Tell HN: Chase shadow banned and closed my bank accounts
Yesterday someone tried to deposit money in my account and they were told my account was "closed". I logged into my account to see and everything looked normal, so I told them they probably had the number wrong and to try again. They went back the next day and got the same response. "Account is closed."
I called Chase today and was informed that my account was "locked". I asked why and how I could get it unlocked. They ended forwarding me multiple times and finally sent me to the Chase compliance department. They informed me again that the account was "locked" and said the account will be closed in a couple days. I asked why and they said your account has been flagged, they did a review and there is no way to reverse the decision. In addition, I am no longer allowed to open any new accounts. I asked what the reason was and they said "For compliance reasons we are not allowed to disclose the reason". They mentioned that the only way they could reverse the decision was to speak with a branch manager.
I immediately went to my local branch and spoke with my branch manager. After multiple phone calls by the manager to the Chase compliance department, she informed me there was no way to appeal and my account would be closed. In addition, my other checking and savings account will be closed in the next couple days and I won't be able to open any new accounts with Chase (new info). The bank manager said she has no power in this situation and doesn't even know the reason. If the compliance team decides something, the branch manager can't do anything.
I never even thought this was a possibility and I feel powerless. Anyone have any ideas of what I should do next? The crazy thing is that 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. My money is now being held hostage at Chase until they decide to send me a check. This is 100% related to (suspected) fraud, anti money laundering, or other types of financial/political sanctions. You may be 100% innocent, but they will never disclose any information to you about their reasoning (and in fact it is illegal for them to do so). Sorry this has happened. Illegal? Possibly, but even if it wasn't, they're not going to tell you because it gives you a basis to appeal, or sue. As things are "computer says no" cold responses keep complainants at bay as they have no footing. Yup, HN loves to rail on banks like HSBC getting busted for money laundering. Well, this is the result - they come up with certain criteria (which is never divulged or else people could work around it) and if you hit it, boom, your account is closed. It's the natural response to government attempts at clamping down on money laundering. Your individual value as a customer comes no where close to the financial hit from a massive money laundering scandal. This was my best guess as well. Unfortunately I have not been able to confirm it since they won't say anything > Anyone have any ideas of what I should do next? Contact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_... Their homepage has a link on the top-right to submit a complaint. It's possible your state government also has an institution for consumer protection in the finance sector. For example, there's the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Finan... Navbar at the top of their homepage has the link to file a complaint with them, if California is your state. If it's not, you can search "<your state> financial consumer protection" to find who's responsible for financial consumer protection in your jurisdiction. I would try one of state or federal first, and not both at once, so they don't step on each other's toes. If one fails, I'd then consider reaching out to the other. 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 basically unbridled and even places like the CFPB have basically no recourse. 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. I appreciate this. This is one of the only comments giving me some concrete advice instead of speculating why this happened. Chase is famous for this. Do a search. They have been closing accounts for political reasons for a long time. Not saying that is your issue but chase is known for just closing accounts for a huge array of non-financial reasons. Don't bank with chase US citizens have no rights to banking even as we the taxpayers (contray to the feds latest claims ) bear all the risk in insuring and bailing the banks out when they inevitably screw up FDIC insurance should require banks to open accounts for citizens unless there is clear financial reasons to refuse ( ie fraud, or other criminal acts) Until then the only thing you can do is 1. Use credit unions. They are member owned and are generally better but not always 2. Spread you money out. Even if you do not have a lot. Have more then 1 account at different place. Have a rent account. A groceries account etc. It sucks but better that then being locked out of all your money 3. Keep some cash on hand This bizarre claim that FDIC insurance is funded by taxpayers is becoming more prevalent. So a bank offers financial services to a citizen and in exchange makes money. The bank uses these profits to pay insurance on the deposits. And by some mental gymnastics, this makes the bank taxpayer