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Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

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Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#101

Post by sbierwagen »

ipython wrote: post #71
wyager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regard to “automated customer handling” (I.e. intentionally wasting customers’ time and energy in the hope they give up) - I can’t help but feel that society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior. If some airline or bank puts you on hold for 4 hours, there’s no way to throw a few punches or whatever at the pe…

Back in the banking crisis days, I applied for a mortgage modification. I’m on top of paperwork and fax like a boss, so I made sure all of our documentation was in order and submitted ahead of schedule. Regardless, the bank tried to use every trick in the book to delay. I ended up war dialing all the extensions around my contact to find someone who worked there with access to my files to push it along. Ended up succe…

>I don’t agree with the need for physical violence. Historically, we have had decent regulatory protections for customers.

“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”

Regulatory protections certainly didn't arise from the void. If you trace them back the New Deal agencies, then you have to consider the widespread violence that forced their creation.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#102

Post by lp0_on_fire »

gruez wrote: post #69
quanticle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what good does it do me to have three months, six months, or heck 3 years worth of living expenses saved if the financial institution I've saved it with tells me that the account has been closed and the funds have been confiscated? We make fun of old people who lived through the Great Depression for keeping their money as cash or gold, but if this is the future of finance, well, gold bars under the mattress are l…

>And what good does it do me to have three months, six months, or heck 3 years worth of living expenses saved if the financial institution I've saved it with tells me that the account has been closed and the funds have been confiscated You have those funds spread out across multiple accounts, so if one goes down you still have access to some cash. you know, like a high availability cluster.

Or, you know, we could champion legislation that would prevent these banking institutions from arbitrarily seizing your money.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#103

Post by [deleted] »

wyager wrote: post #31
techsupporter wrote: post #14

> The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress. Of course they have. It's no accident that accounts like these are heavily marketed to people with terms like "faster access to YOUR money" and "virtually no fees" and "manage YOUR MONEY from anywhere, down to the penny!" These companies are targeting people for whom every single dollar is of vital importance. To then yank the accou…

With regard to “automated customer handling” (I.e. intentionally wasting customers’ time and energy in the hope they give up) - I can’t help but feel that society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior. If some airline or bank puts you on hold for 4 hours, there’s no way to throw a few punches or whatever at the pe…

[deleted]

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#104

Post by gruez »

mindslight wrote: post #82
41209 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, any bank can freeze your account for any reason. You can mitigate this somewhat by having accounts with multiple banks, but even then they can all be frozen at once. The benefit of a traditional bank is at least you can show up with an ID and beg for your money. Chime does indeed market to those who aren't financially doing great, but it's a very complicated situation. Everyone should have a minimum of 3…

The feature that has been lost was actually a property of writing checks. When you use a debit card, or use a website to make an online payment, you're ultimately asking permission and the bank is free to say "no" with little repercussion. Whereas if you write a check on your account, pass it to someone else, who passes it to their bank, who presents it to your bank, your bank wantonly dishonoring the check would res…

>Whereas if you write a check on your account, pass it to someone else, who passes it to their bank, who presents it to your bank, your bank wantonly dishonoring the check would result in a much larger fallout.

I doubt that the law would be on your side if the bank called and told you that your account was closed, and you continued writing checks. At best that would prevent situations mentioned in the article where your account was frozen without your notice, but you'll still be out $10k while that's being resolved.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#105

Post by perl4ever »

wyager wrote: post #94
ipython wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the banking crisis days, I applied for a mortgage modification. I’m on top of paperwork and fax like a boss, so I made sure all of our documentation was in order and submitted ahead of schedule. Regardless, the bank tried to use every trick in the book to delay. I ended up war dialing all the extensions around my contact to find someone who worked there with access to my files to push it along. Ended up succe…

I think this is illustrative of my point; only the most well-equipped people (lawyers, people who know how to wardial, etc.) have any chance of grappling with the kafkaesque bullshit of modern corporate bureaucracy. If amazon wrongs you, you're fucked. If a shopkeeper wrongs you, you can go yell at the shopkeeper. I don't know if there's any legal framework that can fix this. I even have to admit that it might not be…

>If a shopkeeper wrongs you, you can go yell at the shopkeeper

So, go buy your appliances from a local store, not Amazon or Lowe's or Home Depot. Do you, or do you not do that? Because you can totally do that.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#106

Post by quesera »

wyager wrote: post #89
quesera wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior Wow, that's the most poorly-thought out idea I've read in recent memory. A few more seconds of consideration should be enough to come up with all the reasons this is such a terrible idea. But one that I can contribute from a slightly unusual perspective (working adja…

I'm obviously not proposing it as a solution - just pointing out that this used to be part of the social regulatory calculus and now it's gone.

