A Synchronos vertical
Your family's important papers, sealed and kept off the internet at your bank, with the precautions that stop most scams before they start.
Homedot is a digital safe deposit box your bank offers: a locked, encrypted box for copies of your will, deeds, policies and records, your family's list of real phone numbers, and an optional second key, so a large or unusual transfer waits until someone you trust has confirmed it.
For families and the banks that serve them · Pilots begin 2027
A retired couple, a house paid off, savings at the same bank for thirty years. Here is what reached them in one week. None of it came from who it claimed to be.
Exhibit · one household, one week (illustrative)
| When | Who it said it was | What it asked |
|---|---|---|
| Mon 10:14 | Their grandson, crying, from a police station | $9,000 for bail, in cash, picked up by courier. "Please don't tell Mom." |
| Wed 15:40 | "The bank's fraud department" | Move the savings to a "safe account" today, before the hackers do. |
| Fri 09:02 | A government agency | Back taxes owed, payable in gift cards to avoid arrest. |
The grandson's voice was a recording stitched from his online videos. The "fraud department" had their real account number from an old data breach. Each call was built to make them act before they could check.
The scam works because nobody stops to call the number they already had.
Rule one
No money moves to a new or changed account until someone has hung up, called a number already on your family's list, and heard a person confirm it.
Not the number in the message. Not the number the caller gives you. The one you wrote down before today. Your bank will never ask you to move money to keep it safe, and no government agency takes gift cards.
Write your list. The bank, your doctor, your insurance agent, each person in the family. Keep it by the phone and in your wallet. That list, and the habit of using it, defeats most of the calls above.
When someone is ill, or gone, or a house floods, the family spends weeks looking for documents. Homedot keeps sealed copies in one place, each with where it came from and the day it arrived.
You get a printed index at every visit: what is in the box, and what is missing. Homedot holds copies. Originals stay with you or your attorney, and the box records where each one is.
After a fire, a flood or an earthquake, families have to prove who they are, what they owned and what they were insured for, often with every paper they had gone with the house.
The home inventory, the deeds and the policies are already sealed and dated at the bank, so a claim starts from records instead of memory.
Copies of identity documents help replace the originals, and the bank has confirmed your identity in person before.
A second, offline copy is held outside your area, so a fire that reaches the house and the branch does not reach the record.
After a declared disaster, you can collect a sealed copy at any of your bank's branches, with your identity checked in person.
Rule one and your list of real numbers, printed for the wallet and the refrigerator door.
Name someone you trust. A transfer above an amount you choose, or to anyone new, waits until your bank reaches that person at the number on file. Your trusted contact can confirm a transfer, but cannot see your balances or move your money.
Insurance renewals, an expiring passport, a power of attorney due for review, and a nudge to read each statement within 60 days, the window federal rules give you to report an unauthorized transfer.
Once a year your bank confirms your list, your contacts and your index with you, in person.
Before any money moves to a new account: hang up, and call a number on this card.
Confirmed in person · March 2027
Example card. Names and numbers are fictional.
The box is a sealed machine at your bank with no network connection. It is built so that nothing in it can be reached from outside, and nothing in it is sent by email.
What Homedot will not do.
It will not move money, pay a bill, sign anything or call anyone. A hold on a transfer is placed by your bank, under its own rules, never by the machine.
It will not give legal, tax or investment advice. If your index shows a gap, it says so and suggests you talk to an attorney or tax preparer.
It is never used to sell you anything. No products are offered during your visits, and nothing in your box is used for marketing.
It is not a deposit and is not FDIC insured. It keeps copies and the record of where your originals are.
We cannot promise that no one will ever see your information; too much is already out in the world. We can make sure no one changes what is in your box without it showing, and that no large transfer leaves without the people you chose.
Homedot gives a community bank or credit union a service its customers already understand, the safe deposit box, rebuilt for the records and decisions that matter now.
Trusted contacts, the second key and the callback rule give branch staff a structure when something looks wrong. Trained staff who report suspected exploitation in good faith are protected under the federal Senior Safe Act.
Version one stores, seals, indexes and reminds. It does not read statements or judge transactions. Its rule book is short, cited to public sources, and written for a branch, not a compliance department.
Enrollment, new papers, the yearly check and life's hard moments bring families into the branch for conversations an app cannot replace. Homedot visits carry one firm rule: nothing is sold. The trust comes from that.
A bank that learns the routine at the branch already knows the machine its credit department could use next.
Intake, the two keys, the log and the seal, practiced on staff volunteers' own papers before any customer's.
Chosen with the branch, many with an older parent and an adult child who wants to help. Each leaves with an index and a family card.
How many reminders mattered, how many second-key confirmations were asked for, what families found missing. The numbers belong to the bank.
Checking bills and statements against the family's record, sealed packages for landlords and lenders, and in time a smaller box at home.
Everyone building this has worked inside a bank or lent to the families it serves. It is built with a branch, not for one.
A small number of pilots beginning in 2027, one bank and one community at a time. The rule above is free to share with anyone who has a parent, a grandparent, or a phone.
eric@synchronos.com