CASH ONLY

[Lankypeters]

How do escorts handle depositing large amounts of cash at their banks? I've read that banks are alert to customers who regularly deposit more than $2000/mo. and that, further, post 9/11, these depositors (and the amount of their deposits) are often reported -- to the government? to the IRS? Paying cash can only go so far, even if one makes an arrangement to pay cash for housing. If a working guy is successful, he may well have a surfeit of cash even after he meets all his monthly expenses. And, ideally, successful working guys may want to invest in stocks, IRA's, even basic savings accounts. So could one, for example, use cash for transactions in a Schwab account?

[Guest countryboywny]

I really don't know what cash transactions are noticed or reported to the government. I do know that as a business owner, when I make a cash deposit of more than $10,000. an IRS form is completed by the bank with my personal ID and filed.

I'm of the opinion that even if someone is making regular cash deposits of an amount to "raise some eyebrows" at the IRS, as long as they're reporting the income on their tax return it shouldn't be a problem. There are many, many "cash only" type businesses in this world, so I would think that regular $2,000. cash deposits wouldn't be a big deal.

[Kevin Slater]

He either deposits it into an atm or if he doesn't trust them things he takes it to a teller. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a job that pays in cash (stylist, waiter, escort...). He then pays his taxes and invests as you mention.

 

Kevin Slater

[mike carey]

We're not yet at the stage where cash is inherently suspicious, although I suspect we are moving that way. Plenty of jobs and businesses still deal in cash and not just to avoid sales tax/GST/VAT. I'll be interested if many escorts here worry about being in the cash economy, and if so how they manage that. One reaction is what Kevin said, just go into the bank and deposit it to your account. Another would be to pay for everything in cash (and given zero interest on bank deposits it's not as if avoiding them deprives you of any interest payments). For me, the biggest issue with cash, in the context of escort hiring, is the difficulty of obtaining high denomination bills. An overnight paid in $20s??

[gallahadesquire]

I've been taking out $1000 to $2000 from the bank for awhile now. They don't seem to care. It helps that two branches are on a fairly busy highway with auto dealers, and I try to alternate branches.

[mike carey]

I've been taking out $1000 to $2000 from the bank for awhile now. They don't seem to care. It helps that two branches are on a fairly busy highway with auto dealers, and I try to alternate branches.

I don't have the luxury of being able to go to a bank in the US (I obviously don't have an account there) so I have to make do with what I can buy at the foreign exchange before I leave or ATMs there. Last trip I managed 50s and 100s on departure. I guess I could withdraw a bunch of 20s from an ATM and go inside the bank and change them. Here the default in ATMs is 50s so it's not such an issue as it is in the US.

[geoffk]

I believe the notification signal is at $10,000.01.. Below that I don't think it's reported.

[CompleteNewbie]

I believe the notification signal is at $10,000.01.. Below that I don't think it's reported.

 

That's true, BUT!

 

Trying to get around that rule is also suspicious. Like, say depositing/withdrawing $9,999.00. Or depositing/withdrawing more than $10,000.00 on a regular interval with regular amounts.

It's called Structuring (or "smurfing").

Any good bank's anti-money laundering department is always looking out for it and other suspicious activities, and they are all generally thoroughly investigated.

 

Look at Dennis Hastert and how he was caught.

 

As I've been in a relationship with someone who's worked in anti-money laundering depts, I have often wondered how exactly escorts get around these issues.

[jjkrkwood]

I recently had a $17,500 transaction conducted thru Paypal, and had the money transferred to my acct for withdrawal. It sent up all sorts of Red Flags, and took 2 weeks for it to clear all the bank security checks, whereby they investigated the source of the money etc.... The bank explained it had to do with ISIS, and homeland security... Do i buy that ? Hmmmm.

Nevertheless, I got my money.

[mattr]

Most banks are reluctant to convert currency (20's -> 100's, etc.) unless you have an account with them. I do most of my banking with an online bank but keep a free account at a local bank for depositing checks, converting currency, certified checks, etc.

[Kevin Slater]

Most banks are reluctant to convert currency (20's -> 100's, etc.) unless you have an account with them.

 

Yeah, last time I needed to do that the teller rather snarkily said "sure, deposit the 20s and withdraw the 100s".

