When Steve Valdez used one of his prosthetic arms to hand a teller a check at a Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) Branch in Tampa, FL, the teller told him, “Obviously you aren’t going to be able to give us a thumbprint.”

Valdez recently did an interview with the St. Petersburg Times to share the story about how the nation’s largest bank hasn’t been able to figure out how to gracefully handle situations with special-needs individuals.

Valdez was born without any arms and wasn’t able to use the bank’s biometric verification techniques. Valdez, bearing a check from his wife, took it to her bank to cash it, thinking that it would be a simple, painless process. Valdez was happy to present two forms of ID to make the withdrawal, but for the branch manager, that wasn’t good enough.

The bank teller went grabbed the branch manager to find out what she should do about the situation. The manager gave Valdez the options of opening an account with the bank or coming back with his wife. Valdez opted for neither and instead asked his wife to never send him the bank again.

What did Bank of America have to say about the situation? One of its spokeswoman stated that the policy that requires people who don’t have an account to put a thumbprint on business or personal checks is a decade-old practice to prevent fraud. Eventually, Bank of America called Valdez to apologize any inconvenience they caused him. According to the spokeswoman, “We should have offered alternative requirements if an individual is not able to give a thumbprint.”

The St. Petersburg Times also interviewed a Tampa attorney, Maureen Deskins, that handles discrimination cases against the disabled. Deskins said that, “under state law, once a disabled person asks a public establishment to alter its rules or guidelines within reason, it’s up to the establishment to prove that request is unreasonable.” Deskins said she would need to know more to determine whether or not BofA’s actions were a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In his interview, Valdez said that as BofA representatives called and apologize to him, they stated that the branch manager was following bank policy. “That’s just shocking to me,” he said. “This can’t have been the first time this has ever come up.”