Can Amazon see or ask me to provide my bank account's mailing address?

[Rhi]

Can Amazon see my bank account's mailing address? I'd like to change it to the same address as another bank account associated with a different amazon store. The bank will not allow me to use mailboxes as addresses.

Given Amazon's stricter verification measures, should I be concerned they might try to find my address from my bank, or ask me for bank statements showing the address?

[JamesNorth101]

Banks do not share anything with Amazon so nothing wo worry about

[elmo]

They may request a bank statement which is common now, that needs to show your name and address that is on the stealth account. But they have no way of checking your address with the bank account number you give them

[Rhi]

Originally Posted by elmo

They may request a bank statement which is common now, that needs to show your name and address that is on the stealth account. But they have no way of checking your address with the bank account number you give them

Thank you. Are you aware of U.S. banks that allow for postal mailboxes to be used as mailing addresses for business accounts?

[MM78]

Originally Posted by Rhi

Thank you. Are you aware of U.S. banks that allow for postal mailboxes to be used as mailing addresses for business accounts?

I'm pretty sure just about every bank in the USA allow for Post Mailboxes to be used as a mailing address.

[Rhi]

Originally Posted by MM78

I'm pretty sure just about every bank in the USA allow for Post Mailboxes to be used as a mailing address.

Sorry, you're right. I meant using mailboxes as the primary account address (not mailing address) for a business bank account.

[BaggaDonuts]

I have a PO Box that allows a 'street address' format for my principal place of business. Used for bank accounts, etc. no problem.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by elmo

They may request a bank statement which is common now, that needs to show your name and address that is on the stealth account. But they have no way of checking your address with the bank account number you give them

Sorry but this is patently false information.

[elmo]

What's false about it?

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by elmo

What's false about it?

That they have "no way of checking" the info matches what you provide.

Amazon can and at times during a manual review, will contact the bank and give the bank the information you provide and ask if it matches their records. I had it happen on a suspended account several months ago.

[elmo]

Originally Posted by GhostOfAmazon

That they have "no way of checking" the info matches what you provide.

Amazon can and at times during a manual review, will contact the bank and give the bank the information you provide and ask if it matches their records. I had it happen on a suspended account several months ago.

That would be illegal in the USA

Right to Financial Privacy Act prohibits financial institutions from disclosing bank records or account information about individual customers without:

1) the customer’s consent
2) a court order
3) subpoena
4) search warrant
5) other formal demand, with limited exceptions.

http://www.accessreports.com/statutes/RFPA.htm

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by elmo

That would be illegal in the USA

Right to Financial Privacy Act prohibits financial institutions from disclosing bank records or account information about individual customers without:

1) the customer’s consent
2) a court order
3) subpoena
4) search warrant
5) other formal demand, with limited exceptions.

http://www.accessreports.com/statutes/RFPA.htm

Are you intentionally misleading the forum with your irrelevant law or did you just not even bother to read it?

It literally applies ONLY to GOVERNMENT and LAW ENFORCEMENT. It says NOTHING about PRIVATE COMPANIES.

This is from the VERY TOP!

The Right to Financial Privacy Act was Congress' response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that found bank customers had no legal right of privacy for their financial information held by financial institutions. The law is largely procedural and requires government agencies to provide notice and an opportunity to object before a bank or other institution can disclose personal financial information to a government agency, usually for law enforcement purposes. The law was amended in the latter 1980s to allow postponement of notice in investigations dealing with drug trafficking and espionage.



Come on now.....at least read the document before you make a fool of yourself.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Do some VERY BASIC research.

United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976)


The gist is that the US Supreme Court ruled that customers of banks have no right to financial privacy. The law you mentioned was created specifically to allow customers the right to privacy from the GOVERNMENT.

In short, YES, if they want to, they CAN verify info. Will they always? NO. But they CAN if they choose to, and they HAVE before.


https://epic.org/privacy/rfpa/

When you spurt off nonsense like this it really makes one question your expertise. I mean it took me 5 mins of Googling to figure this stuff out with no prior knowledge of the law.

[BiN4RY]

GoA please calm down. Elmo isn't wrong in this case. Did you even read what you're quoting?