funded? If we taxpayers buy phones from Apple, is Apple now taxpayer funded? Is an antitrust fine on Apple meaningless because it’s “borne by the taxpayer”? At that point, the term “taxpayer funded” becomes meaningless. FDIC is a Federal organization that can not go under. Banks pay to insurance on deposit up to 250k. We now know that the insurance is unlimited but the fees are only based on 250k liability So if the amount of money left in FDIC is less than the amount of money needed to make depositors whole the FDIC gets its money from either the taxpayer or the Fed prints the money If Apple were to offer some kind of protection plan for the iPhone's and then all of the iPhone blew up and Apple cannot afford to pay to replace them Apple would go under That is the difference between a federal agency like the FDIC and a private corporation like Apple they are not an the same At the end of the day the federal government IE the taxpayer 100% backs the FDIC > FDIC gets its money from either the taxpayer or the Fed prints the money The piece that your missing is that if they do (like what just happened here) it done essentially a loan. And any funds provided will be recovered via a special assessment on banks. Essentially they will increase their insurance rates that banks pay. It is legally required that the banks themselves cover all costs, and FDIC cannot just take money from tax-payers to pay back private banks. You are mistaken when you say that the taxpayer pays for it or the Fed prints money and pays for the result. That's not what happens at all. You can read it from the FDIC directly on SVB > No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by taxpayers. Shareholders and certain unsecured debt holders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law. > No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by taxpayers. if the govt taxes citizens, and spends the money, it's govt funded. full stop. even though, yes, it's ultimately paid for by the citizens. if a govt requires fees from banks to an insurance company, that's a tax. if the govt requires cash outlays by the insurance company, not sure what we would call it, but coupled with the tax it's govt funding. The whole reason it's structured the way it is is so that the govt can deny that it's govt funded; this type of govt regulation creates the argument you are defending, but follow the money, it's govt funding every bit as much as tax and spend. This is a useless argument. According to your definition, everything that exists in the world that received funding is "tax-payer funded". As a result calling any specific thing "tax-payer funded" is an empty attempt at a slur. There are two options, either use a scoped definition of tax-payer funded which means it doesn't apply here. Or an ultimately generic wildcard definition of tax-payer funded meaning it's no different than anything else in existence and debate about it is meaningless. Banks are known for sacrificing their margins and not passing on fees directly to consumer. /s > This bizarre claim that FDIC insurance is funded by taxpayers is becoming more prevalent. Because it is correct. In today's world you're pretty much forced to have a bank account open if you want to have a "normal" life, i.e. a life where you own a house (most probably via a mortgage), where you pay your bills (most probably online) and where you receive your salary (most probably via a bank account). As such, the great majority of tax-payers are also bank customers, and this was not based on their own choosing (meaning they couldn't "afford" to avoid being bank clients). As such, banking customers bailing out failing banks de facto means tax-payers bailing out failing banks. 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's leave the "hear me out" thing to reddit. 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? >FDIC insurance should require banks to open accounts for citizens unless there is clear financial reasons to refuse ( ie fraud, or other criminal acts) That wouldn't help OP since his account was crosed due to suspected fraud. No where in their statement does it say that. You have projected that belief base on assumptions, Your incorrect application of the dept name in question, and probably a good helping of personal bais Hint compliance department, != Only fraud compliance department is also their political and Religious hit squad Would the compliance department also cover the Bank's compliance re: the Bank's financials? https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/ou... It doesn't say it was closed for suspected fraud anywhere? It doesn’t say it in the post but it’s what happened. “Your account was closed and we can’t tell you why, also you’re banned now” is always suspected fraud or worse. Source: I work in fintech. Everyone who works in fintech knows this. I believe you are most likely right. I spoke with the teller at the bank and they said this happens most often with trying to cash bad checks. Mine is not that because I have never done that. My best guess with little evidence is some kind of anti money laundering thing, but again they won't say anything If you don't know what happened, try to get a bank statement of the past ~2 months and go to someone who works in finance, ask them if