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Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

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Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#221

Post by readyplayernull »

ciupicri wrote: post #216
readyplayernull wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main differences between banks and credit unions are that banks are for-profit institutions owned by shareholders, while credit unions are not-for-profit organizations owned by their member account holders. Credit unions typically have lower fees, higher interest rates on savings, and a focus on serving their members' financial needs, rather than maximizing profits like banks. Credit unions also have membership r…

Is the money stored at a credit union insured or can you lose it all?

Credit union deposits are insured up to $250,000 per depositor by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), which is backed by the U.S. government. This means that even if a credit union fails, members' deposits up to the $250,000 limit are protected, similar to how bank deposits are insured by the FDIC. So credit union members generally do not have to worry about losing their money as long as their total deposits at a single credit union do not exceed the coverage limit.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#222

Post by thelittleone »

benzible wrote: post #145
mijoharas wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've opened another business account and a personal travel credit card with Chase Out of interest, why would you do that after your previous experience with them?

The Chase Sapphire card was rated as the best travel card. I had no idea that I had been flagged personally at the time I applied. I can't remember why I chose them for a business account. At the time I was working under the assumption that this was a "lightning strike" type of event which could have happened with any bank. I'm more inclined to believe it's Chase-specific now, or at least more likely with Chase, esp.…

These banks are too big to fail and get bail outs funded by taxpayers (and SMEs), and yet SMEs are too small to matter and entire livelihoods can be thrown to ruins based on ahat is often a very subjective and often erroneous risk process. I understand banks have to comply with laws and often complex risks but i doubt they would shutdown accounts of companies worth over $1B unless youre violating some serious laws and even then it would probably be done with a lot more caution due to risk of law suit.

I doubt Mercury can do much more as arent they just a vrand on top of a bank? Like Heroku vs AWS.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#223

Post by thimkerbell »

closeparen wrote: post #210
pdonis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Bank may close your Accounts at any time...the Account Rules do not require the Bank to provide you with advance notice of the termination of the Accounts I assume most of the big banks probably have similar language, which would be a huge red flag to me for a small business account. But what about banks like Mercury Bank, mentioned in the article as being more supportive of small businesses? Do their terms of…

If a bank suspects you of money laundering, they cannot discuss it with you. A bank employee could go to federal prison just for leaking the existence of a suspicious activity report (SAR).

So, the guy who rushes up and parks his car right by yours in the otherwise spacious bank parking lot to block yours from view, the fellow wearing a mask, hat and dark glasses who's sporting a "Suspicious Person Here" flashing Caution button on his Tshirt, is he going to cause trouble for the bank's opinion of you?

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#224

Post by calmbonsai »

trinsic2 wrote: post #191
calmbonsai wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, Citi. Related to an earlier comment I posted on a different thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 , I didn't name the "national bank", but I now feel perfectly comfortable outing "Citibank" as the national bank that I will no longer (personally) do business with. Corporate stuff is a different matter. As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps, and even…

> After 20 days of back-and-forth with non-answers, I finally sent them a certified letter giving them 30 days to "take action" or "explain non-action" on a specific dispute amounting to ~$5k. > The responded with a non-reponse bizarre marketing letter in 10 days. >I called to verify the prior letter was "on-record" in my account. Given the nature of the postage, it was already verified delivered. What was the purpos…

To verify they received it, signed for it, and to, essentially, guarantee that it would also be logged into my account. Emails are supported in court, but a certified letter or courier service has, essentially, zero grounds for evidentiary hearing challenges.

The purpose was to layout an explicit log of prior communications and the terms of any/all communications moving forward (only physical mail), actions they needed to take if they wanted the account to remain active, and a time frame under which they needed to take those actions. Franky, just bog-standard financial dispute stuff.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#225

Post by hansvm »

calmbonsai wrote: post #212
ethbr1 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps This appears to be the original sin in most of these scenarios. Eventually, automation and predictive analytics will break. If you do not have a customer service org empowered and staffed to (a) investigate what went wrong & (b) make it right, then you will lose customers. And maybe you're fine with that trickle, but know that t…

Truth re:Amazon. I think my longest support call with them (~30min) over decades of service was with their pharmacy and the root cause turned out to be related to the Change Healthcare hacks. Even though it wasn't their fault and they could do nothing, at the time, to source the medication, I received instant credit (very expensive med) and they even talked to my insurance (with me on the line) to smooth-out the inst…

My worst experience with Amazon was a rogue computer system re-flagging a refund as erroneous. It was annoying to have to go back 4 times, but every person I talked to was empowered to reverse the charge, and the last one knew how to stop it for good.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#226

Post by raincom »

bdcravens wrote: post #122

Chase stole about $900 from me from an account I setup just for freelance income. This was during the pandemic when I had to take a 2/3 haircut in my day job to keep the company afloat (we did, and all is well now). Every time I'd try to reach out to try to get answers, I'd get bounced around among different foreign call centers. After months of trying to resolve it I just gave up. (I could and should seek legal reco…

File a complaint about Chase with CFPB, and you will get your money back. Never directly with Chase.

https://fairshake.com/chase-bank/file-a-complaint/

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#227

Post by benzible »

pdonis wrote: post #200
benzible wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chase Sapphire card was rated as the best travel card. I had no idea that I had been flagged personally at the time I applied. I can't remember why I chose them for a business account. At the time I was working under the assumption that this was a "lightning strike" type of event which could have happened with any bank. I'm more inclined to believe it's Chase-specific now, or at least more likely with Chase, esp.…

> I'm more inclined to believe it's Chase-specific now, or at least more likely with Chase, esp. based on other anecdotes in this thread! The only reason anecdotes in this thread are about Chase is that Chase is the bank you mentioned in your article. If you had mentioned any other of the big banks I am sure you would get similar anecdotes. All of the big banks work basically the same way. For example, as I commented…

I’ve had business accounts with almost every large US bank. I’ve founded quite a few businesses - venture-backed and bootstrapped product and consulting companies, going back to the 90s. I’ll repeat: I’ve never had an experience as bad as the one I had with Chase. Not sure what would possess you to post something so condescending about a statement of opinion and then to make incorrect assumptions about the extent of my experience.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#228

Post by jpollock »

ciupicri wrote: post #206
CliffStoll wrote: post #26

Similar experience: Citibank Retirement. I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years. Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll". Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same p…

How was it possible for both "Cliff Stoll" and "Clifford Stoll" to exist? Shouldn't your legal name be used as it is (i.e. no nicknames) on all papers? Or did you change your legal name?

Names are fuzzy things, and what you write on a piece of paper can change. What's on your ID can change over time too.

I've known people who couldn't get their name into the system (no last name), couldn't fit their names into the system (two last names, no hyphen), changed family name (spouses), change first name, put in a different first name (sometimes Timothy, sometimes Tim), their name didn't _fit_ in the field (too many characters, unexpected character encoding), trans people.

This should be expected by computer systems, and expected by staff.

Re: Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business

#229

Post by jxnlco »

neilv wrote: post #76

I feel bad for the people who went through this Kafkaesque nightmare. > After months of back-and-forth, [...] I finally got my money. I didn't find any mention of a lawyer in the article. When you realize you're dealing with people who aren't operating in good faith, seriously consider consulting a lawyer. (A harder problem is realizing when people aren't operating in good faith. Especially if you're a Pollyanna, or…

i did it cause mercury helped me out a lot.
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