ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 7, 1997 TAG: 9704070060
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
Thumb-printing strangers before cashing their checks appalls some privacy advocates - but it deters crimes.
THE BAD guys have surely inconvenienced the rest of us. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have to go through security checks at airports, keep our homes locked, install alarms in our cars. And it appears we'll soon have to undergo fingerprinting if we want to cash a check at banks where we don't normally do business.
Blame it on the check-fraud artists.
Bame them if you try next week to cash a check at a First Union Corp. bank where you have no accounts, and it's thumbs down. As in, thumbs down on an ink pad, then thumbs down to leave your print on the face of the check.
First Union banks in Virginia will join a growing number of financial institutions that thumb print or fingerprint strangers as part of efforts to stem check fraud. Such fraud cost banks $615 million in 1995, more than 10 times the $59 million in losses associated with bank robberies. And their loss, of course, is also law-abiding citizens' loss - in the form of higher banking fees, and the costs of apprehension and prosecution.
First Union believes thumb printing will help deter check fraud, and will provide more evidence of such fraud to law-enforcement authorities. ``If you're a check-fraud artist, you don't want to leave your thumb print behind on what could become evidence in a police investigation,'' said a First Union spokesman. And thumb printing is better for identification purposes than, say, a driver's license since such documents can be faked.
Bank officials also say the thumb-printing process is quick and easy. Even so, some folks protest that it's an invasion of privacy. ``Degrading'' and ``insulting,'' too.
But is a thumb print any more daunting than having to write your phone number or Social Security number on a check, as retailers and other businesses routinely ask you to do?
And suppose it's your checks that have been stolen and your bank account that's subsequently emptied. Now that's an insulting invasion of privacy.
LENGTH: Short : 43 linesby CNB