14 ms·

Bank of America questions customer’s citizenship, freezes accounts

314 points by Fermin 8y ago

projektir 8y ago
First the Chase thing, now this. I've taken to distribute my money across a number of bank accounts so I'm not completely FUBAR if one of them goes rogue. I should really just join a credit union, I guess...
- tc313 8y ago
  It’s a regulatory requirement. Banks don’t do these things just to piss off their customers.
  - projektir 8y ago
    It doesn't seem to be that every bank is doing it at the same time. Outside of Bank of America, nobody seems to be doing this. There are also options to do it sanely, without immediately freezing someone's assets. The point is that a bank can randomly freeze your money, and they don't need a regulatory reason to do it.
    - VLM 8y ago
      "nobody seems to be doing this" Outside of political signalling, there's only two realistic reasons: 1) The auditors told them this is the cheapest and least expensive way to become compliant with the laws. All the other options are even worse PR or more expensive. Its interesting the decision of how to remain legal was made by a 3rd party accounting consultant but ALL the pr backlash is directed at the bank. Its almost a tradition in American customer service for angry customers to take it out on people who are utterly uninvolved with the decision, from the most trivial supermarket issue to something like this. 2) For financial reasons, investigative journalism only happens to local businesses who fail to invest the correct amount of money in legacy media advertising; odd how the local business scandal of the week is always some independent retailer or contractor who doesn't pay for advertisement, never a profitable chain franchise or a car dealer who buys tons of advertising. So I pull the BoA 2018 1st quarter SEC 10-Q filing, and its RIGHT THERE on page 50, marketing expense 2017 $456M and 2018 $381M. Whoopsie. What we have here is a simple $75M extortion racket; "sure would be a shame to see this story make the front page of the legacy media no one reads anymore or believes in; we could make that PR 'nightmare' go away if you'd just pay up the $75M you 'owe' us based on last years budget". Its pretty blatant extortion in this situation. Something similar happened to Toyota WRT "unintended acceleration" IIRC a couple years back. Yeah yeah I know, no one "does" legacy media anymore, so why bother buying advertising, well, its not like they're gonna take that sitting down, they're gonna fight back. And some suit at BoA figured the PR cleanup would be cheaper than the $75M of protection money they were being charged, so ... here we are.
      - projektir 8y ago
        There's a much simpler reason that's frequently true for various commercial institutions: incompetence caused by lack of care. There is no need to give them the benefit of the doubt.
  - nkw 8y ago
    > It’s a regulatory requirement. Really? Do you have a citation to that regulation?
    - lainga 8y ago
      https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ lists some of the various sources of sanctions. The regulatory parts are e.g. from the 2012 Executive Order (EO13599): All property and interests in property of the Government of Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any foreign branch, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in.
      - nkw 8y ago
        Where in the OFAC regulations or any IEEPA type executive order is a requirement that a U.S. bank obtain proof of U.S. citizenship from an accountholder?
        lainga 8y ago
        That's not covered. The OFAC just requires banks to have compliance programs and says that the degree and type of compliance will vary between banks, and to "ask your regulator" about it. As the other comment said, there are less urgent ways to check for US citizenship.
        JackFr 8y ago
        The regulations don't ask for proof of US citizenship, they require country of citizenship.
    - JackFr 8y ago
      https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title31-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010-title31-vol1-sec103-121.pdf https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title31-vol1/pdf/CFR-...
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    It’s a regulatory requirement. Banks don’t do these things just to piss off their customers. But banks can comply with requirements without botching the process. It's just a culture of pass-the-buck, bad middle management, and a lack of investment in quality customer service. Send 'em a dodgy-looking letter and freeze the account isn't the only way to accomplish the goal.
- vxNsr 8y ago
  What Chase thing specifically?
  - projektir 8y ago
    http://abc7chicago.com/finance/dead-womans-bank-account-overdrawn-by-%2499-billion/1303860/ http://abc7chicago.com/finance/dead-womans-bank-account-over...
    - vxNsr 8y ago
      This sorta thing happens a lot more often than most people realize, the only difference is that this one was picked up by the news. Most likely an overflow error somewhere.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  A credit union would still do the same thing if you were on an OFAC watchlist. The KYC rules still apply.
