Accessing Your Bank Accounts after Body Transferral

CrownedSun · Feb 17, 2009

Okay; hypothetical.

You got to sleep one evening, and wake up the next morning on the other side of the country in a different body but with all you personal memories and other mental datum intact.

How hard is it to access your back account across-country, with access to the wrong set of personal identification except for the numbers that you managed to store in your head. The internet, I think, makes this somewhat more doable than it might otherwise be...

If your original body is, say, a famous actor - does that change things? Certainly makes it harder to walk into a bank...

What kind of limits are there on what you could do, if you could get in through a completely impersonal interface like the Internet?

How quickly would the person in your body be informed of suspicious activity in "his" bank accounts? How hard of a time would he have getting access to your bank accounts, or vice versa, would you have getting access to what was in his bank accounts?

Thanks!

hammerklavier · Feb 17, 2009

It would be very easy. You could write checks (bill pay) or transfer money immediately over the internet. You could change your address and phone and order new cards. The person in your old body would be notified in about five days by mail of the address change. It's possible he/she could be notified immediately by phone, but that is usually done when suspicious purchases are made. Plus the phone call wouldn't make much sense unless he happened to have an account at the same bank. Then when the bank asked for name and verification info it's the banker who would be confused.

Ruv Draba · Feb 17, 2009

Most banks use identification procedures based on signatures, items that the account-holder should possess (e.g. cards, passbooks, tokens) and information that only the account-holder should know. They don't use physical identification and most banks discourage people from visiting their branches personally when they don't need to.

Unless the service or procedures are unusual I'd say that it's very easy to maintain your financial identity.

Phoebe H · Feb 18, 2009

hammerklavier said:
It would be very easy. You could write checks (bill pay) or transfer money immediately over the internet. You could change your address and phone and order new cards. The person in your old body would be notified in about five days by mail of the address change. It's possible he/she could be notified immediately by phone, but that is usually done when suspicious purchases are made.

They would probably be notified immediately by email as well.

So the first thing that you would want to do is sign into your email account and change the password there -- unless you were afraid that that step would by itself tip off the guy in your old body. In that case, maybe log into your old account, and try to intercept the informing email before they saw it.

chevbrock · Feb 18, 2009

My question to ponder is, your brain knows how to sign your name, but do the new muscles? Does signing your name involve a muscle-memory of some sort?

Barb D · Feb 18, 2009

Where do I sign up to get a new body? That's MY question to ponder!

cbenoi1 · Feb 18, 2009

Bank-to-bank transfers are monitored for illicit transactions. And anything above US$10K is flagged immediately as extremely suspicious i.e. you'd better have papers straightened out beforehand. Also, I'd be wary if your former self dies in the transfer process and your bank accounts are frozen until the estate is settled; any cash outlay during that period will be investigated.

Probably the safest way is if your new self sells goods or services your former self purchases without looking at the price tag. Maybe become your own sucker on eBay or something the like.

-cb

CrownedSun · Feb 18, 2009

hammerklavier said:
It would be very easy. You could write checks (bill pay) or transfer money immediately over the internet. You could change your address and phone and order new cards. The person in your old body would be notified in about five days by mail of the address change. It's possible he/she could be notified immediately by phone, but that is usually done when suspicious purchases are made. Plus the phone call wouldn't make much sense unless he happened to have an account at the same bank. Then when the bank asked for name and verification info it's the banker who would be confused.

Ruv Draba said:
Most banks use identification procedures based on signatures, items that the account-holder should possess (e.g. cards, passbooks, tokens) and information that only the account-holder should know. They don't use physical identification and most banks discourage people from visiting their branches personally when they don't need to.
Unless the service or procedures are unusual I'd say that it's very easy to maintain your financial identity.

Thanks; this confirms a few things. Hmm. It sounds like the hard part would be getting access to your "new" bank account.

Hmmm, I think New Actor Dude could live off his credit cards pretty easily for a while and would save the "Banking" stuff for a bit later. Since I don't think he was smart enough to otherwise plan ahead.

Though I can't help but think that one of the parties being a rich & famous Actor would change this equation somehow. The main danger I see being that, once the New Actor Dude finds out what's happening, you'd end up being arrested on fraud or something.

But I think that's avoidable for reasons of plot.

Phoebe H said:
So the first thing that you would want to do is sign into your email account and change the password there -- unless you were afraid that that step would by itself tip off the guy in your old body. In that case, maybe log into your old account, and try to intercept the informing email before they saw it.

As an aside, I love this. It's so small and petty, while at the same time being genuinely useful.

chevbrock said:
My question to ponder is, your brain knows how to sign your name, but do the new muscles? Does signing your name involve a muscle-memory of some sort?

This is also a good question; I imagine you could get your signature back, but you'd probably want to practice it a time or two to get it back. Another mood establishing detail, that.

Barb D said:
Where do I sign up to get a new body? That's MY question to ponder!

It involves dealing with the Royalty of Hell, I'm afraid.

CrownedSun · Feb 18, 2009

cbenoi1 said:
Bank-to-bank transfers are monitored for illicit transactions. And anything above US$10K is flagged immediately as extremely suspicious i.e. you'd better have papers straightened out beforehand. Also, I'd be wary if your former self dies in the transfer process and your bank accounts are frozen until the estate is settled; any cash outlay during that period will be investigated.
Probably the safest way is if your new self sells goods or services your former self purchases without looking at the price tag. Maybe become your own sucker on eBay or something the like.

I, hmmm, probably wasn't specific enough. I even read the FAQ and everything, ah well.

The situation in a bit more detail. One day, you wake up to find yourself in the body of a nasty, demon-dealing Warlock who arranged with Demons that he'd get your Body and you'd Die. Except you didn't die, cause the Demons decided they wanted you to live for some reason. So you're stuck off in Vermont, while that !@#!#% is living the life out in California.

That said, thank you.

I was wondering if the US$10K limit would come into play here. I figured my Protagonist would only do some a small "some breathing room" transfer at the start of the novel, though. To avoid getting attention or anything. It seems like that would be safe and nigh undetectable.

Accessing Your Bank Accounts after Body Transferral

CrownedSun

Sun in Shadow

hammerklavier

It was a dark and stormy night

Ruv Draba

Phoebe H

chevbrock

Barb D

cbenoi1

CrownedSun

Sun in Shadow

CrownedSun

Sun in Shadow