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Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

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Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#71

Post by phpisthebest »

austin-cheney wrote: post #44

I see this account was created only to post this complaint about an account closure. Stripe employees have commented on HN about this behavior as it occurs frequently. That behavior being an account with no history whining about how some big evil bank attacked them, a poor powerless innocent victim, for absolutely no reason. Almost always the account is closed due to fraud only after several rounds of correspondence…

>>while the financial institution is legally prevented from public comment.

I am tired of banks and other companies hiding behind this excuse. The banks lobbied for that, they want that gag order. They want to be able to hide behind that regulation so they do not ever have to provide actual answers to why they banned someone or closed an account

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#72

Post by jolmg »

alxmng wrote: post #70

My account was randomly locked once too, with no warning or explanation. I went out to eat, tried to pay, and my card was declined. Chase said that there was some system whereby the treasury can just flag/lock accounts, and that they didn’t know the reason. I still don’t understand what they mean, but that’s what they said and that’s all they would say. I was never involved in any shady business, the only money went…

> I also learned that you have no right to any money in your bank account, the bank doesn’t owe you an explanation for denying access, nothing. They also don’t owe you any damages from denying access.

I knew this of PayPal. Didn't think it'd be the case with regular banks as well.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#74

Post by wiredfool »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #41
pavlov wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I agree about PayPal. But their whole business is predicated on being extremely vigilant against scammers, to the detriment of ordinary customers. But regular American bank accounts are pretty different from PayPal or European bank accounts. (The original poster is talking about Chase so I assume the account in question was a regular checking account.) I lived in the US for a couple of years, and the oddities o…

> Or, there's something called ACH which you can use to pay bills and businesses can use to send you money (e.g. paycheck deposits), but ordinary banking customers can't use ACH to send money to each other. This is possible with some bill payment systems with some banks. You can send anyone money and it is either transferred via ACH or they send a physical check. The big banks generally don't support this. I agree th…

It's not broken, _tons_ of money goes over it every day.

It just has basically no internal security once you get past the gatekeeper (your bank), and optimistic concurrency, and it's reversible.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#75

Post by Brian_K_White »

corobo wrote: post #62
jolmg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying it's an inappropriate question. Their privacy wouldn't be violated even if they did respond, but it's just an uncourteous thing to ask.

I disagree. Let's leave it there I guess.

What do you do with your accounts?

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#76

Post by albertopv »

fwlr wrote: post #48

“when they lock an account, it's frozen for 10-15 days and then when it's closed they send a check in the mail” Sounds like their compliance team has concluded you’re in breach. Pretty sure that 10-15 days is there because it allows for the 7-14 days of forensic accounting / legal investigation to conclude whether you have committed a crime and will forfeit the money. You would know better than us why Chase might thi…

I assumed it would be a judge or jury task to conclude if someone committed a crime, isn't so in the USA?

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#77

Post by corobo »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #75
corobo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Let's leave it there I guess.

What do you do with your accounts?

Not much really. Just shuffling debt around so that creditors don't feel the need to claim it back in one go mostly. Freelance income as of end of last year, grinding the debt down. Wasn't getting anywhere with it at a fixed salary job.

I realise you're proving a point rather than this being relevant so cba typing any further, here ya go https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35016037

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#78

Post by kkfx »

I do not know in USA, but in EU such action would normally led to a formal complain of private money theft and slander. In just few hours the local bank director would be called by fiscal police with such complaint asking him not so gently to quickly provide justification or risk a penal process with potential jails terms...

So well... Anything can potentially happen, but if you have the law on your side and you use it with fierce legal force anyone will both be kind and effective on you AND management learn the lesson: customers are not puppet and might bite.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#79

Post by giantg2 »

jolmg wrote: post #68
giantg2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your state doesn't have a specific consumer/financial agency, then these sort of things generally fall to the state attorney General office. You could file a complaint with them. I wouldn't be surprised if they can't do anything in this case though. It sounds like you got flagged related to some law enforcement activities and there's likely some legal action that will come your way. Their financial powers are basi…

If there's legal action, it makes sense that that would need to be resolved first before CFPB and the like would be able to do anything. Until some type of notice/explanation has arrived though, if the OP can't think of any legal reason for this, it shouldn't hurt to seek assistance from them and have them investigate what's going on.

Oh yeah, they should still try. I'm just saying they shouldn't expect much given the circumstances.

Re: Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts

#80

Post by nindalf »

paganel wrote: post #69
nindalf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's world you're pretty much forced to own a smartphone if you want to have a “normal” life. And half of all US taxpayers pay Apple for this privilege. That still doesn’t mean Apple is taxpayer funded. Hear me out, this may sound crazy, but maybe we should call something taxpayer funded if … it’s actually funded by taxes. Not if it is simply used by a person who may or may not pay taxes.

> And half of all US taxpayers pay Apple for this privilege. That still doesn’t mean Apple is taxpayer funded. That's what's coming next, hopefully. For all its many faults the EU is going down that path in regards to the mobile phone industry and the related ecosystem. It's telling that the one article bashing Apple the company that is now on the HN home page has first been published by a French magazine. Also, let'…

Curious you didn’t respond to the part right after “hear me out”. You know, the actual substance of my comment.

Could we leave that behaviour in reddit too?

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