Comment on What if a billionaire wants to help you?

• spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Emphasis on “generally” in my statement. Of course there are exceptions where they would, but if I had a multi-million dollar check from Warren Buffett for replacing a few light bulbs in his house, the bank isn’t going to call him and make sure that’s a reasonable price or anything.

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  • litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Banks can and do get into hot water if they’re found to have handled – inadvertently or not – funds which ends up with banned entities, like DPRK or terrorist groups, or are the product of fraud AND that they ignored reasonable suspicions.

    The classic example is the so-called “703 account” of fraudster Bernie Madoff, held at JP Morgan Chase bank. Although a humble checking account, it saw huge money inflows and outflows, with one reference showing a single withdrawal of $1.3 billion. For their wilful disregard of the obvious red flags, the bank was fined $461 million of their own money, separate from the seizure of the account to pay the victims.

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    • spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Those are all extreme cases unlikely to be relevant to OP’s question.

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  • mimic_dev@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The general rule is anything over 10,000 gets flagged and investigated if there’s additional suspicious activity. Same as when there are multiple deposits just under 10,000

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    • spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      if there’s additional suspicious activity

      Emphasis on this part. Either way, what you’re describing is generally for tax purposes. Going back to the original question of the thread, if I had billions of dollars and wrote a stranger a check, the bank is highly unlikely to make sure I meant it. At most they may report it to the government to make sure I pay gift taxes (which are paid by the giver, not the recipient, and even they apply far above $10,000 but you still need to report it at that level)

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      • hddsx@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The receiver pays taxes over a given tax years allowance in addition to the tax paid by the giver.

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      • litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in the USA are made to track both potential tax evasion and money laundering. This is where the $10k cash “limit” comes from, but SARs can/should be filed for higher amount that create suspicion.

        Someone depositing a check for multiple times their lifetime transactions total would absolutely create suspicion on themselves, especially if it was a personal check. But if it were a business check from “ABC Mortgage Escrow”, that’s probably legit but a bank clerk is well within their rights to flag it.

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