there's anything that could raise red flags. The "worse" has been proven to be political.. like when they closed gun dealers accounts a couple of years ago While that sucks, my understanding is that was done differently. Those accounts were not locked and they told them a vague reason about risk. I believe they even gave them a month or so to withdraw before the accounts were to be closed. If your account gets "flagged" and "locked" with no explaination at all, it's almost always suspected fraud, money laundering, or ties to blacklisted organizations. You triggered a fraud/compliance issue. It is serious enough that they are closing all your accounts. If other banks also start closing your accounts, it may be time to find a lawyer. > It is serious enough that they are closing all your accounts. "serious enough" can literally be buying crypto at a legitimate, regulated exchange. The AML regulations are vague enough that banks do everything possible to cover their ass, and when they've got millions of customers, the few that have even slight indicators of risky activity are cheaper to ban than to investigate appropriately. Yes, I wrote the first part in the description above. I will definitely need a lawyer if it happens at other banks. It sounds like they "locked" the account. It should be time to see a lawyer now, depending on the balance. Edit: why disagree? 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 and whining about it on HN is some last ditch effort to garner sympathy or shame the financial institution while the financial institution is legally prevented from public comment. It does seem like it always comes down to crypto or other shenanigans banks want nothing to do with. Would love to know all of the unbiased information whenever this type of post happens. @op the obvious question - what were you doing with the account? The transactions in the account are rental payments from a tenant and bills paid related to the rental. The account has had the same types of transactions for 4-5 years. It is a shared account with someone else (because I only own part of the rental), so it's possible I am being caught up in something related to them. They are closing that shared account and my personal accounts. They started closing the other persons accounts first (that is why I feel it may be related to them). > @op the obvious question - what were you doing with the account? Geez... Let's let the guy have some privacy. Whatever happened to presuming innocence? If OP is in the wrong, no advice we give is going to get them out of it, but if they're in the right, we might be able to help them. Trying to find fault in OP seems pointless. Mate he's welcome to not respond. No privacy has been violated unless OP decides to respond. Presuming innocence is for the court and legal systems. I am neither. I am not forcing him to answer and I will of course respect the decision if he doesn't want to. 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? 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 So, the fact that you personally don't care who knows your private information, means that there is no such thing as private information. This was telegraphed so it was indeed irrelevant to try to illustrate that point. Not at all. I didn't even bring up my own accounts, you did? Haha. No.. I do not believe that because I would do something it means everyone should do the same. What an odd conclusion! I believe that when people get fired up they often miss out key little nuggets of useful information. I had the option to respond or not, I decided to do so. Just as OP had the same option and decided to do so. Massive shocker there was missing information that would help explain things. My mind is blown. Who could have predicted it. Gosh. I won't ask OP to ask their pal what they were doing, hacker news might think I'm just being uncouth. Unfortunately the thread was flagged ages ago and OP won't get any useful information even though we now know it was their friend's account that was shut down and they were done by association. I don't have a scoob what their next move is, you're trying to catch me in a paper net, and nobody else is here. Appreciate the sentiment. I held off on saying the transactions for this exact reason. People are already speculating on the cause without the transactions. I was more interested in things to do next instead of wild speculation on the reasons for it happening (which will not help me). > Whatever happened to presuming innocence? private individuals can presume whatever they want to presume. it is only the state that has to presume your innocence. I'm not saying private individuals have an obligation to presume innocence. I'm saying it's the courteous thing to do. It makes sense to apply the same principle. Better to assume a guilty man innocent, than an innocent man guilty. It's not like there's any risk in any of us doing that in this case. > Better to assume a guilty man innocent that's how you get exploited by sociopaths in your personal life. >>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 I get the impression banks want the opposite. My former employer was a bank and their most valued asset is their reputation. Yes,I created a new account so I couldn't be tied to my main account. I was