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Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

nytimes.com

611–620 of 901 posts

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#611

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…

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/from-mothers-pensio... "For every 10,000 households participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), about 14 contained a recipient who was investigated and determined to have committed fraud (via a 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service). Within SNAP, for every $10,000 paid in benefits, about $11 is determined by state agencies to have been ov…

This comment I put up there with talking about welfare queens. It shows someone's politics immediately.

Fraud as defined by these authors is very rare. They are not talking about what the average person is when they talk about common welfare fraud. These studies mean outright fraud, not someone able body choosing to game the system instead of working.

If you changed the definition to match the collequal understanding of fraud your results would not be a number literally everyone who lives in neighborhoods where benefit recipients are the majority laughs at when told.

It's like saying the PPP program had very little outright fraud. True. But in my mind, you committed fraud if you took the money and didn't actually end up truly needing it for it's intended purpose. Most share my definition. Under that definition I'd posit the vast majority of PPP recipients participatated in fraud, but it will never show up in the studies or numbers.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time actually living within these communities understands the situation with benefits looks pretty much like the situation with PPP writ large.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#612
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can't. Every US Dollar touch point is heavily regulated. Back in the day Local Bitcoins was the way to convert crypto to cash but now its highly regulated and they implemented enhanced anti money laundering controls.

Hmmmmm, I wonder if there is some way we could setup a website like Local Bitcoins but decentralized? Like with ipfs or i2p or something...

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance Carrying some emergency cash is also a solution for this sort of thing.

right but how much emergency cash is needed? He had a transfer of 6000 plus whatever else? Should one have 6000 in emergency cash available? Seems excessive. Anyway lots of countries seem to think they are soon going cashless, so good luck with that.

I am a firm believer of having 10% of ones liquid net worth in cash or equivalent not gatekept by anyone but myself.

This is from extremely hard won personal experience.

Yes, it's a lot of cash. I don't mean keep it all under your mattress.

Edit: A month of your total living expenses including mortgage/rent is what I would deem as both reasonable, and an absolute bare minimum. Not having this on hand would make me feel extremely uncomfortable as you are living at the pleasure and whims of others.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#614
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…

Sorry to hear your story/experience. This worries me because my mother, who currently resides in a SE Asian nation, is transferring some of her money to me (in the hope that she can use it when she migrates to the US). Did Chase let you withdraw the outstanding balance in full when they closed your account? The last thing I want is to see my money being trapped in limbo state...

> This worries me because my mother, who currently resides in a SE Asian nation, is transferring some of her money to me (in the hope that she can use it when she migrates to the US).

The problem is what you are describing is not exactly legal. You are acting as a money transmitter for your mother; and this might even trigger for you some complex tax obligations.

What you should do is open a Chase bank account for your mother. You already bank with the agency.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrible. I've heard similar stories but this one's the worst by far. This shouldn't be allowed to ever happen again, such sudden closures without warning need to be illegal. The issue is banking is highly regulated but a lot of the regulation is about AML, terrorism screening and such. Not actually protecting customers from abuse but rather the other way around - banks are taking precautions to protect themselves fr…

It's not the bank you need to worry about in DeFi , e.g. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Much of "Web3" is either a scam or vaporware, that's not really disputed even by cryptocurrency proponents. There also isn't good regulation in most countries currently, in the US for example regulators are dragging their feet, so it's a 'Wild West' type situation like the early internet.

The point is more about banking specifically though, and about taking back control. Grandpa should obviously not swap his life savings for BuzzwordCoin, it's not ready for him. But for someone tech literate like I presume the other user is, holding some emergency funds in a way they have full control could have saved them. Hopefully there will be more integration with the established financial system and easier and safer ways people can move in and out of self custody.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#616
post #92
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just discussed this on the occasion of SBF being convicted as a fraudster: all crypto is a scam. Them being negative sum games makes them so. Whether the scam is a ponzi, a pyramid scheme or something novel is a matter of debate. That it's a scam is not in debate, that's a plain mathematical fact. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/08/bitco... https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/ htt…

Fine, I clicked and read a couple of those. I like the 3rd one that defines a ponzi scheme: "A Ponzi scheme, or "ponzi" for short, is a type of investment fraud with these five features: 1 People invest into it because they expect good profits, and 2. that expectation is sustained by such profits being paid to those who choose to cash out. However, 3. there is no external source of revenue for those payoffs. Instead,…

Really? What external payoff is there for Bitcoin, besides other people investing in Bitcoin?

And gas fees means a large portion of money goes towards the "operators" (miners) of the network.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#617
Banks business is not people anymore. It's quite easy when you understand the business of small cash operations are not attractive for the industry and also fintech has been the new player since a decade managing mostly every transaction online. The situation is gonna be weird whenever CBDCs are gonna be imposed and the ban will be executed by the government. Good luck with your complains to the gov.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#618

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 ho…

Jesus, this story :( . Your university couldn't wait a few days, their Finance department could't help? What a crazy outcome

I find it really difficult to believe it was a "one chance" thing. Universities have late enroll, plus appeals processes in place. It's in their interest to get paid in the end.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#619

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…

This is not the same. The bank did not kick you out as a customer but just locked you out for your "protection". Or more like their "protection" in case it turns out not to be you and you demand the money back.

Re: Why banks are suddenly closing down customer accounts

#620
post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My job is to help immigrants settle in Germany. This is a serious issue for a lot of immigrants. The documents they need to open a bank account (plastic residence permit, address registration certificate) are not available to them, sometimes for up to a year. The ways around it are poorly documented and change often as German banks tighten their KYC requirements.

Ironically those KYC requirements are there on account of the United States, not necessarily the Germans.

When once I was deregistered from an address (Abmeldung), the German bank instantly went apeshit hysterical with "Are you American?" letters. At least half dozen of them ignoring all of my previous responses or feedback. Of course I have nothing to do with US and none of my personal details indicate that I do, I'm fully EU person.
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