  - projektir 8y ago
    Do you have an example of a credit union doing this?
    - fiatmurder 8y ago
      I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. Their words.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    But they may be nicer about it. Like follow up when you don’t reply to the letter with a call before they freeze the account to try to sort it out.
mikelward 8y ago
From an article with some actual information: > A spokesperson for Bank of America said the bank has to collect that information because they aren’t legally allowed to provide services to people from countries the U.S. has economic sanctions against. > But the spokesperson said a person who has U.S. citizenship can still use their account even if they are also citizens of a sanctioned country. http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks-about-citizenship/73372 http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks-about-c... See also: https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is-asking-if-I-have-dual-citizenship-in-the-U-S-and-another-country-They-have-never-asked-that-before-Why-is-the-bank-doing-this https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is-ask...
- thecosas 8y ago
  For reference: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/
- heartbreak 8y ago
  This reminds me of the first bullet point here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf In what is known as the most heartless plan imaginable for paying for "the wall." > On day 2 Mexico will immediately protest. They receive approximately $24 billion a year in remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States. The majority of that amount comes from illegal aliens. It serves as de facto welfare for poor families in Mexico. There is no significant social safety net provided by the state in Mexico.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - onion2k 8y ago
    I guess it depends on your definition of "significant" but there is a social welfare system in Mexico. There are several programmes, and it's helped millions of people - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico
Finnucane 8y ago
"‘Oh yeah, we need to know if you’re a citizen.’ You know, I was born and raised in Kansas like Superman" Superman was an undocumented alien.
- haloux 8y ago
  . . .(but superman wasn't _born_ in Kansas)
  - mnw21cam 8y ago
    Yeah, and there was one episode of the TV series where a reporter asked to see his green card.
  - bobbyi_settv 8y ago
    He was conceived on Krypton. He was born in Kansas when the Kents discovered the crashed ship containing him in his "birthing matrix" (Kryptonian artificial womb) and he emerged from it. At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. That version of the story also explains why he looks enough like the Kents to pass for their biological son: the birthing matrix is designed to shape the child to look like whoever removes him from it because only his parents are supposed to do that.
    - jaclaz 8y ago
      >At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. For someone born in or around 1938 (actually earlier as the first 1938 stories depict him already as a past-teen age man) reading the story as re-written in 1986 is not particularly reliable. In the original Kar-El was born on Krypton allright and sent to the Earth as a newborn. And - whether he was actually born on Krypton or on the Earth - the Certificate of Birth is definitely false IF it states that Jonathan and Martha Kent are their parents, an on th eother hand actually adopting him wouldn't have been as easy as it may seem from the comics strips. See also (for fun): http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-adopt-superman/ http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-a... In any case I would say that Superman's citizenship and actual legality of documents as Clark Kent are highly debatable, and I wouldn't be using that as an example for proving US citizenship.
sathackr 8y ago
Interesting that they revised their statement. The original statement (emphasis mine, because it took me a couple of reads to figure out what was changed) > "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information, such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. > Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not only specific customers. If we don’t hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements." And the revised statement: > "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information as required by law and regulation. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. > Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not only specific customers. If we don’t hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements." edit: formatting, because no preview button.
thecosas 8y ago
For reference of countries with sanctions: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/
hugh4life 8y ago
"However, he has been a Bank of America customer for 20 years and was born a U.S. citizen, so he figured it could be a scam and that the bank would follow up if it was legitimate." There is a lot of scamming going on. Just last week my mother got a recorded message with a computer generated voice saying they were from the IRS and they're filing a lawsuit and that she should call them back. I looked the number up online and just 30 minutes ago it seemed someone else got a similar phone call so I reported it to the government. Companies and institutions who need information from people that could be used for identity theft really need to reach people in a way that they won't confuse it for a scam.
- dominotw 8y ago
  > computer generated voice saying they were from the IRS Looks like someone is doing something about that. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/business/irs-phone-scams-jeff-sessions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/business/irs-phone-scams-...