worried about Chase or other banks retaliation. I was hoping that someone on here had a similar situation and figured out a way to resolve it besides just leaving Chase. Have you expressed views which are outside of the current overton [1] window politically? I have not that I know of (I don't use social media). My best guess of what happened (little to no evidence) is that it's somehow money laundering related. If they thought you were really money-laundering, they wouldn't close your account unless you were actually charged as that could count as "tipping off". You could always do what Patio11 mentioned in his latest newsletter and buy a share in Chase and then call investor relations. If they thought you were really money-laundering, they wouldn't close your account unless you were actually charged as that could count as "tipping off". FYI: not accurate. A bank (etc etc) cannot will not tell a person they suspect or have actual knowledge of money laundering, but they also cannot facilitate it. There is a tiny bit of wiggle room around the edges if e.g. an investigating agency says "Definitely don't touch this until we tell you to" but that is an edge case on an edge case. Is the Overton window still inside the Overton window? It might be by the time I started typing this message, but it could have moved again. I suspect there’s a bunch of stuff that is going on, here, and is not being mentioned. No bank would just refuse to accept money, without [in their eyes] a good reason. Is the OP running any particular type of business that may be fraught with integrity issues? Is this one of those ever-shifting Amazon storefronts? etc. Automated KYC/AML rules/ai may flag an activity in err, but if you chased (no pun) the issue with an operator, your local branch and even their Compliance Dept, well then it's likely more serious. > Anyone have any ideas of what I should do next?
I'd hire a chartered Accountant with some experience in AML, to quickly go through your transactions and see if there're any hints/suggestions as to what may've triggered it What is AML? Anti-money laundering. “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 think this. I assumed it would be a judge or jury task to conclude if someone committed a crime, isn't so in the USA? It’s also disgusting how no one in the organization has the spine to even address the problem, except the cornered branch manager. They are just playing the classic manager game of hot-potatoing the problem until it magically disappears. One of my ex managers even told me in a 1-to-1 that it’s one of the best ways to handle problems. They were in a tech lead role in a tech company. Any org like that is rotten and might be rotten more than what’s publicly known. I’d put my money in some smaller bank or with some broker that cares. Maybe spread it out over a few banks if I’d use fintech startups. Not financial advice, just thoughts. Just to give an example of how this could be handled with a better bank: my bank sent me a letter a few years ago that they’d close my account because of crypto TXs. I went to their branch and asked them to close it there and then because I, too, wanted to bank somewhere where crypto is fine. We shook hands and moved on. No secrecy, no hot-potatoing, no freezes, no holding anyone’s money hostage. 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 in from payroll at a reputable company, and I only ever made normal purchases. 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 had a rent check bounce because this. It’s pretty crazy. After this experience, I learned it’s increasingly common. Do not ever keep money in a single account, you may be denied access without reason at any time. Luckily for me, after two weeks, they “unlocked” it. Again, with no notification or explanation. > 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. Though this sounds a difficult situation, I do understand that the bank aren’t able to explain the reason as it would potentially be tipping off a fraudster or someone who is breaking sanctions. Monzo in the UK had this issue and put out quite a convincing defence if I remember correctly, though I cannot find the statement right now. >>There are also rules that explicitly stop us from giving information about why we’ve closed an account, to protect ongoing law enforcement investigations. (This is known as ‘tipping off’.) I thought closing the account would actually be tipping off? i.e. if Mr Money Launderer suddenly sees an account of his closed with no reason given, would he not think he was being investigated? > "Yesterday someone tried to deposit money in my account" How are these deposits sent? Do you receive them regularly? Is it business or personal? Just trying to understand if this could have been the trigger. This is just the most useless and stupidest trigger of all. I've got a PayPal account for my small side business. I did not receive any money on that so far, only paid with that account for whatever I needed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Euro over the last 3 years. Last week I received something like 12,30 € and PayPal locked the money and the account somewhat down, because of "unusual behaviour" that needed investigation. If we were talking 10k € I would understand that, but I'm not sure what kind of money laundering/terrorist operation will send 12,30 on PayPal... 