 

Kevin Slater

[+ g56whiz]

The bank explained it had to do with ISIS, and homeland security... Do i buy that ? Hmmmm.

Nevertheless, I got my money.

 

I do buy that but only partially. Decades before ISIS and Homeland Security there was the DEA.

 

Two stories: In the early days of currency tracking the banks in Atlantic City ran into problems with the program. It seems the Fed's logarithms failed to take into account the on-slot of cash pouring in them when New York City's Asian community fled there to gamble over their New Year's Holiday.

 

I worked for a time as a "private banker". One of my clients was a famous movie director who avoided the studio system by self-funding his projects. He was making a film on the Pacific Northwest but had no available credit there. He kept sending an aide in to withdraw large sums which he sent by courier to pay the trades like caterers serving the set. Because these currency laws make the banker before the bank the guilty party, I had to go and explain to him why he had to sign the required docs to continue the practice. He was a nice guy but I wasn't going to jail for him. He was not happy but did send me in invite to a private screening of the completed film before its premier.

 

"Unless you have an account with them" banks will do nothing for you unless they can inflict an onerous fee and there is absolutely no risk to them. It takes a lot to pay Jamie Dimond and Chase isn't getting it from its capital markets operations any more.

 

Damn! I'm glad I'm retired.

[rvwnsd]

The thread has bifurcated into two different directions: Anti-money laundering (AML) and suspicious transactions.

 

How do escorts handle depositing large amounts of cash at their banks? I've read that banks are alert to customers who regularly deposit more than $2000/mo. and that, further, post 9/11, these depositors (and the amount of their deposits) are often reported -- to the government? to the IRS? ...

 

You are referring to AML. It is pretty straightforward: FinCen (a section of the Department of the Treasury charged with investigating financial crimes, such as money laundering) requires financial institutions to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000 using an electronic Currency Transaction Report (CTR). A CTR is required whether one transaction comprises the entire $10K or whether multiple transactions made at multiple branches comprise $10K. Suspicious transactions are a little more murky and I will get to those later. The CTR debuted in the 1980's. It was not implemented as a result of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The USAPATRIOT Act was the result of the 9/11 attacks. One of its provisions is the requirement of financial institutions to implement a Customer Identification Program (CIP). In laymen's terms, financial institutions must validate their customers' identities and maintain record of the customers' identities as well as the verification result.

 

Banks are also required to report suspicious transactions. Maintaining a pattern of depositing cash every week is not, in and of itself, suspicious unless the transactions do not fit a pattern that would ordinarily be made by that customer type. For example, if the customer has a massage business, there would be nothing unusual about cash deposits. However, if the customer had a used car business those transactions would be unusual because most cars are financed by loans, the proceeds of which are transmitted electronically.

 

...Paying cash can only go so far, even if one makes an arrangement to pay cash for housing. If a working guy is successful, he may well have a surfeit of cash even after he meets all his monthly expenses. And, ideally, successful working guys may want to invest in stocks, IRA's, even basic savings accounts. So could one, for example, use cash for transactions in a Schwab account?

 

Assuming the brokerage accepted cash, a customer could deposit cash into an investment account. However, if the deposit(s) totalled more than $10K, a CTR would be filed. A brokerage, such as Schwab, is a financial institution and is required to file CTRs.

 

I've been taking out $1000 to $2000 from the bank for awhile now. They don't seem to care. It helps that two branches are on a fairly busy highway with auto dealers, and I try to alternate branches.

 

The location of the branches has little to do with the branch's lack of suspicion. However, location and size could influence a branch's ability to fulfill the transaction, For example, a supermarket branch might not have a sufficient supply of $100 bills. $1k - $2K withdrawals are pretty routine. If you have been making those types of withdrawals pretty regularly the bank's fraud monitoring system will likely not flag the transaction as being suspicious. However, if you travel and withdraw a similar amount at a branch in a different city you might be asked to provide some additional ID or receive a call from a fraud department. This would occur because the transaction was out of pattern (i.e., conducted outside of your home city) and could signal that someone was accessing your account fraudulently.

 

That's true, BUT!

 

Trying to get around that rule is also suspicious. Like, say depositing/withdrawing $9,999.00.....

 

That's right. The $9,999.00 transaction could be (and probably would be) flagged as "suspicious." Although a CTR would not be filed, a suspicious activity report would most likely be filed.

 

...

