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Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

nytimes.com

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Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#131

Post by PKop »

sneak wrote: post #25
wolverine876 wrote: post #8

You can be barred from flying (is that still true?) and now banking, without trial or evidence. It's already highly anti-democratic, but imagine what an aggressive, oppressive government will do with this power.

Banking is optional; the problem is that many businesses insist on bank cards to transact. It’s important that businesses be compelled to accept cash for all transactions. It’s particularly bad in some cities. Rather than enforcing access to the special hell that is US retail banking, just prohibit businesses from ripping out their existing cash infrastructure. Even with a bank account, your ability to transact is su…

Why would banking be optional even if every single business accepted cash?

Where are you supposed to hold your cash, under a mattress?

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#132

Post by PKop »

almatabata wrote: post #34
sneak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking is optional; the problem is that many businesses insist on bank cards to transact. It’s important that businesses be compelled to accept cash for all transactions. It’s particularly bad in some cities. Rather than enforcing access to the special hell that is US retail banking, just prohibit businesses from ripping out their existing cash infrastructure. Even with a bank account, your ability to transact is su…

I cannot get paid by my company without a bank account. No company would pay me my salary in cash. A bank account is no longer optional if you want to live a normal life.

Even if they did, you would need to store that cash somewhere.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#133

Post by obviouslynotme »

Scoundreller wrote: post #33
noSyncCloud wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is absolutely subject to freezing/seizure. Try carrying $25,000 and letting the police search your vehicle.

> letting the police search your vehicle. Good idea to decline those

The one time I was asked to be searched while driving I declined. They immediately called a drug dog, yanked its leash, and called it a drug hit. I then hung out for an hour while they confirmed I was a poor college student with zero drugs.

Driving with any amount of cash above a few hundred will get you robbed by the police in asset forfeiture. It happens everyday around the country to small business owners that deal with a lot of cash.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#134

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #64
cjalmeida wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking is not optional in today's advanced societies, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we'll have proper regulations mandating a minimum level of banking service, eg. Limited deposits, withdrawals, debit/secured cards.

Millions of people live normal lives without bank accounts. The solution to the problem is not to force retail banks to extend their terrible customer service to all of society, it’s to ensure the utility of cash. Cash works great even if the banks (or the state) hate you.

[deleted]

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#135

Post by kylehotchkiss »

renewiltord wrote: post #103
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #78

Protip to anybody who wants to spend an extended amount of time overseas - you’re looking at a strong opportunity to join the list of people who have their accounts closed. Red flags include quantity of overseas debit card transactions, setting a PO Box (this one apparently is a very big red flag to banks) or a PMB as your bank address, lots of wire transfers. Open multiple bank accounts at different banks, use servi…

Patriot Act expired, no? Also, I've stayed abroad for a year or more and I just swapped the address to a friend's home. Kept my Google Fi, etc. and used my credit cards all internationally alone. I think I visited the US like once in a year and it was fine for the rest of the time. I lost my phone and actually activated my Google Fi SIM from abroad too (needed to use a Wireguard tunnel to the US).

I’m very impressed Google fi didn’t shut you off, I’ve heard around the web they do that pretty regularly within 3-4 months of moving

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#136

Post by vivekd »

jdiff wrote: post #116
constantly wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit

Crypto has been a scam from the beginning, the only thing that's changed is the public perception after NFTs bombed massively and crypto was once again left without any use case.

Depends on where you live, if you live in Zimbabwe suddenly it starts to look very attractive. Too many countries play fast and loose with their currency.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#137

Post by raincom »

panarky wrote: post #119
raincom wrote: post #41

Banks hide behind Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations in order to debank people. Chase closed my account, and the reason Chase gave: "Financial institutions have an obligation to know our customers and monitor transactions that flow through our customers' accounts. After careful consideration, we decided to close your account because of unexpected activity on these or another Chase account." I didn't dispute any t…

> Chase monitors your political activity This is a big claim. It should have big evidence to back it up.

At least in the UK, NatWest debanked Neil Farage's account for his political views. Even its CEO resigned over her lying.

"19 Republican states accuse JPMorgan of closing bank accounts and discriminating against customers due to their religious or political beliefs" [1][3]. Of course, this site is not favorable to conservatives and their views. Some left activists' accounts are closed as well [2].

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-states-accuse-jpm...

[2] https://nitter.cz/OccupyWallStNYC/status/1674022837084991489

[3] https://www2.cbn.com/news/us/chase-bank-cancels-nonprofits-b...

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#138

Post by obviouslynotme »

cwillu wrote: post #14

It's remarkable how totalitarianism seeps in.

Most people are totalitarian in a few ways. Some people hate drugs. Everyone hates crime. The homeless cause social issues. Some people want their religion enforced. Some people hate foreigners.

Most people grant these powers to the government hoping to get their pet peeve taken care of, and are surprised when the government not only doesn't do what they promised, but turn those powers onto its own favorite victims instead.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#139

Post by krupan »

dale_glass wrote: post #114
krupan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, what the are the privacy properties of cash that Bitcoin lacks? Who types destination addresses by hand? Probably the same people that expose a hoard of paper money to flames?

All Bitcoins are trackable on the blockchain, and these days you won't go far before transactions can be connected to an identifiable wallet. If you've ever said anything like "Donations accepted at $ADDRESS", then everyone can see if anyone ever sent anything, and from there it doesn't take much work to see if you ever spent that money on anything and what else you do with it. You can obscure things some, but the re…

People do track cash by serial number, each and every bill has a unique one. However in practice it doesn't happen a lot. I would think that's because:

- There are a whole lot of bills to keep track of

- The serial numbers are not easily stored and compared with computers (at least not for private individuals)

That second point, bills not being on computers, is why cash isn't the easy answer to the banking problems we are discussing here. You can't pay someone across the country very easily using dollar bills.

With Bitcoin, there actually aren't any bills or tokens with serial numbers attached to them. There are however, as you point out, unique addresses for each transaction. Like the vast number of paper bill serial numbers, there are a lot of possibly Bitcoin addresses. Far, far more than there are paper dollar bills, sands in the sea, and stars in the sky, actually.

It is, however, somewhat possible to track Bitcoin going too and from the addresses because it is all on computers and this is a trade off of Bitcoin being permission-less and not controlled by a single entity that can decide to unbank you, and online so that you can send it to people across the country.

So, as you point out, if someone publicly associates themselves with a Bitcoin address, and if they reuse that address over and over, you can see how much Bitcoin is going into and out of that address, and if the other addresses in these transactions are also known, then you can easily see that Bob sent Alice some Bitcoin. Address reuse and publicly associating yourself with an address was unfortunately common in the early days of Bitcoin, but practically it never never happens anymore. Instead each and every transaction uses a new unique address, and as I said before, there a vast huge number of possible addresses.

As for exchanges, yes, they do have identities associated with Bitcoin addresses. You can easily accept bitcoin from an exchange and then transfer it again to other addresses that have not been publicly associated with you. Also, hopefully someday exchanges won't be necessary.

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