Private companies (aka Amazon) cannot get your information from the bank. The only way private companies can obtain such information is by having a court order.

The paragraphs and sections you're talking about about deals with government agencies wanting information. Government agencies are not private companies.

Also, when Amazon/Paypal tries to verify the information you've provided with your bank, the most the bank will ever answer is a "Yes" or a "No". They don't disclose WHAT doesn't match, or what the actual information you have file is.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Again, you're not reading or doing any research.

There is NO LAW preventing a bank from disclosing whether or not your name or address matches the last 4 digits of your account with them.

Read up from the FDIC:

https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/privacy/yourrights/

What information can't I prevent from being shared, even if I opt out?

Under the new law, you cannot bar an institution from providing personal information to outside companies and organizations if, for instance:
The information is needed to help conduct normal business. Example: Your bank can send personal information to outside firms that help market the institution's products, handle its data processing (for your loan payments, checking account statements, electronic banking transactions or credit card purchases), or mail account statements.
The information is needed to protect against fraud or unauthorized transactions, or is provided in response to a court order.
The institution reasonably believes the information is "publicly available." Robert Patrick, an FDIC consumer law attorney in Washington, explains that publicly available information "includes your name, address, and telephone number as they appear in the telephone book, information about your home mortgage recorded in county records, or information that would be found on your driver's license if that information is available from your state's department of motor vehicles."
The information is used as part of a "joint marketing agreement." That's a situation in which two or more financial institutions-say, a bank and insurance company-agree to jointly offer, endorse or sponsor the same products or services.

[GhostOfAmazon]

If someone wishes to dispute any of my claims, please, PROVIDE THE LAW AND SPECIFIC TEXT PREVENTING BANKS FROM DISCLOSING THIS INFO TO A PRIVATE COMPANY (i.e. Amazon.com)

I'm not talking out of my ass based on some theory. I've EXPERIENCED it first-hand on an Amazon account.....

[BiN4RY]

Originally Posted by GhostOfAmazon

Again, you're not reading or doing any research.

There is NO LAW preventing a bank from disclosing whether or not your name or address matches the last 4 digits of your account with them.

Read up from the FDIC:

https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/privacy/yourrights/

And once again, you're quoting out of context paragraphs that SOUNDS LIKE supporting your claim, without actually reading the context.

If you're actually interested in what banks wants to do with your information, read from 15 U.S. Code Subchapter I .

Section § 6802 is an interesting read and seems like the most relevant to the discussion. It discusses a lot of about what banks can and cannot share, and the exceptions to opt-out. For simplicity, I will only be mentioning sections that you brought up. I recommend anyone else reading this post to read that entire page as well.

As a very start, read section (a):

(a) Notice requirements
Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter, a financial institution may not, directly or through any affiliate, disclose to a nonaffiliated third party any nonpublic personal information, unless such financial institution provides or has provided to the consumer a notice that complies with section 6803 of this title.

Amazon is most definitely not an affiliated with your financial institutes, and thus your financial institute cannot freely share your non-public information with them.

The definition of non-public information is defined as following in §6809:

Nonpublic personal information
(A) The term “nonpublic personal information” means personally identifiable financial information—
(i) provided by a consumer to a financial institution;
(ii) resulting from any transaction with the consumer or any service performed for the consumer; or
(iii) otherwise obtained by the financial institution.
(B) Such term does not include publicly available information, as such term is defined by the regulations prescribed under section 6804 of this title.
(C) Notwithstanding subparagraph (B), such term—
(i) shall include any list, description, or other grouping of consumers (and publicly available information pertaining to them) that is derived using any nonpublic personal information other than publicly available information; but
(ii) shall not include any list, description, or other grouping of consumers (and publicly available information pertaining to them) that is derived without using any nonpublic personal information.

Therefore, trying to match a bank account number with your personal information registered with the bank DO count as disclosing non-public information. You don't find a list of bank account numbers with their corresponding owner's addresses anywhere in the public record.

The subsequent sections in §6802 deals with various exceptions to the case, most of them are irrelevant to the discussion here. Section (E)(3) mentioned the exception you quoted.

