Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this wrong? Applying special treatment to politically exposed persons has been standard practice in every high risk industry for a very long time. The simple fact is that people get extremely emotional about politicians, politicians both receive obscene amounts of abuse, and have repeatedly demonstrated they’re not above weaponising tools like this for their own goals. Seems perfectly reasonable that Apple doe…
It’s not wrong, it just requires transparency. This is extremely untransparent. A while back a British politician was “de-banked” and his bank denied it. That’s extremely wrong. By all means: make distinctions. But let people know it! If I’m denied a mortgage because my uncle is a foreign head of state, let me know that’s the reason. Let the world know that’s the reason! Please!
Cry me a river. I’ve worked in banks in the team making exactly these kinds of decisions. Trust me Nigel Farage knew exactly what happened and why. NatWest never denied it to the public, because they originally refused to comment on it. Commenting on the specifics details of a customer would be a horrific breach of customer privacy, and a total failure in their duty to their customers. There’s a damn good reason the NatWests CEO was fired after discussing the details of Nigel’s account with members of the public.
When you see these decisions from the inside, and you see what happens when you attempt real transparency around these types of decisions. You’ll also quickly understand why companies are so cagey about explaining their decision making. Simple fact is that support staff receive substantially less abuse, and have fewer traumatic experiences when you don’t spell out your reasoning. It sucks, but that’s the reality of the situation. I used to hold very similar views to yourself, indeed my entire team did for a while. But the general public quickly taught us a very hard lesson about cost of being transparent with the public with these types of decisions.
