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Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

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Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#41

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

pavlov wrote: post #26
martin_a wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just the most useless and stupidest trigger of all. I've got a PayPal account for my small side business. I did not receive any money on that so far, only paid with that account for whatever I needed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Euro over the last 3 years. Last week I received something like 12,30 € and PayPal locked the money and the account somewhat down, because of "unusual behaviour" that needed invest…

Well, I agree about PayPal. But their whole business is predicated on being extremely vigilant against scammers, to the detriment of ordinary customers. But regular American bank accounts are pretty different from PayPal or European bank accounts. (The original poster is talking about Chase so I assume the account in question was a regular checking account.) I lived in the US for a couple of years, and the oddities o…

> Or, there's something called ACH which you can use to pay bills and businesses can use to send you money (e.g. paycheck deposits), but ordinary banking customers can't use ACH to send money to each other.

This is possible with some bill payment systems with some banks. You can send anyone money and it is either transferred via ACH or they send a physical check. The big banks generally don't support this.

I agree that ACH is broken because you can't use it to transfer money to anyone.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#42

Post by pavlov »

martin_a wrote: post #34
pavlov wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I agree about PayPal. But their whole business is predicated on being extremely vigilant against scammers, to the detriment of ordinary customers. But regular American bank accounts are pretty different from PayPal or European bank accounts. (The original poster is talking about Chase so I assume the account in question was a regular checking account.) I lived in the US for a couple of years, and the oddities o…

That is some crazy mess people are dealing with over there. I'm just happy for free SEPA-transfers...

People still use paper checks in the USA! I managed to live for 40 years without writing a check, but in America these 20th century relics remain unavoidable.

For example, when leaving my NYC rental, the management company required I send them two paper checks: one to cover the move-out fee (use of the building elevator), another check as insurance which they’d only cash if my movers broke something. The first checks I wrote were lost in the mail, so then I made a trip downtown to deliver these pieces of paper in person… An absurdly retro payment experience.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#43

Post by becquerel »

yosito wrote: post #40
al_be_back wrote: post #38

Automated KYC/AML rules/ai may flag an activity in err, but if you chased (no pun) the issue with an operator, your local branch and even their Compliance Dept, well then it's likely more serious. > Anyone have any ideas of what I should do next? I'd hire a chartered Accountant with some experience in AML, to quickly go through your transactions and see if there're any hints/suggestions as to what may've triggered it

What is AML?

Anti-money laundering.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#44

Post by austin-cheney »

I see this account was created only to post this complaint about an account closure.

Stripe employees have commented on HN about this behavior as it occurs frequently. That behavior being an account with no history whining about how some big evil bank attacked them, a poor powerless innocent victim, for absolutely no reason. Almost always the account is closed due to fraud only after several rounds of correspondence and whining about it on HN is some last ditch effort to garner sympathy or shame the financial institution while the financial institution is legally prevented from public comment.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#45

Post by Nextgrid »

tyoma wrote: post #12

You triggered a fraud/compliance issue. It is serious enough that they are closing all your accounts. If other banks also start closing your accounts, it may be time to find a lawyer.

> It is serious enough that they are closing all your accounts.

"serious enough" can literally be buying crypto at a legitimate, regulated exchange.

The AML regulations are vague enough that banks do everything possible to cover their ass, and when they've got millions of customers, the few that have even slight indicators of risky activity are cheaper to ban than to investigate appropriately.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#46

Post by phpisthebest »

nindalf wrote: post #37
phpisthebest wrote: post #7

Chase is famous for this. Do a search. They have been closing accounts for political reasons for a long time. Not saying that is your issue but chase is known for just closing accounts for a huge array of non-financial reasons. Don't bank with chase US citizens have no rights to banking even as we the taxpayers (contray to the feds latest claims ) bear all the risk in insuring and bailing the banks out when they inev…

This bizarre claim that FDIC insurance is funded by taxpayers is becoming more prevalent. So a bank offers financial services to a citizen and in exchange makes money. The bank uses these profits to pay insurance on the deposits. And by some mental gymnastics, this makes the bank taxpayer funded? If we taxpayers buy phones from Apple, is Apple now taxpayer funded? Is an antitrust fine on Apple meaningless because it’…

FDIC is a Federal organization that can not go under. Banks pay to insurance on deposit up to 250k. We now know that the insurance is unlimited but the fees are only based on 250k liability

So if the amount of money left in FDIC is less than the amount of money needed to make depositors whole the FDIC gets its money from either the taxpayer or the Fed prints the money

If Apple were to offer some kind of protection plan for the iPhone's and then all of the iPhone blew up and Apple cannot afford to pay to replace them Apple would go under

That is the difference between a federal agency like the FDIC and a private corporation like Apple they are not an the same

At the end of the day the federal government IE the taxpayer 100% backs the FDIC

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#48

Post by fwlr »

“when they lock an account, it's frozen for 10-15 days and then when it's closed they send a check in the mail”

Sounds like their compliance team has concluded you’re in breach. Pretty sure that 10-15 days is there because it allows for the 7-14 days of forensic accounting / legal investigation to conclude whether you have committed a crime and will forfeit the money. You would know better than us why Chase might think this.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#49

Post by paganel »

nindalf wrote: post #37
phpisthebest wrote: post #7

Chase is famous for this. Do a search. They have been closing accounts for political reasons for a long time. Not saying that is your issue but chase is known for just closing accounts for a huge array of non-financial reasons. Don't bank with chase US citizens have no rights to banking even as we the taxpayers (contray to the feds latest claims ) bear all the risk in insuring and bailing the banks out when they inev…

This bizarre claim that FDIC insurance is funded by taxpayers is becoming more prevalent. So a bank offers financial services to a citizen and in exchange makes money. The bank uses these profits to pay insurance on the deposits. And by some mental gymnastics, this makes the bank taxpayer funded? If we taxpayers buy phones from Apple, is Apple now taxpayer funded? Is an antitrust fine on Apple meaningless because it’…

> This bizarre claim that FDIC insurance is funded by taxpayers is becoming more prevalent.

Because it is correct. In today's world you're pretty much forced to have a bank account open if you want to have a "normal" life, i.e. a life where you own a house (most probably via a mortgage), where you pay your bills (most probably online) and where you receive your salary (most probably via a bank account).

As such, the great majority of tax-payers are also bank customers, and this was not based on their own choosing (meaning they couldn't "afford" to avoid being bank clients). As such, banking customers bailing out failing banks de facto means tax-payers bailing out failing banks.

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