Has anyone questioned reasons on exception hold notices as a possible privacy violation?

I'm referring to reasons such as "The check is drawn on an account with repeated overdrafts" and "We have confidential information that indicates that the check may not be paid." While the customer may already know this information, it is certainly not public and it is personal. I do not think these reasons are used very often, but wondered if they should even be available.

We thought the same thing, therefore we do not use the reason regarding repeated overdrafts. However, we will use the other reason as it is vague enough to be just about anything---stop payment, closed account, etc., but we try to see if something else will fit the situation.

I thought I was the only one working!!! Everyone else must be too busy with HMDA to talk.

------------------
Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

Under the privacy reg the other party is not your customer (most likely), and even if they were this would be a section .14 exception. If the bank just pays a check is this sharing confidential information? (you just told the other party that they have enough money in their account to cover the check, this is also personal information) I think not. The Privacy Regulation should not interfere with the normal processing of Bank Business, especially something that is only done because of another regulation IMHO.

[This message has been edited by Markj (edited 02-25-2002).]

I think that MarkJ is exactly right. In fact I like the statement "The Privacy Regulation should not interfere with the normal processing of Bank Business" so much that I may have to put this on my office wall. (Mary Beth - How do you think that would look next to my Fair Housing poster and LOMA certificate?)

Sometimes I think we carry this Privacy concern a little too far. If you think about it, the fact that you pay checks drawn on your bank by your customer actually releases NPPI (the fact that the person IS a customer, the fact that the account number on the check is the actual account number, and the fact that the amount on the check was actually an amount the customer had on deposit.)

Can you imagine the chaos that would result if we refused to pay any checks in the name of Privacy?

Seriously, the whole Privacy bru-ha-ha developed because of those annoying telemarketing calls at dinner, the increasing load of junk-mail in the average mailbox, and the unseemly practise of giving away your account number to 3rd parties so they could stick a $49.95 annual fee for hotel discounts.

Privacy was NEVER about trying to prevent ourselves from taking steps against fraudulent activity!