- athenot 8y ago
  > Companies and institutions who need information from people that could be used for identity theft really need to reach people in a way that they won't confuse it for a scam. Yes! Occasionally I'll get a call from a company of which I'm a customer and they proceed to ask for PII before going on (usually medical companies). I reply by asking THEM to give me the info they have and I'll check if it's correct. Since some won't, I then ask them to prove who they say they are… as I can't tell them apart from a scam. Even though I know it's a broken process, I refuse to go along because this is something they need to fix. Many companies unknowingly participate in creating an environment of bad processes making a fertile ground for scammers. On a positive note, my banking institution sends me email notifications about stuff on my account, WITHOUT any links to their site. Yes, it takes a few extra clicks to get to their site but it stops the user conditionning to click on any link they see in an email that just happens to have a logo of the company with which they do business.
  - thecosas 8y ago
    If they provide you PII that they have, that's just as bad since it could be someone else on the line. Ideally, they would give you a way to call back via the main bank/business phone number.
lbriner 8y ago
"...as a last resort.." obviously means, "we sent one dodgy letter and it wasn't replied to" to BoA!
andreshb 8y ago
You don't need to be a U.S. citizen to have a U.S. Bank Account, you can open a U.S. bank account with a foreign passport and a second form of ID. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can-foreign-individual-open-savings-account-united-states.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can-foreign-...
- batbomb 8y ago
  This is the correct answer - but that still implies a question on citizenship, though maybe it's implicit that if you have a SSN and a Drivers License then most banks assume you are a US citizen.
  - stuckinarut 8y ago
    SSN application is quick and I just traded in my foreign driver license for a WA one.
- bdhess 8y ago
  That isn’t inconsistent with BoA’s practice. The foreign passport is proof of citizenship. Presumably a French passport would be fine, a North Korean passport would be a problem.
  - nraynaud 8y ago
    I'm French, I went to open a BoA account, it took almost 2 hours. Best part is that the humiliating procedure was done by someone with a Spanish accent.
    - markplindsay 8y ago
      What does the employee's accent have to do with it?
    - copperx 8y ago
      Why was that humiliating?
everdev 8y ago
> "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information, such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. It sounds like the process is mandated, but they screwed up the customer service piece.
- TheRealPomax 8y ago
  Particularly the part where citizenship does not equate to having a customer from a sanctioned nation. The law is fun that way.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Which seems like classic BoA. They could have sent additional warnings or called the customer. I hope they move their account somewhere else.
  - riffic 8y ago
    pure scum, I couldn't think of a single worse company than these snakes. Stay far away from BoA
AFNobody 8y ago
And this is why you have 3 of everything. Three copies. Three bank accounts. Etc.
lisper 8y ago
I first wrote about this ten days ago, in connection with some other possibly related events: http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous-developments.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous-development... It remains an unanswered question (AFAICT) why it is ONLY BofA that is asking about dual citizenship. It can't be a regulatory requirement, or all banks would be doing it.
- benbreen 8y ago
  Exactly. My wife has a US green card and Iranian citenship. B of A has already done this to her twice in the past two years and eventually relents. Fully expect it to happen again now. No other bank seems to be doing it.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, why remain a customer of BoA? They seem to be a terrible bank to do business with for any reason.
    - yayana 8y ago
      As a US expat I'm on the fence as to whether to close accounts when they mess up (or comply more than needed) with these processes imposed on them by a state that is a domestic abuser and considers me its property.. On the one hand, I would want to not do business with an institution that makes things even more unsavory, on the other hand, most foreign institutions don't actually want "US person" customers and benefit from less paperwork and risk if they convince US citizens to go to another one.. Ultimately, I think too much focus on the finance institutions is wrong. These laws are absurd invasions of everyone's rights under a bizarre premise that the US can make us all do it's foreign policy and enforce its bizarre law enforcement plans as unwilling deputies. I don't really see a positive future while any one of the superpowers continues to exist. Personally, I don't think a reform eliminating their special status in the UN would be much, but it would be the first message in a new path.
      - 8y ago
nashashmi 8y ago
This happened after 9/11. The U.S. eventually lobbied all banks throughout the world to require citizenship information especially from U.S. Citizens. And then report that information back to the U.S. This way they can track foreign accounts of U.S. taxpayers.
