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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

#481

Post by ArabicBaklava »

Bank of america did this to me, in the same weekend i was moving out. All my stuff was in the car, it was a friday at 3PM and i was in the gas station.

I couldn't fill up my gas. Called and they told me to come to the bank with two forms of ID. When I arrived to the bank the fraud department was operating in NY (3hrs ahead) and they were closing, so they told me to come next tuesday (it was a long weekend).

I went homeless for 1 week with no food. It was my last semester in university and couldn't pay for tuition because my bank acc was locked, so the university dropped my classes and i was not able to graduate, as failing to stay enrolled (international student) i had to go back to my country.

- 3 days before i received a transfer from my brother (6k usd) to pay for tuiton and new place

- no unusual transactions, never reported any fraud before, just was hit with the "per our agreement we can close your account without notification." and they provided me the balance 1 week later.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#482

Post by raincom »

mindslight wrote: post #362
fencepost wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very far from dealing with 500k personal banking transactions, but my immediate thought is that if you're doing so you're probably making mistakes. If it's revenue from sale of a company or similar, move it through escrow with your attorney. If it's a legal settlement, do the same. If you don't have an attorney but are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars, get an attorney. If it's income from trading or…

One should get an attorney if they desire legal representation, period. Otherwise it's quite perverse to be contributing to one of the main guilds facilitating this cesspool of overregulation, just in the hopes that their social status is going to make a bank think twice. And also attorneys aren't immune from this. In fact, one reason to actually get an attorney is that you want to launder some money. Also, business…

Lawyers are not of much help when it comes to reopening already-closed accounts. Most of the time, banks will send a cashier check for whatever money left, if they close accounts abruptly. Sometimes, they give a month to move funds elsewhere. When a bank closes an account for that last check which they find suspicious--subsequently cleared by the payee bank, that's when banks give a run around. File a complaint with CFPB without any lawyer, unless of course that amount is substantial.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#483

Post by Ridj48dhsnsh »

jopsen wrote: post #382
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.

Is it by accident though? Aren't US regulators intentionally (but quietly) pressuring financial institutions to do the enforcement of policies that they know wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny?

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#484

Post by robocat »

SllX wrote: post #457
robocat wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a population smaller than NYC Australia has a population bigger than NYC and "Australia is set to be a cheque-less society by the end of the decade, if the federal government has its way." Zealand has a population and land area similar to Oregon. Might as well say NZ has a much bigger population than Wyoming - NYC is irrelevant. Cheques have slowly disappeared because of economic reasons: the transaction costs…

Kinda missing the forest for the trees here. What I’m driving at is that New Zealand and the United States are not easily comparable and just because New Zealand is doing a thing it does not follow that the United States also shall successfully pursue and accomplish the same policy objectives. Even a straight comparison between Australia and New Zealand is difficult and both their system of government and their banki…

You seem to think that government or federal control is required to phase out cheques. Maybe some legislative roadblocks needed removal (e.g. removing laws forcing companies or departments to accept cheques?).

AFAIK it was economic and convenience forces that caused the disappearance of cheques over a couple of decades. Banks discouraged chequebooks by making the accounts and books expensive. Retailers at most risk of receiving bad cheques started not accepting cheques (e.g. gas stations). Handling fees for cheques. Chequebooks not available to people with credit risk. Businesses stopped paying using cheques - instead they needed a bank account. New Zealanders got more familiar with cards and direct debits, so fewer New Zealanders (individuals and businesses) used cheques.

AFAIK it wasn't a top-down activity in New Zealand. Australia's move seems to be more government based but I would guess Oz is part way down the tracks of discouraging cheques.

The last time I remember handling a cheque in NZ was back in the 2000's (dividend payment). I remember thinking cheques were quaint when I worked in the US in the 90's: we have been slowly discouraging them in NZ for decades.

It is just like how we are not paid in cash at the end of the week no more - systemic change happens slowly.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#485

Post by mayd »

fanf2 wrote: post #153
raincom wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the UK, NatWest debanked Neil Farage's account for his political views. Even its CEO resigned over her lying. "19 Republican states accuse JPMorgan of closing bank accounts and discriminating against customers due to their religious or political beliefs" [1][3]. Of course, this site is not favorable to conservatives and their views. Some left activists' accounts are closed as well [2]. [1] https://www.bus…

No, Natwest got rid of him because he is broke, and the CEO resigned for discussing his personal details in public.

You are incorrect. Natwest was forced to release internal documents about the debanking of Nigel Farage under an FOI request and it is clear from the evidence that he was debanked because of his politics.