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 of banking were a bit of a shock to me. In Europe we're used to bank transfers just working and costing nothing, but there isn't really an equivalent in the American system at all! You can send a "wire" which usually costs $15-30 depending on the bank, and is meant for larger amounts and business transactions. 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. To address this obvious deficiency, banks have cooked up their own system called Zelle which is like a weird proprietary hybrid of PayPal and a European-style bank transfer. (Apparently it's so confusing to US bank customers that Zelle is widely used by fraudsters.) So, when the OP wrote that they've been receiving deposits in the account that was closed, I'm curious to know what kind of deposits those were. Wires? ACH from businesses? Zelle? This could be a major factor in why the account triggered a red light at the compliance department. > 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 that ACH is broken because you can't use it to transfer money to anyone. 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. > ordinary banking customers can't use ACH to send money to each other. This is just because you chose a crappy bank. My bank supports it via online banking, but I admit not all do. I don't think any of the top 5 largest banks in the US support consumer ACH sending. So you can't really expect it to be available when you want to receive money from someone. In Europe, free bank transfers are mandatory. You literally can't be a consumer bank and not offer this functionality. The transfers have also become immediate and 24/7 with the latest SEPA upgrade within the Euro zone. (Also it seems to me that US bank account numbers are unsafe in a way that European accounts are not. I have no qualms about sharing my Finnish bank account number with anyone, even in public, since there's no way to use just the number to extract money. But the US system seems to be full of leaky access points that makes this a bad idea.) That is some crazy mess people are dealing with over there. I'm just happy for free SEPA-transfers... People still use paper checks in the USA! I managed to live for 40 years without writing a check, but in America these 20th century relics remain unavoidable. For example, when leaving my NYC rental, the management company required I send them two paper checks: one to cover the move-out fee (use of the building elevator), another check as insurance which they’d only cash if my movers broke something. The first checks I wrote were lost in the mail, so then I made a trip downtown to deliver these pieces of paper in person… An absurdly retro payment experience. Even 10k doesn't mean you're a criminal, you might just get paid for a contract. I'm so happy I don't need to use Paypal. I hope I never run into issues like this with my bank. PayPal is a good service I think. If it wasn't invented, somebody should do it. It's just that their way of doing things is just crazy and broken sometimes. Yes, they are sent regularly. I have a rental apartment that the tenant has been depositing rent into for about 4-5 years. It's only really used for that purpose. > Yesterday someone tried to deposit money in my account You opened your post with what is almost certainly the reason for this, especially if this is a frequent occurrence. Banks are increasingly wary of people other than the account holder depositing into KYC accounts. You probably aren't laundering money, and the bank's compliance department probably doesn't think you are either, but they're still not going to risk having to explain your activity at a KYC audit. Is it right? No. But this is almost certainly the reason. Chase is one of the more trigger-happy banks at this, but they all do it. If you need to be mad at someone, be mad at the government, not the banks that are required to comply with anti-privacy and anti-freedom regulations. https://sneak.berlin/20191119/your-money-isnt-yours/ Banks fail closed without notice or recourse or any burden of proof. Plan accordingly. Australia has some pretty decent protections, but the impending GFC part II has got me concerned anyway. This is frightening. Considering just buying and storing metals instead of putting anything in the bank. I assume you're the author of that rant? I think you have one valid point: Liquidity is king. If you have access to large amounts of money, you want to ensure the liquidity of a certain amount of that in various forms of crisis. Don't put it all in the same bank, don't put it all in banks, don't keep all of it digital. Having enough cash to bridge a temporary loss of access to your funds is probably a good idea the same way having enough potable water and non-perishable food at home to bridge a temporary infrastructure failure is a good idea. The rest of the article however feels like a deepity[0]. Yes, your money isn't yours. But that's because there's no such a thing as "your money", or even "your anything" to begin with. Private property is a social construct, a mutually acknowledged fiction we turn into reality by abiding by it, under the threat of violence. Even gold has no intrinsic value, its