- thisone 8y ago
  If that bank also has financial ties to the US, as it's through sanctioning the US side of the business that they enforce it.
jlebrech 8y ago
what type of bank account can you have on a works visa?
- ars 8y ago
  You are not restricted in getting a bank account unless you are a citizen of a sanctioned country. There is no law against foreigners having US bank accounts.
tialaramex 8y ago
KYC applies everywhere that wants to stop, or even to appear to care about, corruption. I live in the UK. I have been with my main bank since I was a teenager, last century. A couple of years back they wrote to me, saying the KYC regulations mean they need to check who I actually am, they need proof I'm a citizen or my visa status and proof of my address. If I do nothing for six months they'll just cut a cheque for the money in the account and close it. I sent them a photocopy of my passport and driving license. It seems fair to me, the biggest problem with KYC isn't that it's annoying, but that the crooks it's intended to catch are able to get away without. So if anything we need more, rather than less. More annoying to me was the time my mobile phone provider, who I'd been with for about 18 years at the time, insisted on government ID as proof I was over 18 before they'd switch off their stupid censorship system for my mobile Internet. (I wanted to read Oglaf). By definition anyone who has been a customer for 18 years is over 18 years old. Duh.
- thecosas 8y ago
  For those outside of banking, KYC = Know your Client. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowyourclient.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowyourclient.asp edit: changed customer to client and added reference link.
- projektir 8y ago
  > If I do nothing for six months they'll just cut a cheque for the money in the account and close it. Seems like you get a lot more time than the BoA folks.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    And BoA sent out random letters asking for highly personal information, without the recipient having any way to know they were legitimate. Instead BoA should have sent out letters asking the customer to call them, or log into their BoA account. BoA just locks accounts because it is easier on BoA than the alternative. The consequences for the customer be damned. That's reason #1,000,000 not to work with BoA or Wells Fargo.
kylehotchkiss 8y ago
Yikes, does anybody have some advice for keeping accounts open while traveling long term without an ID card referring to a permanent address?
dalbasal 8y ago
We're in a period where the public polity is pretty amenable to regulating industries. A lot of this is down to "I don't trust the fuckers" which is.. fair, I would say. But..., I don't think people really understand what this means. One thing it means is larger corporations. The first thing that happens when a market regulates is usually "consolidation." Capital markets reward larger companies, when regulation starts. The larger, older companies tend to be preferred by regulators. The large companies are then "safe" as the regulation slows disruptive forces. A second thing that happens is bureaucracy. The bank replies to this guys with a generic "not our fault, regulators made us do it." This can be random, as "compliance" people gain power internally and start making decisions on a purely bureaucratic basis, without thinking about outcomes. Sometimes it's strategic. Smart lawyers interpret some parts in a dumb-literal way, because it allows them to do something they want to do while blaming the regulator. The same lawyers can creatively interpret some other clauses, allowing them to bypass/ignore some major part of the regulation, sometimes the whole point of the regulation. It's almost impossible to know which is happening. David Graeber (provocateur and anarchist anthropologist) had a good bit on this. Basically the bank explains their own inexplicable bureaucracy by saying it's the regulator's bureaucracy, avoiding responsibility. I'm not suggesting that banks should be a unregulated, just that quality matters. Quality is inadequate, currently. So much so that it's hard to predict what effects the introduction of a regulatory authority will have. Its a crapshoot.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  A big part of the old regulatory regime was much more robust antitrust enforcement, which is one answer to your concern about consolidation.
- munificent 8y ago
  > But..., I don't think people really understand what this means. One thing it means is larger corporations. The first thing that happens when a market regulates is usually "consolidation." Consolidation is the natural trend of all businesses, regardless of regulation. Adam Smith in the 1700s said "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Business owners have a lot in common with owners of similar businesses, so it's pretty natural for them to know each other, get along, and have aligned goals. From there, it's a pretty short step to cooperation. Why make your business a zero-sum game by competing when you can make it non-zero-sum by cooperating? So cartels and monolithic businesses form all the time and have all the way batch to the Dutch East India Company (though that also had government support too). Remember, anti-trust regulation is a kind of regulation too. > I'm not suggesting that banks should be a unregulated, just that quality matters. Quality is inadequate, currently. I agree, completely. One of the things I've always found dumb is arguments around big government versus small government. What really matters is smart versus stupid. People seem to assume that it's simply impossible to change how well a government works. So small government people "solve" poor government by minimizing it while "big government people" generally think government works pretty well, at least relative to profit-driven enterprises.
