Jingsamichty

I recall a story in London around 1989 when a man found a bank draft for GBP 4 million on the pavement in the City. Not being clued up about what they were, he handed them into a bank where they told him it was as good as untraceable cash. Eventually the issuing bank gave him a reward of a bottle of champagne.

Siouxie

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/a...g-distant-star

Artificial Intelligence, NASA Data Used to Discover Eighth Planet Circling Distant Star

dave_j

I've been mulling this one over and whilst I initially thought the bank was being bloody minded, I'm minded to question why the bank draft was sent in such a cheap and idiotic manner.

When I sold my daughter's house I drove 100km to personally collect the cheque from the solicitors and then personally handed the cheque into the bank. As I've said before, you can't trust anyone to do anything properly and the downside of losing a large sum of money by entrusting it to someone else easily became an unwelcome answer to the question 'What if it gets lost?'.

'WHAT IF?'.........

BristolUK

I dunno, it sounds to me someone like UPS would be (should be) more secure than you. You say you did 100k. Was that each way or 200 total. I believe the distance in the article was 440 so 880 there and back. This cheque had to go 4 or 8 times as far.

Wouldn't one expect a courier company to be well versed in this? Better trained drivers, security procedures, vehicle safer than yours in the event something bad happens....

Much depends on what form the money is but if this cheque is as good cash, what if the secretary tips off some villains that you have a large sum of money and you're followed and deprived of it?

Almost Canadian

It wouldn't benefit them as it is made payable to you so all they would be doing is preventing you from depositing it. While I accept that someone would do that, I can't imagine there are many around that would risk a prosecution for robbery for such a thing.

BristolUK

Well I did say it would depend on what form the money was in my hypothetical example, but isn't the whole point of this story that the cheque is as good as cash? That the wrong person could get hold of it and benefit from the money?

So if it's not going to benefit the wrong person then it isn't actually as good as cash and the payee is the only one who could get the money on the cheque.

If it's impossible to be of benefit to the wrong person then surely it should be the payee in the reported case signing whatever agreement is needed by the bank since he's the one benefiting from it.

Jingsamichty

The bank draft is payable to the holder, not a named payee.

BristolUK

That's the impression I was getting with the "as good as cash" reference.

I should clarify that my use of the word payee was meant as the intended recipient.

Atlantic Xpat

I'm a bit puzzled over the whole bank draft/UPS affair as well. My initial thought was "well if you have $846k to transfer surely there is some way of doing this securely and electronically?". But then, this is the Canadian banking system which is, well, not exactly in the 21st century is it? I recently extended my mortgage which is with one bank although my current account is with another. I was anxiously awaiting funds as I had a builder chasing a stage payment & was told "Oh yes it's all approved, you'll see it online". After a lot of back and forward I came to the realisation that my belief that they would seemlessly transfer it electronically to the other institution was wrong. What I had to do was to go into the branch and collect a draft and take it to the other institution to pay it in.

What's puzzling about the $846k story is that I had the draft made out to me, so had I lost it, no-one else would be able to cash it. It seems baffling that TD would produce a draft payable to bearer? Or at the very least, advise that there are some risks with that approach, especially if you are using a courier! I would have thought that a draft to a named recipient could be cancelled if lost.

Shirtback

^^^ this. The story makes no sense to me as even the sometimes odd & antiquated Cdn banking system does allow electronic transfers of large sums of money.

BristolUK

For both properties I bought in Canada, a week before completion date I made electronic transfers (Swift) from my UK account to my lawyer's account based on my expectation of how much it would be for the full purchase price plus all the technical adjustments. £12 fee I believe.

I carried a few hundred with me on completion day to cover the balance due.

In selling the rental, the (different by then) lawyer brings me a cheque at home which I immediately take to my bank and put through the machine.

Hard to see why that couldn't be done electronically assuming that suits the recipient.

Former Lancastrian

But there again the UK banking is so superior to Canadian banking allegedly
taken from another post in the Immigration section

Under proof of funds the CIC want statements from all accounts (checking, savings and otherwise) showing very specific things - opening date, balance over the past 6 months etc.) However whenever my husband and I try and get this information from our respective banks, they provide us with generic statements and have told us they can't provide us with just the information we need. For our current accounts this can include huge number of pages of incomings and outgoings, which are too large to upload for our application!

Yeah we've just been point blank told (in branch, and over the phone by a supervisor) that they no longer provide letters like that.

So apparently the UK bank cannot/will not provide the following details required

Letter(s) must:

be printed on the financial institution’s letterhead
include their contact information (address, telephone number and email address)
include your name
list outstanding debts such as credit card debts and loans
include, for each current bank and investment account:
account numbers
the date each account was opened
the current balance of each account
the average balance for the past six months

Wanna rethink your statement

Almost Canadian

It would be very rare for such a bank draft to be issued (not to mention completely stupid from the requester's perspective). If that was the case, I can see why they want an indemnity from her.

Having said that, I doubt very much that the lawyer would have agreed to issue one made payable to anyone other then the intended recipient, unless it was agreed prior to drawing it that the intended recipient would retrieve it personally from the lawyer's office.

It appears to me that there is more to this story than has been reported.

BristolUK

A North American set of teeth. Not a pretty sight.

BristolUK

Anyone want to buy a pair of shoes?


I was just thinking about my worn once palace shoes and I remembered this clip.

Some of the ads on kijiji say worn once and one ad says worn once for a funeral. I'm now wondering if they whipped them off his feet before the lid was closed.