab through asset forfeiture programs that they send officers to seminars that teach them how to maximize their take. Some victims have complained, and successfully proven in court, that they were targeted and entrapped by police whose motivation to detain and arrest them was solely to steal their possessions — but it’s expensive and time-consuming.

Among the money-making schemes cooked up by greedy cops was a 2009 plan by the DEA to “work closely” with officials of the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) “in attacking the guns going to [redacted by government censors] and the gun shows, to include programs/operation with LPRs [license plate readers] at the gun shows.”

But the DEA and ATF didn’t care about gun violence. “One internal email acknowledged that the tracking program’s primary purpose is civil asset forfeiture,” the Journal reports. They planned to set-up checkpoints around gun shows, search attendees’ cars using the pretext of a traffic stop, and arrest drivers on whatever charge they can come up with — some legit, others ginned up, in some cases no indictment at all — as an excuse to take their money and their cars. Which, even if they beat the rap, the cops get to keep.

Note to self: carry $5 in cash, use a debit card.

The UK Guardian reports: “According to DEA documents, the primary goal of the program was to seize cars, cash and other assets belonging to criminals. However, the [license plate reader] database’s expansion ‘throughout the United States,’ as one email put it, also widened law enforcers’ capacity for asset forfeiture.”

“It’s deeply concerning and creepy,” lawyer Clark Neily of the libertarian Institute for Justice told the newspaper. “We’re Americans. We drive a lot.”

It is also disgusting, cause for the immediate firing of every “law enforcement” official who has overseen an asset forfeiture program, and a perfect illustration of why only an idiot would trust the government.

(Ted Rall, syndicated writer and cartoonist for The Los Angeles Times, is the author of the new critically-acclaimed book “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan.” Subscribe to Ted Rall at Beacon.)

If Iranians Were Like Us

June 18, 2009•

Ted Rall

This came out of a conversation with fellow cartoonist Matt Bors about how Americans who sat on their asses when Bush stole the election(s) are applauding Iranians who take to the streets in the same situation.