maym86 8y ago
Started closing some of my higher value BoA accounts after they started charging people fees for having a low balance. This is predatory and targeting people who can't afford it. https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of-america-ebanking-fees/ https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of-america-... There are much better accounts elsewhere so even if you don't care about how BoA behaves you can get much better deals/service with fewer fees. This news will push me to close my final credit cards with BoA. No need to rush, it took me 6 months to slowly open alternative accounts before closing the BoA ones. They will slowly loose my business that they could have easily kept for the next 50 years. It wasn't very hard to do, it just takes a little patience.
- JDWolf 8y ago
  I have been with Wamu/Chase for a lot of years but want to switch now that they are implementing more fees. What are you switching to? The local credit unions seem pretty good but I know there are other options as well including fintech.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Ally is what I'm using. 1.75% saving account. 0.1% interest on checking account. No minimum balance. They pay all withdrawal fees. They don't have physical locations but I never used them anyway. Phone service is pretty good. I have started getting in the mindset that I'll just open accounts wherever makes sense for different services. With internet banking there's no need to get everything from one provider, opening new accounts is easy and there is no need to stick with banks that behave like this. Even if it's too much hassle to close the bad account right away it's pretty easy to take the first step and drain it to the minimum required balance.
    - snuxoll 8y ago
      Schwab's also an option to look into, the APY on their savings account isn't as high as Ally's but everything basically comes as a package with their significantly better brokerage account. If you've any interest in investing then it's worth checking out.
raincom 8y ago
Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. One day, we all realize that Stasi is better than the current regime of electronic surveillance. Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content. FINCEN assumes that every untraceable monetary instrument (cash, cashier checks, money orders, bank checks, etc) is DIRTY by default. If a bank doesn't know enough details (dob, citizenship, driver license number, ssn, passport number, etc) about controlling parties of any account (LLC, sol prop, C-corp, S-Corp, individual accounts), such accounts are seen as DIRTY. In other words, these are seen as potential sources of money laundering. FINCEN makes banks responsible for spying and reporting any suspicious activity. Banks spend $100B a year on this compliance. There is a $2B software industry behind this (AML compliance software). These software companies hire ex-regulators from FINCEN etc.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. " I absolutely can and will, because those banks are run by people. People who are capable of telling right from wrong. "Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content." No. Neither of those requires this course of action.
  - raincom 8y ago
    CDD (customer due diligence) became a rule on May 11, 2018 [1]. FINCEN forced banks to do it. Even though it is not in Bank's best interest to go through this exercise at all, they are forced by regulatory laws. There is a whole group at every bank dedicated to this: compliance teams, led by a chief compliance officer. Every bank is examined by internal auditors, external auditors, regulators to see whether a bank is in compliance. Yes, banks run by people; laws are written by people; regulators are people. The issue is not people per se: which set of people has MORE discretion? In this case, compliance teams at banks don't have much discretion. FINCEN has discretion to fill up the content of laws in the name of new rules. Recently, Congress has started attacking this AML-regulation beast; there are a couple of bills in congress, which can ease AML compliance burden. By the time, any reforms are passed, KYC (know your customer, EDD (enhanced due diligence), and CDD (customer due diligence) become the status quo. Of course, we could have expected Banks to push back, by sending lobbyists to rewrite laws. Banks are also helped by software tools to generate letters, file SAR(suspicious activity reports), CTR (currency transaction reports), etc. If there were no automated way of doing these, yes, they would have gone to Congress to push back. As long as there is some automation, expect more of this surveillance. [1] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-financial-institutions-cdd-rule-becomes-effective-today https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-fin...
yodsanklai 8y ago
Interesting. I used to live in the US some years ago and I still have my BoA account. It doesn't cost me anything and it is useful once in a while and who knows, I may need it some time in the future. Nonetheless I called them once to explain that I wasn't living in the US anymore and that I wanted to close my account but they advised me to keep it.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  Why would they want you to close your account? They can't nickel and dime you on fees if it's closed.
edm0nd 8y ago
I dont have a problem with this. Seems like a reasonable measure. People illegally here in our country should not be allowed to have a US bank account. It's as simple as that.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  ... we can't take their tax dollars if we don't have their bank accounts tallied locally. it's as simple as that.