value is entirely determined by what others are willing to give you in exchange and your ability to coerce them into doing so rather than simply taking it from you. In other words, money is no different from any other "liberty" afforded to you by the state. Yes, the state can shut down your bank account but the state can also confiscate your physical cash (especially easily so in the US[1]). The state can even raid your home, put you under arrest or even kill you[2]. The Federal Reserve Bank may be a separate entity from the US government but it exists as the whim of the US government, as does CEDE and Company, which ultimately owns all stocks in the US. If you think this is bad, you don't object banks, you object the state. And if you want to be ideologically consistent you should also object all corporations (which without the monopoly on violence of the state could only exist through private security, i.e. private militias, no different from feudal lordships in Europe prior to nationalism). This ultimately boils down to libertarian socialism ("free association"[3] being a key concept), though you strike me more as a right-libertarian type so Egoism[4] (not to be confused with "Egoismus" in German, which translated to "egotism" in English, i.e. self-obsession) might be an easier onramp to those ideas for you. If you think that's going too far, I think you need to think more about the systems you exist within. The state can eradicate you at any moment and it doesn't even have to do so intentionally. There's no way to curtail the power of the state as any rights protected by it are only granted by itself unless there's a more powerful entity ruling over it (e.g. state vs federal law in the US). On a more practical note, the situation you describe in your article seems to entirely boil down to not following the rules and then finding out there are consequences to that. There's a Process™ and you opted not to follow it out of willful ignorance. You clearly took the time to find out how to register a company but then opted not to find out what the steps to undo that are and offloaded your responsibility to the company handling payroll for you. Yes, this is hard to do yourself and yes, it's unfair that those millionaires you know can probably easily afford to just hire lawyers to take care of all these details without having to know of any of them, but that's pointing at a larger issue of structural preference for people who are already very wealthy. I'm with you on these legal tripwires being unfair because you're just supposed to know them or have the time to look them up (or even know what to look up) but it's just one of many ways in which the system punishes those who are not already in positions of wealth/power, even if it does so entirely without malice. [0]: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... [2]: Death penalty aside, law enforcement officers are rarely tried and found guilty for deaths, even in Germany. Infamously a Black immigrant died (either by being set on fire or prior to being set on fire) in a police holding cell in Germany a few years back. The original internal investigation was dropped and while the follow-up investigation in 2020 found evidence for "illegal" behavior from police officers, it found no justification to investigate any of the officers for murder or attempted murder. [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_of_producers This is one of the best replies I have ever received on the internet and I thank you. I just like educating people to the fact there's more to anarchism than just throwing rocks. In fact, the throwing rocks part is entirely optional. I think it's wrong and you misunderstood me, but I feel like you've set the bar so high that I owe a much better reply than this one (which is unfortunately all I have time or energy for today). Your reply is a thoughtful and considerate work of art, however, and I wanted you to know I appreciate it very much. Please reach out via email if you'd like to discuss further. Nice analysis. 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. I'd be surprised if this is true. I'm not in the US (or EU), and I've heard almost identical stories in many countries. Read your banks terms, I bet there's a hand wavey paragraph allowing them to shut down your account for "compliance reasons" or similar with no requirement for justification. I had this happen and contacted the relevant financial ombudsman, and got nothing. > I bet there's a hand wavey paragraph allowing them to shut down your account for "compliance reasons" or similar with no requirement for justification. Not all the banks I have/have had so far in Italy or France, yes they can impromptu lock an account in case of suspicious activities BUT they can't avoid providing evidence. Without evidence AND a formal opening of a justice procedure locking an account means stealing money. > I had this happen and contacted the relevant financial ombudsman, and got nothing. For certain complaint, like expenses charged that are deemed illegitimate yes, I'll go for the ombudsman, in case of a blind lock without answers I just go to the local finance police station filing a theft accusation complaint. In just few hours the local bank director would be formally summoned to answer the