A customer, Mr. Smith, came to the bank with another individual (not joint owner) and the customer closed the account. The joint owner, Ms. Jones, called the bank and said that Mr. Smith is not competent and she is requesting a picture of the indivdual who brought Mr. Smith into the bank to close his account. Any significant problems here in giving the picture to the joint owner?

My first thought is...how do you know she's competent?

Didn't think of that one.

I used to work with a lot of senior citizens. Unfortunately you get fraud on all sides!

Andy is gone and could probably whip out 35 regs that say yes or no, but from experience...it's hard to know who's in the right in these issues. If the guy owned his account and there were no restrictions to keep him from closing it, it sounds like he was within his rights. Giving pictures to the other signer might get you in trouble not to mention violate his right to privacy. If there is fraud on the part of the person who was with the man, perhaps Mrs Jones should seek legal representation. They can subpoena the picture and you're out of the iffy situation of figuring who sits on the right side of this ugly fence!

Good luck!

These are opinions and not fact:

Why is he not competent? Has he been declared incompetent? As Dawnie said, is she competent?

What is her intent? Is she going to file a complaint with Law Enforcement if she doesn't know this person and not if she does?

Who knows what the realtionship between her and him is, and the relationship between him and the person that came in with him to close the account.

I would not release any photos to this person.

I would not show or release the photos to a customer. This is not something the bank should get involved in without a legal requirement. There could be privacy implications, slander, divorce, arguments over "who the money belonged to". I can see no good coming to the bank by releasing anything.

Remember the Jenny Jones show? Person A was introduced to person B, who had a crush on person A. Both were men. A was so embarrassed by the whole thing he killed B some time later. The JJ show was sued because it started there.

Now, even though that seems far fetched, what will you gain, who else may be in those photos and associated with this, whether they are or not.

I agree with not releasing the pictures but you should consider saving a copy of them.

I agree that you should refer your customer to the police. If Mr. Smith is not competent why is he still a signer on the account? There is TROUBLE written all over this one.

If Mr. Smith truly was incompetent, then he did not suddenly become that way en route to the Bank. My point - If the joint owner, Ms. Jones, believed him to be incompetent, then she should have filed the necessary paperwork with the court or appropriate overseer of such matters long before funds could be withdrawn. I'm with the majority.. with the facts presented in the original post, you are only going on heresay and that is not enough to release your photos. Let the joint owner pay for legal representation and not put the Bank in the middle of two "competent" joint owners.

I may be missing something here, but why would you have photos of the person who brought the customer to the bank? Not all banks have the constant surveillance equipment in areas where accounts would be opened or closed. Some banks simply have devices that take photos when an alarm goes off or the cameras are around the teller area.

I would have issues admitting to Ms. Jones that Mr. Smith came to the bank with another individual (again that privacy thing).

As a matter of bank security, photos of transactions should only be released to the proper authorities, i.e. law enforcement, subponeas, etc. I would be very careful and consider Andy's comments seriously.