- fiatmurder 8y ago
  I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank* account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. Their words. *I mean credit union.
pteredactyl 8y ago
Why anyone uses a big bank is beyond me. Credit unions all the way.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Credit unions are still subject to the same regulations.
  - trumped 8y ago
    I was asked that information by Bank of America but not from my other bank...
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Because BofA decided how they were going to abide by those regulations.
      - trumped 8y ago
        but what is strange is that they let you avoid it (you can close the "popup" window and keep on doing whatever you were going to do in the first place)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
gst 8y ago
Same thing happened to me with Simple (the banking startup). After they got acquired by BBVA they moved their customer's checking accounts from The Bancorp to BBVA. As part of that process they re-verified their customers and closed accounts of non-citizen customers (they also closed accounts of permanent residents physically residing in the United States). That migration pretty much happened in the worst way possible: While customers had several months to migrate once the migration started you only had something like 30 days to verify your documents and open the new account. Also once the migration was started there was no way to cancel or pause it. I'd at least have expected them to notify non-citizen customers in advance so that they have plenty of time to open another account. Instead, I didn't get any information about this issue until after I started the migration, and once I started it they told me that it's not possible to prevent/delay the closure of my account anymore. Fun fact: According to Reddit/Twitter non-citizens who used a driver's license for KYC weren't affected (because Simple newer checked for their citizenship status). But if you used a Greencard for KYC they noticed that you aren't a citizen and closed your account. (So there's probably a large number of customers left whose accounts will be randomly closed at some future point.) As a consequence (for non-citizens) I suggest using a bank or credit union which has a known track record of handling non-citizen accounts (especially with the current BofA news). The United Nations Credit Union (https://www.unfcu.org/ https://www.unfcu.org/) looks like a good choice, as they target UN workers and it appears that a large number of customers aren't US citizens (and don't even live in the United States). And don't forget to keep one or two backup checking accounts in case your main account gets closed down.
- kylehotchkiss 8y ago
  Yeah, for as online-friendly as they claim to be, they have some really wacky rules on kyc and long term travel. I asked them to close my account as I don't want to support those policies.
fiatmurder 8y ago
I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. The banks words.
sehugg 8y ago
If you have the means, it's helpful to have redundant bank accounts, especially for travelers, as this ratchet seems to only tighten. There's a couple sailing the world that had some snafus that required a flight back to the U.S. which they describe in detail: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money-international-banking https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money-international-...
fiatmurder 8y ago
I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist.
Lasher 8y ago
As someone who does have dual citizenship (UK and USA) and has been a BOA customer for over 20 years, my big question is what happens if you say "yes"? I didn't see this mentioned or discussed yet in the comments so far.
- raincom 8y ago
  If you say "yes", nothing happens. Basically, the purpose behind this is to track "tax evaders", even though BSA, Patriot act, and FINCEN regulations sell this rule under the name of "anti-money laundering". Think of this as NSA meta data gathering. NSA doesn't search metadata every day for some body. Instead, they use the meta data once suspicious person is located by other means. IRS, FINCEN, FBI, etc want to have access this info on their fingertips.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Pica_soO 8y ago
This could have happened with the bank of crypton too...
arisAlexis 8y ago
it's exactly why we need sovereign money
mtw 8y ago
They should just move to a much smaller bank. To Bank of America, he's just a number, they don't care about him. A much smaller bank would value his business and would take time to discuss with him before shutting down.
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  Even another large bank... I moved away from BoA because they kept canceling my Visa and sending me a new one anytime I shopped somewhere that had fraudulent activity reported by another cardholder. I would go through a 3-5 cards a year. This eventually became a huge pain the in the ass because all of my autopay accounts had to constantly be updated and every website I shopped on had to constantly update my cards (which isn't as easy as it should be on some sites). I switched to Chase a few years ago, still on the same card.
