Online banking creeps

Press the ENTER button and zoom!  Your money is transferred to any person or bank in the world right from the sweet comfort of your home, garbed in your favorite house dress with rollers in your hair.  Amazing, isn’t it?  This is Internet banking.  It is like a lightning bolt that crackles across the cyber sky and lands full throttle in your bank coffers, unless the receiving bank delays crediting your account, for a fraction of an hour, so that again, through this invisible highway, use your money to earn interest for them.  Oh, well.

“We have become so dependent on computer technology,” says author Elise Solé, “that we have developed a blind trust for computers.”

Don’t!  Put your guard up and be vigilant.  My foreign bank automatically provided an online banking facility for me.  For a dozen years, I used my desktop computer or any ATM machine to deposit, transfer funds or withdraw, to and from any part of the world.  The problem arose when we moved back to the Philippines.

As a policy, this foreign bank automatically issues new credit cards upon their expiry, so for the first time, they posted the new cards to us in the Philippines.  We never received them.  Worse, someone or some group began withdrawing from our accounts at an alarming amount and frequency.  The bank got suspicious and alerted me.  “Mrs. Lopez, we noticed an unusual spending pattern in your accounts.  Are you on a ‘sky-is-the-limit’ spending spree?  The transactions were done in New Orleans, Pamplona, Ankara, and France?”

Simoné, my personal account officer, read out a breakdown of what I had supposedly bought and still buying:  Unleaded gas, two bottles of Chablis, a bedroom suite, a camper van, chewing gums, 25 packs of low-tar cigarettes, dinner for five people at a 3-star Michelin chateau in Bordeaux, and a one-way airticket to Morocco.  â€œI am in Manila.” I replied, in a trembling voice.  “I have not stepped out of my door, except to buy mascarpone cheese from a local deli.”

“In that case, someone might have stolen your identity.  Please make an affidavit and have it notarized in your city hall,” said Simoné.  She faxed the relevant bank documents and after completion, I brought them to the city hall for notarization as well as to execute an affidavit of loss.

The staff at our local municipality was courteous and polite.  The poor clerk, however, had to type my affidavit on an old Underwood manual typewriter. I stifled a giggle at the clerk, almost falling off her chair every time she had to manually jerk the beat-up carriage return lever.

“Aren’t you computerized yet?”  I asked.  She nodded, “Oo naman, Ma’am, except our computers are down, maybe for another month.”

After an exchange of faxes, phone calls, and express mail delivery, our foreign bank reimbursed the full amount I lost, including interest.  I was lucky.  Our bank had fraud alerts and cyberspace watchdogs to address cases like mine.  Not a British woman though.  She transferred a big chunk of her salary to her husband’s account every month — their joint retirement egg — only to realize that after a couple of years, the money was being credited to a different account.  Her error?  She missed typing one digit in her bank account even if the other bank details — name, beneficiary, address, routing code, etc. — were correct.

Horrified, she immediately raised the alarm, but her bank told her that they have no way of getting her money back unless the mystery recipient will voluntarily return the money to her.  She could not make a personal appeal to the recipient either because of the bank’s tight data protection and secrecy rules.  The mystery recipient — obviously thrilled at his/her unexpected monthly windfall — withdrew the money in an ATM, which was harder to trace, according to bank authorities.  The British lady lost approximately £27,000 or P1.6 million.

“It is actually very easy for an error to occur because of the sheer volume of transfers that banks make every day,” says author Elise Solé.  She offers the following tips to avoid costly and harrowing mistakes:

• Communicate. The British woman failed to confirm with her husband whether he received the money from her bank or not.  Be chatty with your spouse or whoever is on the receiving end.  Be makulit, nag, and ask.  A simple, did you get the money I sent you? would have avoided this major disaster.

 â€¢ Read in reverse. “When you’re double-checking the number you typed in, read it again but this time backwards.  By reading from the last number to the first, you’ll avoid scanning on autopilot,” says Manisha Thakor, CEO of MoneyZen Wealth Management.

I have never used this technique before but must add it to my Senior Moment Awareness list.  Incidentally, how many of us have picked up the habit of saying things aloud?  For example, when locking your door, say, “Now, I am locking my door.”  Hearing it (or using another faculty or sense by which sound is perceived) will help you become doubly aware.  Advancing age sometimes leave you in a state where you actually forget, overlook or doubt routine activities.      

• Keep a paper trail. Having a hard copy or physical proof of all your bank transactions is still hugely important especially in reverse cases — when and what if the bank made the mistake and not you?  “You have no proof of innocence if you don’t have it on paper,” says Thakor.  If you opt to stop mailed statements, print a copy of your screen transaction for your personal file and record. 

Although we are adapting to a paperless world, “ilista mo” (write it down, on paper) will never go passé.

Technology is not perfect so keep in the present what has worked well in the past, including that old-faithful but reliable Underwood typewriter.