No thumbprint, no money, bank tells armless man

MIAMI (Reuters) – A bank in Florida refused to cash a check for an armless man because he could not provide a thumbprint.

"They looked at my prosthetic hands and the teller said, 'Well, obviously you can't give us a thumbprint'," Steve Valdez told CNN on Wednesday.

But he said the Bank of America Corp branch in downtown Tampa, Florida, still insisted on a thumbprint identification for him to cash a check drawn on his wife's account at the bank, even though he showed them two photo IDs.

In the incident last week, a bank supervisor told Valdez he could only cash the check without a thumbprint if he brought his wife in with him or he opened an account with them.

"I told them I neither wanted an account with them and couldn't bring my wife in because she was nowhere close by," Valdez told CNN.

Bank of America said in a statement cited by CNN: "While the thumbprint is a requirement for those who don't have accounts, the bank should have made accommodations."

Valdez said his treatment by the bank violated the U.S. Americans with Disability Act requiring institutions to provide reasonable accommodation to disabled persons.

Yes, I think that a class on common sense should be mandated sometimes...

Well the sad thing about that is I don't think people can learn common sense. you either have or you don't.

The worst is it went from the teller all the way to the main branch down town.

I was at a BofA the other day and out of 20 people in line, they turned about 15 away - saying that they could not help them because of one reason or another. Alot of angry people...

I agree. You can develop it to some extent, sometimes, but for the most part, it's just innate.

I mean, really though, this goes beyond common sense. It's just sheer stupidity and laziness on the part of the teller and her manager.

I always say "common sense is very uncommon"

and you can't sure stupid.