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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

#261

Post by silentsea90 »

hanniabu wrote: post #245
redox99 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Glad we have so much energy focusing on legit bankers instead of the crypto that is actually funding multiple US adversaries at this very moment Funny you criticize crypto, when it actually solves all the bullshit you're mentioning. It's so nice knowing for a fact that when I send or receive crypto, it will 100% arrive within moments, unlike the absolute shitfest that is international transfers (like SWIFT).

Wouldn't expect any less from HN, but can't blame them much when people like Senator Warren make up lies about terrorist funding.

I am always surprised how HN folks fall in hook line and sinker for Democratic talking points from senators FAR removed from any understanding of technology and insistent on curbing basic internet freedoms. The previous version of this was the proposal to ban encryption because bad actors can have a private conversation. If you oppose banning encryption but are in support of banning crypto, I would encourage folks to think more deeply about their positions

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#262

Post by BirAdam »

patmcc wrote: post #72
slovette wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehm. No. Innocent until proven guilty, not guilt until proven innocent. Being de-platformed from financial infrastructure is tantamount to being economically jailed and instantly forced into life altering poverty. This isn’t some silly app you’re getting banned from… Banks shouldn’t be allowed to ban anyone. They should need a court order to lock up/ban someone from access/mobility of their own property. That said, t…

>>>Banks shouldn’t be allowed to ban anyone. This gets pretty tricky - telling a bank they need to keep dealing with customers that cost them tons of money and are actively trying to defraud them (and other customers) seems awfully harsh. I think the government should provide a basic bank account to anyone who wants one though.

In the USA, all of the large banks are part of the Federal Reserve System and the FFIC insures all accounts up to a certain amount. I would say this nullifies their claim to refuse the public as a largely publicly funded institution… the government, however, doesn’t care about the hoi polloi so this situation isn’t likely to ever change.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#263

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #202
krupan wrote: post #70

The crazy thing to me in all this is that the types and amounts of transactions you make with your money and the bank is not criminal and never could be. It could however be a technique used to hide things that are criminal like fraud or theft. Somehow somewhere along the way we as a society decided we were ok with criminalizing the types of transactions that can be used to hide crime. That to me should have been a c…

Is there a legitimate, non-criminal reason to launder money?

I have a right to privacy, and a right for my actions to be free from government scrutiny until, at the very minimum, they can show probable cause with a search warrant.

Deputizing the banks to spy on me just makes those banks obligated to the same rules.

Money laundering is a crime predicated on the idea that the money I rightfully own is something they should be able to confiscate from me on hypothetical crimes, and they're attempts to seize it often cause people to try to make it less suspicious to the government. It's bizarre.

If they wanted to fight organized crime, the simple way was always to legalize cocaine, meth, and heroin, and sell that shit out of liquor stores in plain retail packages, all manufactured by regulated pharmaceutical companies that would produce it for a fixed, low profit-over-cost, in measured doses and free from unsafe adulterants.

Government causes problems with bad laws, blames the problems on the criminals, then makes more bad laws to punish them for it, causing more problems. As it is now, it's illegal for you to own and possess cash, though they tend to ignore it as long as you don't keep any in tempting amounts (typically less than $1000).

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#264

Post by hanniabu »

MrVandemar wrote: post #179
constantly wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit

> on balance detrimental to society relatively recently Let's not forget Crypto mining has a not insignificant energy footprint, and is a driver of climate change. Really, detrimental to society from the get-go.

Ethereum doesn't use mining and is incredibly energy efficient, estimated at 0.0026 TWh/yr (1/100th of Paypal)

https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#265

Post by panarky »

raincom wrote: post #154
panarky wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that someone with a political opinion had their account closed is not evidence that Chase is monitoring all their customers' political activity and systematically closing accounts for political activity Chase doesn't like. The same way that Chase closing a restaurant's account is not evidence that Chase is tasting the food in every restaurant and systematically closing accounts for restaurants that cook food…

Good that you trust Chase and other banks with the lame 'evidence' that they provide such as: "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." Based on that standard template, I won't trust big banks, becaus…

None of this is about whether I trust Chase or not.

It's about the big claim that Chase monitors the political activity of their customers and systematically closes the accounts of people with opinions Chase doesn't like.

There's precisely zero evidence that they do this.

Even if one blindly accepts your citations from "The 700 Club" and some random post from "Nitter" as authoritative, even they provide zero evidence for that claim.

Big claims require compelling evidence, and you haven't provided any.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#267

Post by BirAdam »

acdha wrote: post #105
nickff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is the prime culprit when it comes to financially de-platforming people, if you want more secure access to banking, the solution is lighter regulation of banks, not more. Anti-money-laundering (AML) and so-called risk management regulations make it unprofitable and complicated to provided a mount services to many people. The government (and its regulatory bodies) use this ‘flexibility’ to achieve their…

I’d say “better regulation” rather than “less” - things like fraud and money laundering are important to fight (consider how bad ransomware would be if the attackers didn’t have to convince their victims to make a cryptocurrency transaction first) but we sacrificed due process to get there. It shouldn’t be impossible to have better regulations but the national security ratchet effect is pretty strong, as I’m reminded…

You assume that the point of regulation is the stated one. I do not think this is a valid assumption. Regulatory capture has occurred consistently throughout US history as has bribery, collusion, and monopoly building (with explicit government support). What makes you believe that regulation would then be helpful in some area when it hasn’t elsewhere?

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#268

Post by pyuser583 »

yterdy wrote: post #190
advael wrote: post #162

I'm somewhat surprised no one here views this as an automated decisionmaking problem It's increasingly clear that automating important decisions like this is causing a lot of harm while removing most forms of recourse available to those affected. Coupled with the way automated decisions are used to perform and then launder fraud on a massive scale, maybe we should target laws at the automation itself: Require decisio…

Cory Doctorow has talked about how "they" test these kinds of things on captive "audiences" - mainly children and prisoners - before expanding to the rest of us. I tend to add marginalized groups to that list. Even when a person can nominally be held accountable, it doesn't matter if you can't reach them, protected by an administrative or institutional barrier of some kind. Standardized testing and remote learning mo…

Also the people who are harmed are unimportant. Nobody cares if Harvey Weinstein is part of a dystopian social experiment.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#269

Post by x-complexity »

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…

> Banking is optional

Banking is definitely not optional. Certain transactions, specially those done online, require digital payments that cannot be done with physical cash. It's increasingly a required part that's needed if you want to participate in modern society, and the lack of access to such banking systems forces people to adopt subpar services as a replacement.

In the ideal case, banking should be a utility like power & water: A necessity for modern life, without which certain daily routines would not be possible.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#270

Post by Ridj48dhsnsh »

pests wrote: post #208
zdragnar wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're still an American citizen, don't you technically still owe US to taxes on that "salary"? And since you're paying it as salary, I'm not sure that you're able to deduct any of the fees as expenses from what's owed.

The foreign tax credit is provided to prevent the double tax burden when your foreign source income is taxed by both the United States and the foreign country. You just submit that you already paid taxes on that income to a foreign government and then no additional US taxes (to a limit, I beleive).

It's not that simple. There are a lot more details, but at a minimum you will still need to pay US taxes to the extent that the foreign government taxes at a lower rate. You'll also often still need to pay state income taxes.
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