It's gone because it worked so poorly for society.

Most obvious consequence: the physically-strong can get more justice than the weak.

Which leads inevitably to: the physically-strong make the rules. And social regulation has failed.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#107

Post by quesera »

ebiester wrote: post #97
quesera wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior Wow, that's the most poorly-thought out idea I've read in recent memory. A few more seconds of consideration should be enough to come up with all the reasons this is such a terrible idea. But one that I can contribute from a slightly unusual perspective (working adja…

If things are so complex that someone can lose their money through an intricate set of rules, that's exactly the type of scummy behavior that we are talking about. It's not a matter of "whose" fault it is, but rather that a faceless group benefit from this type of behavior, and it is so complex that it is nearly impossible to avoid. And there are no consequences. Sometimes, it's a computer responsible for the decisio…

Yes, some groups leverage that complexity for their own benefit. Absolutely true. See also: every complex system ever.

But some systems are complex because they're complicated. And the net of, say, regulated banking, is socially beneficial.

So punish the scummy behavior with the avid prosecution of just laws, obviously.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#108

Post by Nextgrid »

quesera wrote: post #83
wyager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regard to “automated customer handling” (I.e. intentionally wasting customers’ time and energy in the hope they give up) - I can’t help but feel that society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior. If some airline or bank puts you on hold for 4 hours, there’s no way to throw a few punches or whatever at the pe…

> society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior Wow, that's the most poorly-thought out idea I've read in recent memory. A few more seconds of consideration should be enough to come up with all the reasons this is such a terrible idea. But one that I can contribute from a slightly unusual perspective (working adja…

The customer being able to cause a scene in your premises (in view of other customers), let alone being able to physically threaten and or hurt you is a good incentive to make sure customers have no reason to resort to such means.

You're less likely to ignore a potential bug if a customer can cause damage to your business (by causing a scene in the store or physically hurting employees) as opposed to being "contained" within endless bureaucracy and phone queues.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#109

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

wyager wrote: post #31
techsupporter wrote: post #14

> The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress. Of course they have. It's no accident that accounts like these are heavily marketed to people with terms like "faster access to YOUR money" and "virtually no fees" and "manage YOUR MONEY from anywhere, down to the penny!" These companies are targeting people for whom every single dollar is of vital importance. To then yank the accou…

With regard to “automated customer handling” (I.e. intentionally wasting customers’ time and energy in the hope they give up) - I can’t help but feel that society has lost a critical social regulatory mechanism, in the form of being able to physically beat up people who repeatedly exhibit scummy behavior. If some airline or bank puts you on hold for 4 hours, there’s no way to throw a few punches or whatever at the pe…

I think getting rid of arbitration and allowing at least small claims court, coupled with an effective small claims court system and encouraging people to use it, could be very effective.

This is particularly true in cases where the actual issue is obvious and just stuck in a bog of internal bureaucracy. Now a company lawyer, who has a strong incentive to resolve the issue, access to said bureaucracy, and a certain extent of power to say "we're now doing X because The Law demands it, even if the stupid process says otherwise, make it happen" is dealing with it.

In most cases, I'd expect the lawyer to resolve it before he has to coach and send an employee to represent the company at the court, costing hundreds to thousands.

It also scales really poorly, effectively motivating companies to resolve issues before they get to that stage.

Re: Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money

#110

Post by Nextgrid »

quesera wrote: post #106
wyager wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously not proposing it as a solution - just pointing out that this used to be part of the social regulatory calculus and now it's gone.

It's gone because it worked so poorly for society. Most obvious consequence: the physically-strong can get more justice than the weak. Which leads inevitably to: the physically-strong make the rules. And social regulation has failed.

I wouldn't say that it's gone because it worked so poorly. It's gone for other reasons such as technological advances shifting so much business online where this behavior is no longer possible.

I don't think it worked poorly. While we didn't have a constant epidemic of customers fighting with customer service people, the possibility of it served as an effective deterrent for overly scummy behavior (from both sides actually) and the system self-regulated.

You can compare this to the amount of verbal abuse and harassment being published on the internet. Before the internet and social media people weren't constantly punching each other in the face, because the possibility of it successfully deterred abusive behavior that would prompt such reactions. With that possibility gone, abuse increased significantly given the lack of consequences.

It's kind of like mutually-assured destruction. Nobody uses it, but the possibility of it being used keeps everyone in check.

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