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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

#331

Post by FireBeyond »

x-complexity wrote: post #230
zb3 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I pay my bills with bitcoin while being debanked?

> How can I pay my bills with bitcoin while being debanked? Acting as an alternative to krupan's Bitcoin-centric answer: - There are other crypto rails other than Bitcoin that could be used in its place. USDC & stablecoins in general is going to be the medium-term winners in this space, as more services are set up to help people pay their bills with stablecoins. Here are 2 services that I've found within a few minute…

From just one of those L2 networks:

> Optimism is an EVM-equivalent Optimistic Rollup chain.

I’ll be right back, I need to explain this one to grandma.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#332

Post by gnicholas »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #315
PumpkinSpice wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single retail account is of no consequence to a national bank that has tens of millions of customers. It doesn't matter if you're spending $10 or $50,000 a month. They care about you as an individual about as much as Google cares about a single Gmail account. If an algorithm flags you as potential trouble, off you go. If you want better service, there are two ways. One is to be an ultra high net worth individual. B…

For pseudo private banking, HSBC Premier is decent if you travel often to Europe or Asia. They are basically Wise for HNWs with a dash of money laundering thrown in.

Looks like they have a $50 monthly account maintenance fee, unless you have $75k on deposit, a qualifying mortgage, or $5k in monthly direct deposit. I guess the latter is the easiest, but this is significantly more onerous than any bank I've looked at.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#334

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

analyte123 wrote: post #278
reaperman wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got put on a watch list during my time in Saudi and Abu Dhabi. Didnt affect my banking but every plane ticket i got for years had “SSSS”[0] printed/sharpied on it and all my luggage would get a secondary hand-search at every stop immediately pre-boarding both domestically and internationally. I am just average white US citizen who was working on oil rigs but most likely some of my whatsapp/facebook/iMessage contact…

Ah yes, I was wondering why NYT was reporting on this instead of Breitbart or perhaps Coindesk like you usually see, and it's probably because a bunch of people are about to get debanked for donating to various Palestine-related organizations.

That actually makes sense. I did wonder about the timing of this piece myself. No one cared until now ( even with SARs related to Biden and Trump the process was rarely in spotlight ).

However, this means that something changed with regards to perception of Palestine. My initial thought was that someone too important got banned from Chase.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#335

Post by krupan »

hanniabu wrote: post #249
krupan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a tip, stick with Bitcoin, not crypto.

Ethereum trumps bitcoin in pretty much every metric except for market cap, which is lagging because bitcoin has the name brand, simpler for people to understand, and misinformation spread by bitcoin maxis and competing chains

How about metrics like answering the question of, "how much of the coin exists?" Or metrics like, "how understandable and simple is the overall protocol and mining scheme?" Or "has this chain ever broken it's own rules and rolled back transactions at the behest of its benevolent dictator?"

Spoiler: Bitcoin wins on all of those. The market cap is better for a reason.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#336

Post by JCharante »

jryle70 wrote: post #204
csomar wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2023 is very different to 2012. I remember back in the day you can open a paypal account with only an email and receive/send money with it. No kyc required.

I traveled to SEA extensively in 2022 and 2023. Never had any problems with using ATM to withdraw money. The only problem was with using Amex card.

Problem because it's not supported or problem due to fraud prevention by amex? I've travelled a lot and never had issues with amex or chase (once I used my chase credit card for the first time in over a year on the opposite side of the world and the transaction was instantly approved).

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#338

Post by krupan »

vvpan wrote: post #294
hanniabu wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum trumps bitcoin in pretty much every metric except for market cap, which is lagging because bitcoin has the name brand, simpler for people to understand, and misinformation spread by bitcoin maxis and competing chains

Yeah, to say that "Bitcoin" is the epitome of blockchain technology, an ever-innovating field, is either ignorant or disingenuous.

Bitcoin is ever innovating in ways that are safe and transparent, see Taproot that was added fairly recently. Other crypto has proven to be at best run by incompetent folks, at worst straight up scams. Either way you lose with them. Sorry, but that's what the years have taught us.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#339

Post by avitous »

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…

> not an instance of disrespecting any Chase employee either on phone or in person.

Since when is this grounds for closing an account?

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#340

Post by WalterBright »

mapt wrote: post #289
WalterBright wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all I never said "all". Some years back, and acquaintance of mine detailed how he gamed the system. He'd work until he met the minimum number of employed weeks to qualify for unemployment, then he'd do a lousy job so he'd get laid off. He'd then go on unemployment. Being unemployed required him to look for a job, so he'd look for a job, and flunk the job interview. When the unemployment compensation ran out, then h…

My first instinct was to post a detailed takedown, and I started to go into Washington State's unemployment system eligibility and benefit criteria... but on reflection I don't think most of those things you just told us actually happened. There is a history of anti-welfare activists lying about the facts they have observed and those lies forming immortal zombie collective memories. Numerous examples in Reagan speech…

> I don't think most of those things you just told us actually happened

Believe whatever you need to. But consider this:

People are fundamentally selfish. Building a system that assumes general altruistic behavior is not going to work very well. Assuming people will not take advantage of rules for their personal benefit is naive.

Consider politicians. Have you ever noticed that people tend to go into Congress as middle class people and come out wealthy? How do you think that happens? Altruism?

How many people offered student loan forgiveness will say "no thanks, I borrowed the money, I'll pay it back!"?

The people I mentioned were not breaking the law. But they were taking advantage of it.

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