why do i need to provide bank account #s to rent?

Don't give bank accounts out.

You must provide what they ask for. Part of it no doubt is to know where some of your assets are in case you fail to pay your rent (they'll know what to attempt to freeze). Landlords also don't want to rent to people who keep their money in a mattress or buried in Central Park. They want to know you are a stable enough person to maintain a bank account and they want to check that for themselves--relying on what could be a fake statement is insufficient. There may be other reasons, but I would think these are the main ones.

Kyle likes to disagree with anything I say.

jna22, try asking the broker whether that's okay. The application for my apartment asked for credit card numbers (!), which I thought was ridiculous as well as pointless, because they could just pull my credit report. I just gave the last four digits. I don't really understand kylewest's point because knowing someone else's account number does not enable you to verify the balance of the account (unless you illegally impersonate them) and so is no less prone to forgery than a statement with the number crossed out and/or a fake number.

Hopefully people realize that when you write a check those funny little numbers at the bottom ARE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER. I rented from Glenwood Management and the information they required was ridiculously complicated. I don't remember if they asked for bank account data, but the amount in my account was meaninglessly low. They were much more focused on salary verification. I think they may have even asked for a tax return. I am 100% sure I didn't show assets.

Credit reports now generally show only a portion of your credit card number.
And if you write a check, yes you are delivering your routing number and account number, but if you use electronic bill pay where you instruct your bank to make the payment (vs. where you instruct the payee to do an ECH) your account number is not transmitted.

I'm curious, what's your concern about providing account information to the person whose real estate you're going to be living in?

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Providing a bank statement is not unusual; perhaps it the idea of providing your bank account number on an application that's throwing you. Regardless, it's not unusual for landlords to ask for this information, or for renters to provide it for the reasons posted above.

I don't think the landlord proceed with freezing your assets unless there is a court order or something; they probably just want to make sure you have some money in the bank, and that you're legit - often times criminals, i.e drug dealers, avoid using banks.

thanks for everyone's feedback. it is the idea that my bank account, credit card and ss# numbers will be floating around together...and if this information accidentally lands in the wrong hands (for example, if copies of the application are thrown away without being shredded)...could then be used for identity theft, fraudulent credit card charges or to take money out of my savings account. i know the chances are low, but it happens...and don't we all just want to protect our personal information to avoid this situation? ali r., perhaps you can share what you know about the steps brokers and management companies take to keep applicants' information safe. thanks, jna22

As a general precaution, virtually all accounts can be "password" protected by calling the company/bank and asking them to add a password that must be given before anyone is permitted to make changes to the account or obtain info. Credit card companies and most banks will do this. It is not fool-proof, but it is a free, added level of security you can have. This way, no one can call and change the address on your accounts, get balances, have new passwords created, etc. It's better than nothing.

Steps brokers take to keep applicants' information safe . . .

well, I am required by the State to keep copies of everything I handle (I think it's three years in NY and six in NJ -- it may be the other way around, forgive me as I am double-licensed) so I have one paper copy on file at home (in a locked storage room in my basement) and one PDF scan in my office on our server.

The management company presumably keeps files too, and I think it's probably safe to say they're also locked.

I generally ask clients what they want me to do with extra information -- especially in the case of co-op board packages -- and I go with their choice of returning it or shredding it.

However, returning a hard copy is probably only symbolic at this point -- it's the PDFs that are everywhere. The last rental transaction I did, the client had a scan, the condo board at the Orion had a hard copy, which presumably someone scanned, the owner's lawyer had a scan, and I had a scan.

Honestly, it couldn't be that hard for anyone who wants to hack around to get to one of those four copies.

Your best security is probably that no one really wants to. I tell my clients I have the social security numbers and birthdates of people who are way more famous and richer than them (I generally drop a specific name) and I tell them that if I'm going to go bad, I'm not going to start with them.

Similarly, anyone with the skills to hack into a law firm server isn't go to go after two dozen client accounts -- they'll go after bigger game, I expect. I think identity theft generally happens on a larger scale -- somebody gets millions of sets of information from Time Warner, say -- or on a smaller scale. The one time I really got zapped was when someone boosted my wallet on the 1 Train, and opened dozens of credit cards as me.

As Kylewest points out, passwording is a decent level of defense against that. You can also rig your credit cards so they'll call you if someone tries to charge more than a certain amount -- I've got it set up so that Citi will ping me every time I try to spend a thousand dollars, just to make sure it's me.

ali r.
{downtown broker}