Wikileaks handed two discs of secret Swiss banking data

Many are awaiting a Wikileaks release regarding a major U.S. bank, widely believed to be Bank of America. In the meantime, however, former Swiss banking employee Rudolf Elmer has handed over two discs worth of data to Wikileaks, containing information about bank accounts of more than 2,000 "prominent individuals."

Elmer has his own whistleblower website, which is where the information came from, and he handed the discs over to Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, publicly, at a press conference on Monday morning. It is up to Wikileaks to vet, and if they deem the information reliable, release it.  Assange said,

"Once we have looked at the data ... there will be full revelation."

The discs could potentially hold information related to possible tax evasion. The people involved could be using the Swiss banking system’s offshore Cayman Islands accounts to avoid paying taxes in their native countries. Yesterday, Elmer told The Observer:

"Once you become part of senior management and gain international experience, as I did, then you are part of the inner circle, and things become much clearer. You are part of the plot. You know what the real products and service are, and why they are so expensive. It should be no surprise that the main product is secrecy ... Crimes are committed and lies spread in order to protect this secrecy."

However, both Wikileaks and Elmer are interested in the flaws in the system, not the individuals involved. Thus, we probably won't be seeing actual names exposed.

While Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden over sexual misconduct chargers, Elmer is facing trial in Switzerland for an earlier data leak. In this case, however, Elmer claimed he did not break any Swiss banking secrecy rules. He indicated that all of the banking information was related to the Cayman Islands, and lay outside Swiss jurisdiction.

You can watch the actual handover below.

Couple sees red when Chase closes account for fraud after ATM 'red ink' issue

Red ink on a check resulted in a couple's bank account balance going red, after a technology SNAFU at a JP Morgan Chase ATM. The bank's new ATM technology, which reads checks automatically using text recognition, couldn't read the red ink on a check, and the bank flagged it as fraud, and closed their account.

Chase recently introduced a system at their ATMs that no longer requires people to insert checks into an envelope for deposit. Instead, they put the bare check into a reader, and the ATM reads and determines the amount of the deposit. We've never seen it fail to read a check properly, but we've never inserted one with red ink before.

However, Judy Lackey and her husband, Ethan Sorrelgreen, each received a check for $100 from Sorrelgreen's grandmother for Christmas. The grandmother used a red pen to write the checks. When Sorrelgreen deposited the checks into a Chase ATM on December 28, the machine had a problem reading the checks, so he manually overrode the amounts. Thinking all was well, they left town for New Year's and returned on Sunday, January 2nd.

On Monday, Lackey went online to pay their mortgage and discovered that neither of their paychecks had been direct-deposited into their checking account. The reason, she discovered, is because their account had been closed due to fraud. She said Chase told them,

"[...] there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. They said that they would send us the funds remaining in our account in 10 days."

As Lackey discovered when she went directly to a bank office, the account had been marked for fraud because the checks written in red ink had been scanned as blank. Lackey said,

"Clearly no human ever looked at the checks, as they were decidedly not blank. They made no effort to find out what had happened, instead just immediately closed our account."

The bank manager she spoke to said he could not reverse the decision. At wit's end, Lackey went to the San Francisco Chronicle for help. The issue has since been sorted out.

There are a few teachable moments here. One, for Chase, is to not close an account without some sort of human review. However, another, for consumers, is to not try to override Chase ATMs; if it can't read the check, deposit it manually in the bank. Chase should also modify their banking software to tell consumers that if the machine can't read a check, don't try to deposit it (although they probably won't as most consumers would be annoyed by that, not realizing they could end up in worse trouble). Oh, and don't use red ink when writing a check.

Finally, a cautionary note that probably applies to the Terms of Service at all banks, not just Chase. Chase's ToS says the bank has the right "to close the account at any time" without notice. In the case it does that, it is not liable for any fees or bounced checks, although in the above case they agreed to refund any fees.