81–90 of 170 posts
Chase Bank Story time - We sold our company in 2020. Anticipating the wire I decided I needed to upgrade to a big boy bank from my small regional bank that I've been using since I was 16. What finer institution is there than J.P. Morgan Chase? I opened an account with them. I called them telling them there was going to be a larger than average transfer. I put in $500 to "warm up" the account (stupid in retrospect). A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way you phrase that, it sounds like these services are more advantageous to the bank, but possibly not to the account holder? If so, that goes against the tone of the article, where Mitchell implies (I think?) that he would have benefited more from speaking to Alex than the other way around.
Not really, these are probably mutually beneficial. Having $35 million sitting in a cash account is, as Mitchell recalls in the article, pretty bad -- you're forgoing a lot of benefit for yourself. What the bank is probably mainly trying to do is not "extract a higher margin" from you, but rather to "maintain your business." While Alex might not have recognized that a startup that took in a bunch of financing and plo…
If banks want to keep a customer, you might think the most important thing is to just not annoy or screw over their customers.
Why do they continually treat good customers like shit? I'm in New Zealand and my bank just continuously pisses me off. I don't want any upsell (the arseholes tried to upsell insurance when I got a credit card the other day). I've got a six figure facility at risk (US:HELOC?) and my bank's security practices are shockingly bad (we're way too trusting in New Zealand). Little things like access blocked from oversees for a month (phone banking was theoretically available but I couldn't call international so it wasn't). Aside: I would like to block phone banking because it feels so insecure. I've been looking for a better bank, but I wouldn't get the same mortgage facility, soooooooo I'm kinda stuck (maybe that's the reason they don't need to be good to customers).
Mitchell kept getting annoyed by the bank's activities. They wanted him as a customer but their internal systems didn't know how to make it easy for him. Systems with negative impacts are too common even when you're the guy making them money...
Once upon a time my wife went to close a bank account in Italy. She went to the post office which is also a bank in Rome. She asked to closed her account. She was told that she needed to go to the branch where she opened her account in Florence. We rented a car and drove to Florence. When we arrived at the bank in Florence, the teller informed us that we would have to come back “domani” which is Italian for tomorrow…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TFA didn't really explain the mistake. What I think it was: 1: Chase's business account wasn't appropriate for a tech startup; nor was it appropriate for the amount of money Mitchell was handling. 2: When your bank calls you after a very, very large money transfer, you should take the call. That being said: In today's world where every other phone call is some telemarketer trying to scam you or otherwise sell you som…
They basically had no problems through $35M+ of money coming in except a few phone calls trying to sell him some banking services... I wouldn't really call it 'not appropriate' for a startup... All it was is probably the guy trying to say "hey maybe you'd be interested in parking some of that capital in a term deposit" or offering some credit products... It is a bit weird how actively the guy tried to engage but it p…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45058480
> If you are the customer you want a bank that understands what kind of inflows/outflows you’ll typically have. The bank wants to manage the risk, and you want a bank that doesn’t freak out at what seem to you to be very mundane transactions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45058894
> A bank account is only insured up to $250k by the FDIC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your answers are appreciated, but they beg further questions. Do you mind that I inquire further? >1: Chase's business account wasn't appropriate for a tech startup; nor was it appropriate for the amount of money Mitchell was handling. What properties make it inappropriate for a tech startup, specifically? What would be appropriate instead, and why? >2: When your bank calls you after a very, very large money transfer…
> He did take the call, but I take your answer to mean that Mitchell and Alex didn't have the right kind of conversation on the call. Is that correct? If so, what ought to occur on a call that follows a large transfer? I would echo this question. If my bank called me and asked if I needed help, why would I say yes? I got money, the bank is holding it, everything is going great! This really feels like Alex was trying…
Until your account is many orders of magnitude larger than the other accounts. I suspect the typical "business" account was well under a million. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45058480 to understand why this was a big deal for the bank.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he was trying to imply that he did anything wrong. He was admitting the ignorance regarding how banks and banking work... plus acknowledging that a lot of readers will have had experiences that would make them think "Oh you young fool." In 2022 I lost my business banking and had to shut down a business that I owned for 20 years because it was related to the adult entertainment industry and, despite bein…
Chargebacks. Tons of people buy porn on a card then later deny it when their SO finds the bill. The industry is rife with this kind of fraud, and chargebacks represent tangible risk of financial loss, so banks just blanket ban working with certain industries. People who sell precious metal jewelry for credit card payments are another.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At what point does it make sense to sign up for private banking? I've been happy with our credit union for day to day stuff but we don't keep a ton of cash around (most of our money is in a brokerage account (ETFs)). Is private banking just for folks that want to have a lot of cash around but not have it in an easy to use account?
When you are managing a $500k-1M+ liquid net worth. I think Chase starts “Private Client” at $250 or $300k. (Don’t use Chase, however.) It might in some cases be more trouble than it is worth, if you are right around the threshold. A “normal” retail checking account and a brokerage account at another institution with the ability to transfer between them is probably sufficient for most. If you need loans or mortgages…
Within the first few months, I accumulated around 40K CHF in salary that the university owed me (technically from the Swiss government, since researchers were federal employees). Eventually, the university emailed me to ask if I’d like to pick up my money in cash (Bargeld). Apparently, this wasn’t uncommon.
One day I went to the office to collect it. They asked which denomination I preferred (I assumed 20s or 100s). I asked for a mix, and they handed me several envelopes filled with 1,000 CHF notes and smaller bills. I distinctly remember carrying multiple envelopes. At one point, as I walked back to my office on top overlooking Zurich, a gust of wind blew behind me. I turned around and saw colorful 200 CHF and 1,000 CHF notes scattered along the road. I calmly walked back and picked them up.
For a few months, I paid my rent and groceries entirely in cash. The Swiss didn’t think anything of it—in fact, it was fairly common. Eventually, I was able to open an account and received a yellow two-factor authentication device that looked like an old calculator. I deposited the rest of the money and, for the remainder of my studies, used the “yellow calculator” to pay bills online by debit. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhylNX...
I never did receive an official Swiss credit card which was fine. However, I did accumulate funds a Swiss 401K which is another story unto itself.
Funny to see this pop up again (I'm the author). The year is now 2025 and I still use Chase as a personal bank and I'm now discovering new funny banking behaviors. I'll use this as a chance to share. :) My company had an exit, I did well financially. This is not a secret. I'm extremely privileged and thankful for it. But as a result of this, I've used a private bank (or mix) for a number of years to store the vast ma…
What's the point of a private bank or do you mean investement/brokerage?
During COVID, I took a major haircut in my day job, and ended up doing a lot of side work to stay solvent. All my banking was with Chase; I setup a new checking account for my side work. One day they just took about $900. No matter who I spoke to, they bounced me around and never gave me an answer why. I can only guess there was a fraud trigger or something, but to this day, I've never gotten the money back or even g…
Take them to small claims court. (Also close the account. No bank should lose money like that.)
You might also try some other governmental bodies but I've read a lot of success with the CFPB