allegations and if the lock was unmotivated he/she is formally incriminated while an agreement might settle the process. In EU in general TOO MANY do ignore the law and it's power, but we still have laws and judiciary procedures, if used properly they tend to work properly. This happened to me with Citi when I added a signatory to my account - it triggered some fraud algorithm. Apparently there are legal reasons they cannot explain the details which is super frustrating for the customer and the staff as nobody can say what is happening. They froze and closed my account and it took 90 days for the balance check to arrive. Someone with legal expertise may be able to explain the details but it’s a real thing that happens and not anything sinister, just a crappy algo. you have provided a lot of details on what the bank did you have provided absolutely zero details on what kind of transactions you are doing in this account I didn't provide details of the transaction because I was more interested in what to do next and not have people speculate on the reason. The transactions in the account are rental payments from a tenant and bills paid related to the rental. The account has had the same types of transactions for 4-5 years. It is a shared account with someone else (because I only own part of the rental), so it's possible I am being caught up in something related to them. They are closing that shared account and my personal accounts. I wonder if this is happening to anyone else. Speculation: Possibly a rolling bail in? I wonder what Chase's financials look like. Perhaps they are letting go of unprofitable customers while keeping their money on the books as some banks are having solvency issues; to hedge against the impacts to the credit market. I appreciate the guess, but I think this is not right. There was a good amount of money in the account (~20k). The most basic bank account is a right afforded by law. No matter how bad your credit history or even if you are homeless, they have to give you the most basic account. Of course, it is your responsibility to keep the balance non-negative. > The most basic bank account is a right afforded by law By what law? this isn't very good speculation I would agree with you if multiple banks were not currently having solvency issues. It looks like my post has been flagged. Is there a reason? How do I get the flag removed? Like the bank, there is no appeal A couple of things. KYC and risk are big now. There's obviously something in your transaction history, credit file or other mysterious data that they really don't like (crypto? gambling? chargebacks/refunds? You're the only one that knows your history). They do not need to tell you why. I know it sounds bad & counter-intuitive, but if they revealed lots of little parts of their risk model, fraudsters could use it to their advantage. There are some really good articles about AML/KYC on the patio11 blog: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/ Lastly, this is not a support forum. I don't like the whole "create a new HN account to post about an experience" thing, but that might just be me. Post on your main account. > I know it sounds bad & counter-intuitive, but if they revealed lots of little parts of their risk model, fraudsters could use it to their advantage. This is a commonly stated argument, but I don't think it holds water. I once worked with a company that did grey area SEA stuff where they'd bid on one thing and then show another thing to the users to get around regulatory issues. Of course, Ad-Networks don't like that for all kinds of reasons and shut down their accounts. So they hired people who previously worked at those networks on compliance, enforcement, or in customer support. Those people gave them all the info they needed to make their accounts not get flagged, not look suspicious when someone glances at them etc. The fraudsters and manipulators are making money, and they're happy to pay money, and will usually find an ex-employee (or current, large corps don't have super-loyal employees) to spill the beans. The legitimate customers will not, and they'll be harmed and annoyed because of the secrecy (which I think is more to cover corporate asses anyhow, because corporate knows all of this, obviously). For all we know, OP my be a sanctioned person by the US Government for ties to the upper echelons of the current Russian government. Of course Chase will stop doing business with you. > Of course Chase will stop doing business with you. Why cant the bank say we are closing your account because of X reason If that were the case, why would they legally expose themselves by posting their situation online? What is happening with the USA?
Holding a citizen's money should be illegal at all times no matter what's wrtiten in the contract. I completely agree. I am going to try to go to the local bank today and demand my money. Will update with what happens. Were you successful? i've been hearing ALOT about people's bank accounts being suddenly closed like this for the last couple of years, it's starting to sound like something fishy is going on and they're just looking for an excuse to limit withdrawals I think you have enough reasons to sue them. Keeping your money hostage can result in all kind of loses for you. What the