<story><title>Guys what is wrong with ACATS</title><url>https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-acats-transfers-work/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>CaliforniaKarl</author><text>Fun fact about the Medallion Signature Guarantee: It&amp;#x27;s not a seal or embossment, like it often is for a notarization.  Instead, it&amp;#x27;s a stamp (like what you see on [0]).  It&amp;#x27;s a big stamp, but it&amp;#x27;s just a stamp.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s OK, though, because the person making the stamp is keeping a lot of records, so they&amp;#x27;ll know what they stamped.&lt;p&gt;When I first got my Treasury Direct[1] account, I couldn&amp;#x27;t verify my identity using their online process, and so I had to mail in FS Form 5444[1].  My local credit union had &amp;quot;Medallion Service&amp;quot; as one of the reasons for booking an appointment (separate from &amp;quot;Notary&amp;quot;), and they were able to take care of it.  As mentioned in the article, the person at the credit union asked me for a monetary value.  As it was a new Treasury Direct account, I said &amp;quot;$10,000&amp;quot; (the maximum amount of Series I bonds you can get per calendar year).&lt;p&gt;And as implied in the article, my credit union had no problems issuing this, even though they were not involved in Treasury Direct in any way.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting, all the &amp;#x27;little&amp;#x27; &amp;#x27;home-grown&amp;#x27; ways of identity guarantee that pop up when needed.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bankofamerica.com&amp;#x2F;signature-services&amp;#x2F;medallion-signature-guarantee&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bankofamerica.com&amp;#x2F;signature-services&amp;#x2F;medallion-s...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.treasurydirect.gov&amp;#x2F;forms&amp;#x2F;acctauth.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.treasurydirect.gov&amp;#x2F;forms&amp;#x2F;acctauth.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Guys what is wrong with ACATS</title><url>https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-acats-transfers-work/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>e63f67dd-065b</author><text>I never knew about the 3-day limit before, it makes sense that this is the reason behind unverified ACATS transfers (a problem that I&amp;#x27;ve spent no small amount of time arguing about on various online forums long ago).&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, Fidelity lets you put your account into &amp;quot;lockdown&amp;quot; mode there they&amp;#x27;ll reject all ACATS (and ACH too I believe) transfers automatically without your intervention. I&amp;#x27;ve always wondered what kind of legal magic they&amp;#x27;re pulling to make this compliant with FINRA rules.&lt;p&gt;What eventually convinced me over that it&amp;#x27;s not a problem is, as Patrick says, that these institutions will with high likelihood make you whole for fraudulent transfers, the same way they will for fraudulent ACH. The financial system generally works.</text></comment>