(3)
(A) to protect the confidentiality or security of the financial institution’s records pertaining to the consumer, the service or product, or the transaction therein; (B) to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud, unauthorized transactions, claims, or other liability; (C) for required institutional risk control, or for resolving customer disputes or inquiries; (D) to persons holding a legal or beneficial interest relating to the consumer; or (E) to persons acting in a fiduciary or representative capacity on behalf of the consumer;

Here's the thing though, this section is written in respect to the financial institute's point of view. Your financial institute can only give out this information VOLUNTARILY, if they have evidence beyond reasonable doubt in their system that you are committing fraud, or required by legal proceedings (mentioned in a later section). If Amazon calls up your bank and say they don't like your business practice on their platform, that's not enough to justify them giving out your information. Banks disclosing information wrongfully will end up with a lot of legal consequences afterwards.

For anyone else reading this, I would like to point out that neither me or GhostOfAmazon are lawyers and both of our interpretations could be incorrect. You should not be taking any part of the discussion towards legal decisions.

[elmo]

Originally Posted by GhostOfAmazon

Are you intentionally misleading the forum with your irrelevant law or did you just not even bother to read it?

It literally applies ONLY to GOVERNMENT and LAW ENFORCEMENT. It says NOTHING about PRIVATE COMPANIES.

This is from the VERY TOP!

The Right to Financial Privacy Act was Congress' response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that found bank customers had no legal right of privacy for their financial information held by financial institutions. The law is largely procedural and requires government agencies to provide notice and an opportunity to object before a bank or other institution can disclose personal financial information to a government agency, usually for law enforcement purposes. The law was amended in the latter 1980s to allow postponement of notice in investigations dealing with drug trafficking and espionage.



Come on now.....at least read the document before you make a fool of yourself.

Binary is correct with the quoted information

If you don't believe the written laws, give any financial institution a call and say you're name is John Apple, supervisor and account specialist at Amazon, and you're calling to confirm some account information. Make sure to have a heavy Indian accent as well since most Amazon call centers are outsourced to outside the USA.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Yeah, Binary, again, I think it's clear banks ARE allowed to disclose the information in question to a PRIVATE COMPANY (i.e. Amazon) since the information (name, address, phone #, etc) IS public information and IS important in determining FRAUD.

If someone is using FALSE information to make a purchase, whether an incorrect billing address, different name, whatever, it is considered FRAUD. Ergo, the bank is ALLOWED to reveal this information to Amazon, to protect the business, the bank and the consumer.

They don't even need to "match" The last 4 with your information. All they need to do is call bank, list the charge or attempted charge, and ask if the information provided (i.e. stealth name, address, phone #) matches what the bank has on file. AGAIN: This is considered "public" information and thus, under law is free to be disclosed.

In short, Amazon asking the bank if your PUBLIC INFORMATION matches what the bank has on file in relation to a TRANSACTION TAKING PLACE WITH AMAZON, Amazon has every legal right to confirm said information is accurate.

This really isn't complicated. The law literally describes what constitutes "public information" and this information is EXACTLY what is not accurate.

Therefore, for our purposes, the bank can give Amazon all the info they need to detect this.

[GhostOfAmazon]

And AGAIN: I'm not arguing over a THEORY. This ACTUALLY HAPPENED on a real life Amazon account I had a few months back.

Just because it has not yet happened to YOU (that you are aware of) doesn't mean it DOESN'T, CAN'T, or WON'T happen. It just means you are unaware of it's occurrence.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by elmo

Binary is correct with the quoted information

If you don't believe the written laws, give any financial institution a call and say you're name is John Apple, supervisor and account specialist at Amazon, and you're calling to confirm some account information. Make sure to have a heavy Indian accent as well since most Amazon call centers are outsourced to outside the USA.

You aren't privy to the info I posted about this on another part of the forum, but suffice it to say the department that deals with contacting the financial institution at Amazon is not an Indian nobody, it's not even Seller Performance. It's the department ABOVE Seller Performance. (No, not Jeffs team). They have a fraud team that focuses SOLELY on fraudulent use of the platform, even for the buyer section.

[GhostOfAmazon]

Anyone who doesn't believe me can PM me and I'll tell you how to test whether they can see your info or not yourself on a new account.