So many restaurants in my city are credit/debit only. That should be illegal.
Not everything that's bad from some people's points of view should be illegal.
Eg Some people are rude, but that shouldn't be illegal.
Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
401–410 of 901 posts
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#402Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
$75K/$5K per month is a very low threshold for private banking, other banks usually require somewhere in the three digits range.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#404So many restaurants in my city are credit/debit only. That should be illegal.
It depends on the kind of restaurant, but cash cannot be refused when paying a debt. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
It's pretty easy to work around that:
Say that officially your steak costs one million dollars, but if you pay electronically, you get a discount down to 20 dollars.
If you want to pay in cash, that will be one million dollars, please.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also the people who are harmed are unimportant. Nobody cares if Harvey Weinstein is part of a dystopian social experiment.
I don’t follow. Is Harvey Weinstein a child or a minority in this analogy?
I think it is the opposite. I think they are suggesting that Weinstein saw consequences to (some of) his actions (eventually) because his victims were not children or prisoners.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#406At minimum, there needs to be a law that requires banks to identify to the customer the specific transactions that led to the closing of the account. And if there’s no prosecution related to these transactions after a year, the ban gets lifted.
> At minimum, there needs to be a law that requires banks to identify to the customer the specific transactions that led to the closing of the account.
That presumes (and requires) a very specific risk model by the banks.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#407I'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 don't have Cash App, Venmo, Zello or any of those other micro payment apps because every single time that I sign up for one, I get automatically blocked on my 1st transaction. Zello is even offered directly by my bank so it's automatically linked to my banking info. Calling customer service leads nowhere. It all works out for me in the end because if I can't Apple Pay or Paypal someone I probably don't need their p…
OTOH Paypal is an absolute crapshoot. Something like fifteen years ago they just decided I shouldn't be able to use Paypal anymore. No indication of why. It took them six months to cut me a hard check for the $100 I had in my account at the time. Complete BS system.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok; can we do the same to your industry? Would you enjoy being required to serve incredibly unprofitable customers until you can (very expensively!) take them to court? If being banked is so critical (and it is, in modern society) then it shouldn't be handled solely by private enterprise. Government needs to step in and offer basic services.
Banks are a special case. If you are going to apply the “they are just a regular business like my local bar” to them by logical extension any business should be able to create new money and transmit it. Nothing special eh! Banks have special rules because they are infrastructure. A cafe needs a bank but not vice versa.
Yes, it would be good if we deregulated, so that banking wasn't special.
Private companies should be allowed to print private notes. (Of course, with distinctive designs etc. We don't want anyone fooled into mixing them up.)
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>>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.
Alas, banks can not opt out of that system. And because they are forced to participate, I don't think their argument is nullified.
Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chase monitors your political activity This is a big claim. It should have big evidence to back it up.
Just follow any Conservative, Christian, or Gun group and you will see stories of Chase closing accounts for political reasons, Chase is will known for this in many political circles
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