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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

#381

Post by fzeroracer »

redox99 wrote: post #206
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…

> 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).

Ah yes Crypto definitely solves all of the problems. Please ignore the rich men behind the curtains shutting down exchanges and stealing money, the numerous ways people have had crypto stolen from them or how volatile crypto is in general.

Make sure to hold my bag for me.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#382

Post by jopsen »

xbmcuser wrote: post #311

Its funny how people made a big hoopla about chinese system of black marking individuals to me this seems to be the same. And from the looks of it in China at least prosecutes you or you know why you have the black mark. In the US you get black mark then are not even told why so not even sure what you did wrong just like the US no fly list. The land of the free.

These things simply don't compare.

Any such attempt smells like trolling to me.

System that are shitty by accident, do not compare to intentional evil.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#383

Post by translucyd »

XorNot wrote: post #99
Ajay-p wrote: post #58

Debanking is deeply unfair but more so in our society that is moving increasingly towards a cash-less society. A person can be debanked for no fault of their own and that causes them to be unable to pay rent, bills, etc. Like being arrested - there is little recourse without great expense or effort.

There's a very obvious utility in the US which should be able to prevent this: The US Postal Service. It's federally required to exist, and services all Americans already. Basic banking services should be one of the things it is expanded to provide in a minimal, safe fashion (i.e. no loans or lending, but guaranteed electronic banking and funds transfer services).

We actually have this in Brazil. The mail provider from the state is in far away areas the only bank that exist in some places!

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#384

Post by bruce511 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #223
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholeheartedly agree. If you don't want to pay customer service people, do not enter or build a business that requires serving customers at scale.

The problem is that the likes of Google, Meta, and Amazon are normalising (have normalised?) "scale via automation" and are making bank on an unprecedented scale as a result. If they can do it, so can we. Just like offshoring manufacturing and service centres to places that pay the lowest wages (even though us proles aren't allowed to buy entertainment media from those same places, but that's a separate topic) Race y…

Google, meta and Amazon all have good customer service.

In the case of Google and Meta though don't confuse Customer with User. User service is not a thing.

Clearly this thread -is- about Customer (not User) Service, so I'm not suggesting that banks are the same.

Financial systems have a bot / scam / fraud problem. As others have pointed out, that is the cause of most of the human pain in that space.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#385

Post by jopsen »

crooked-v wrote: post #106
chungy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own link says that they may decline cash payments. United States currency is legal for all debts public and private (it says so on the notes), but that doesn't mean it's required to be accepted for all debts.

No, it must be accepted for debts. But a restaurant bill generally isn't going to be a 'debt' in that sense... if they only take credit cards and you don't have one after already eating your food, they're just going to write it off and ban you from the premises.

Or maybe, you just drop by and pay the next day -- like a decent human being :)

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#386

Post by BurningFrog »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #226
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…

Every app should have a signature that includes the devs that worked on it, the business manager that requested it, and the IT leadership that oversaw its use. This is already done for financial statements. If you put out software that is actively causing harm, you should know your fingerprints are on it Employees like devs would be protected by professional insurance. That would cause bad management to shape up, or…

This would make it easy to intimate or bribe the people who can commit fraud for you in that app.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#387

Post by switch007 »

WalterBright wrote: post #355
Madmallard wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely false

No worries, you'll be mugged by reality sooner or later, I'm sorry to say.

One of the things I’m deeply afraid of getting older is becoming a right-wing, neoliberal Randist, and using years of being alive as an excuse to dismiss everything and act self righteous and haughty

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#388

Post by WalterBright »

refurb wrote: post #376
WalterBright wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at a graph of the US poverty rate over the years. It went down until around 1968, where it bottomed out and started going back up. What happened in 1968? Johnson's Great Society program.

Census bureau poverty rate is before social benefits. It’s much lower after adjusting for social benefits.

> is before social benefits

Right, and it stopped going down.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#389

Post by coolspot »

avitous wrote: post #339
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?

See “amazon disabled account after delivery driver misheard automated message from security system” incident.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#390

Post by eru »

throw3823423 wrote: post #344
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…

I've been a part of a system like this (a financial system that happens to not be technically a bank). The system was constantly under attack by fraudsters: You could find subreddits with guides on how to try to outright rob us. So we had teams building detection systems that tied to detect said fraud as early as possible: Hopefully before we handed the fraudsters any money. Depending on how bad the score was, there…

> Maybe we made the wrong call across the board, and lower-productivity, but far higher trust commerce is the way to go... but a lot of that commerce is losing in the market, right now.

Plenty of people in the comments here want to enforce that approach via laws and regulation..

> So if we like it, we have to be willing to pay extra for it.

.. and I wonder if they are taking this into account.

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