Or depositing/withdrawing more than $10,000.00 on a regular interval with regular amounts.....

 

True, a CTR would be filed and the business would probably trip a flag for the bank to investigate the nature of the transactions. This is called "Enhanced Due Diligence." If the investigation determined that the transactions are reasonable, future transactions would still result in CTRs being filed, but the transactions would not be deemed suspicious. On a regular basis, probably annually, the bank would conduct a follow-up enhanced due diligence exercise to re-certify that the transactions are reasonable. For example, if a customer had one convenience store his cash transaction pattern could be "X." If an enhanced due diligence exercise revealed the customer had recently opened an additional store, it could be determined that two times "X" is now reasonable because he has two stores. On the other hand, if his cash transactions increased to one hundred times "X," he could have some explaining to do.

 

...It's called Structuring (or "smurfing").

Any good bank's anti-money laundering department is always looking out for it and other suspicious activities, and they are all generally thoroughly investigated....

 

Just to be clear, "structuring" occurs when a transaction is broken apart in an attempt to circumvent a CTR being filed.

...

As I've been in a relationship with someone who's worked in anti-money laundering depts, I have often wondered how exactly escorts get around these issues.

 

They don't "get around" anything. They simply conduct their business and if they deposit greater than $10K in cash they are subject to further scrutiny. To be clear, routinely depositing $2,000 per week is not structuring.

 

I recently had a $17,500 transaction conducted thru Paypal, and had the money transferred to my acct for withdrawal. It sent up all sorts of Red Flags, and took 2 weeks for it to clear all the bank security checks, whereby they investigated the source of the money etc.... The bank explained it had to do with ISIS, and homeland security... Do i buy that ? Hmmmm.

Nevertheless, I got my money.

 

Whoever told you that ought to be fired. First of all, there are multiple reasons for investigating a large ACH transaction, such as the Paypal transfer you received. It is not unusual for fraudsters to steal account information and use an innocent party's account to launder money. There are also fraud schemes where person "A" recruits person "B" to receive a transfer from "A" and then transfer funds out to "A" less a small fee. Although "A" has "B's" permission to use "B's" account, "A" is still committing fraud. Second, the type of investigation that was conducted was initiated long before ISIS or Homeland Security were around.

 

Most banks are reluctant to convert currency (20's -> 100's, etc.) unless you have an account with them. I do most of my banking with an online bank but keep a free account at a local bank for depositing checks, converting currency, certified checks, etc.

 

Yep, they do not want to take the risk of receiving counterfeit bills (with no recourse, as the conductor of the transactions does not have an account) nor do they want to enable money laundering.

 

I was in line at a bank branch and the teller was explaining to a customer that a CTR would be filed if he deposited all the cash he had on him. I walked over to a banker's desk, explained what I overheard, and he quickly walked over to the manager to alert her. The manager took the transaction from the teller and sent her on break. Had the "customer" been a bank examiner, the bank would have faced a hefty fine. Banks are not supposed to mention the CTR or the SAR.

[Will Do]

Thanks @rvwnsd for this info.

 

So I'm guessing if I cash a check for $8,000 for an upcoming get-together I won't be scrutinized?

[rvwnsd]

Thanks @rvwnsd for this info.

 

So I'm guessing if I cash a check for $8,000 for an upcoming get-together I won't be scrutinized?

Not knowing your transaction pattern, it is hard to say. My guess is the transaction gets reviewed but no further action is taken unless you do a follow-on check cashing transaction for $2,000.

[Mo Mason]

I don't mean to be rude, but... I've often wondered about this stuff too, but I also know that it's none of my business.

 

"How do escorts handle depositing large amounts of cash?"

 

Is that really your concern?

 

I'm surprised to even see this question here.

[Will Do]

Not knowing your transaction pattern, it is hard to say. My guess is the transaction gets reviewed but no further action is taken unless you do a follow-on check cashing transaction for $2,000.

 

Thanks @rvwnsd . Appreciate it!

[rvwnsd]

Thanks @rvwnsd . Appreciate it!

You are welcome. Have fun on your little encounter.

[Will Do]

You are welcome. Have fun on your little encounter.

 

Thanks @rvwnsd I shall!

 

I'm bringing the fellow I recently spent the weekend with in NYC to the sugar-sand beaches of my South's gulf coast!