Hang on, can you actually do something nefarious with just the bank account number?
replyIf someone has your bank account and bank’s routing number (which is also not secret), they can make fraudulent ACH transfers and payments from your account. Of course it will most likely be caught as fraud some time after the fact, but just those two bits of not-secret info are enough to grief someone.
replyKnuth had to stop sending real checks for errors spotted in his books because they would post pics of the check and thieves abused the account
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html
replyAnd both numbers, plus your name and address and a convenient sample of your signature, are on every check you’ve ever written.
replyI suddenly feel very clever for signing everything with “Shamu T. Whale”
replyAFAIK that's US thing. In normal countries bank account numbers are not a secret. The worst thing that can happen is someone sending you money.
replyYes but there are steep penalties for bank fraud so it is not especially common
replyIt’s quite ridiculous that we haven’t been able to build a modern identification system capable of replacing SSNs in the last 30 years.
replySSNv6. It will take 20 years for a 50% migration
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