From the Guardian 30 July 2023: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/30/uk-banks-cl...>:

"Farage used a subject access request to discover that, despite initial denials by NatWest subsidiary Coutts, his political views had played a part in the closure of his account."

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#486

Post by raverbashing »

raincom wrote: post #248
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a bank has 1M accounts, regulators want to see a certain number of SAR/CTR filings, a certain number of account closures; regulators go hard on financial institutions, if the latter don't follow the industry average (#SARs, #CTRs, #closures) Oh lord, this just asks for gamification. If there's a multi-million dollar customer and a five thousand dollar customer, who do you reckon they'd rather lose in order to re…

Regulators fine big banks for "weak controls". To show that they have "strong controls", they have to show quantitative data. Now, every bank is engaged in one-upmanship. Since we don't have data on the number of account closures, we should look at SAR/CTR statistics provided by FinCen. Every year, SAR numbers go up by 20%; that's because banks fill SARs with "transaction with no apparent economic, business or lawful…

That sounds like the kind of idea SBFs parents push in their jobs

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#487

Post by raincom »

zlg_codes wrote: post #433
raincom wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulators fined Chase and other big banks for "weak controls". One way to show that these big banks have "strong controls" is to change parameters for these algorithms. Many legitimate transactions fall under structuring, layering, smurfing, laundering. After all, any goal of money laundering is to make their transactions appear "legitimate". Now almost all transactions (except for big businesses and people with few…

Wrt keeping multiple accounts, what is the benefit of that compared to the overhead of monitoring and managing them? Is it just a contingency? Banks in particular have no real reason to give you your money back or respect your privacy. Why would I put my money in an institution that I can't trust?

Banks send out a cashier check upon closing accounts. I was pointing out some edge cases (last deposited check being the culprit of closure; however, this check was cleared by the payee bank). Contingency is one reason. It also depends on what you use banks for. If it is direct deposit from jobs and paying bills, big banks are okay.

The moment you start use Zelle heavily, one of those zelle recipients is linked with suspicious activity, that's a problem (btw, Zelle is owned by big banks). Banks find so many things suspicious: many check deposits, many zelle transfers, low balances, many cash/money order deposits, asking for cashier checks, wires(both domestic and foreign), any crypto activity, being a public figure, names similar to those on OFAC list, etc. Basically, they want normal customers (4 pay stubs, paying 10 bills a month) or extremely wealthy clients. Otherwise, you don't fit the average profile, and whatever you do is construed as not being legitimate.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#488

Post by Natsu »

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).

They should probably give people an email account that they can scan all your correspondence to for people who are without an address.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#489

Post by DoingIsLearning »

> According to Thomson Reuters, banks filed over 1.8 million SARs in 2022

> The algorithmically generated alerts are reviewed every day by human employees.

At 1.8M reports either banks employ an army of reviewers or there is fuck all of a review.

> or wire transfers with banks in high-risk countries.

Sounds like something ripe for discrimination against immigrants.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#490

Post by dboreham »

I didn't get de-banked, but I had a similar wacky experience last year with Wells Fargo. I was buying a car from a guy in Salt Lake City. Not a terribly expensive car. I live in Montana but at the time I was physically in Northern California on a trip. I'd driven to SLC and looked at the car, met the seller, and done various things to ensure I knew his identity (e.g. he used his work email and he had a medium profile media job so was listed on his employers' web site with a picture). (for people in other countries: banks in the US make it impossible for regular people to electronically transfer money to someone else, at least not car-sized sums of money) So I initiated a wire transfer to the guy online. Note: his bank account, the wire destination was also a Wells Fargo account. A few minutes later I receive a call from a lady saying she is from Wells Fargo, asks if I initiated a wire. I say yes I did. She asks do I know the recipient. I say yes, and provide some background on how I know him, and how I know he's not a Nigerian Prince. I also mention that his account is at Wells Faro so if they have any concerns, why not pop open his records and check him out. She says that's all great, thanks, good bye.

guy emails me asking if I sent the wire because it's not in his account. I say sure did, but let me check if the funds have departed my account. This is when I discover that WF locked all my online account access. And of course they did not send the wire.

This whole mess took nearly the entire day to resolve and required me to go into a WF branch to prove I was myself. And when I did that the helpful WF manager I worked with ended up exasperated at the WF department that had locked my account. She said they ended up suspecting that she was a bad actor, even though she was calling on an internal line!

This all makes me suspect that in addition to bad ML filtering, banks also have plain moron/assholes working in their fraud departments.

(Yes I got the car eventually and my bank accounts back)

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