- snarf21 8y ago
  That isn't so easy. All the smaller banks get bought by the big ones as soon as the reach a certain size. The shareholders of the small bank are more than happy to take their returns and move on regardless of the negative for their now ex-customer.
pseingatl 8y ago
Happened to me. BoA is buying customer information from data brokers who get it from social media. Anyone with any foreign contacts at all gets flagged by their algorithm. Accounts are instantly frozen with no suspicious behavior whatsoever--unless pulling money from an ATM is supicious. Eventually this foolishness will cause the U.S. to lose its position as a banking center. In the meantime, enjoy your closed account.
einhverfr 8y ago
As an American residing abroad, and married to a non-American, I tend to get a lot of trouble from FATCHA and the like. These laws effectively force me to put all savings in my wife's name because that's the only way I can deal with banks in Europe. Now we have these kinds of issues in the US. But proving citizenship isn't trivial. When we were in the US, my wife, to my knowledge didn't have to prove citizenship, only provide ID (such as a driver license) and a social security card (which also doesn't prove citizenship). Of course they can't just ask everyone for birth certificates or passports on short notice. So they just ask for verbal answers? Really? But there is more. Why is there this focus on dual citizens? And why are banks being asked to effectively surveil people for dual citizenship?

314 points by Fermin 8y ago

First the Chase thing, now this. I've taken to distribute my money across a number of bank accounts so I'm not completely FUBAR if one of them goes rogue. I should really just join a credit union, I guess...

tc313 8y ago
It’s a regulatory requirement. Banks don’t do these things just to piss off their customers.
- projektir 8y ago
  It doesn't seem to be that every bank is doing it at the same time. Outside of Bank of America, nobody seems to be doing this. There are also options to do it sanely, without immediately freezing someone's assets. The point is that a bank can randomly freeze your money, and they don't need a regulatory reason to do it.
  - VLM 8y ago
    "nobody seems to be doing this" Outside of political signalling, there's only two realistic reasons: 1) The auditors told them this is the cheapest and least expensive way to become compliant with the laws. All the other options are even worse PR or more expensive. Its interesting the decision of how to remain legal was made by a 3rd party accounting consultant but ALL the pr backlash is directed at the bank. Its almost a tradition in American customer service for angry customers to take it out on people who are utterly uninvolved with the decision, from the most trivial supermarket issue to something like this. 2) For financial reasons, investigative journalism only happens to local businesses who fail to invest the correct amount of money in legacy media advertising; odd how the local business scandal of the week is always some independent retailer or contractor who doesn't pay for advertisement, never a profitable chain franchise or a car dealer who buys tons of advertising. So I pull the BoA 2018 1st quarter SEC 10-Q filing, and its RIGHT THERE on page 50, marketing expense 2017 $456M and 2018 $381M. Whoopsie. What we have here is a simple $75M extortion racket; "sure would be a shame to see this story make the front page of the legacy media no one reads anymore or believes in; we could make that PR 'nightmare' go away if you'd just pay up the $75M you 'owe' us based on last years budget". Its pretty blatant extortion in this situation. Something similar happened to Toyota WRT "unintended acceleration" IIRC a couple years back. Yeah yeah I know, no one "does" legacy media anymore, so why bother buying advertising, well, its not like they're gonna take that sitting down, they're gonna fight back. And some suit at BoA figured the PR cleanup would be cheaper than the $75M of protection money they were being charged, so ... here we are.
    - projektir 8y ago
      There's a much simpler reason that's frequently true for various commercial institutions: incompetence caused by lack of care. There is no need to give them the benefit of the doubt.
- nkw 8y ago
  > It’s a regulatory requirement. Really? Do you have a citation to that regulation?
  - lainga 8y ago
    https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ lists some of the various sources of sanctions. The regulatory parts are e.g. from the 2012 Executive Order (EO13599): All property and interests in property of the Government of Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any foreign branch, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in.
    - nkw 8y ago
      Where in the OFAC regulations or any IEEPA type executive order is a requirement that a U.S. bank obtain proof of U.S. citizenship from an accountholder?
      - lainga 8y ago
        That's not covered. The OFAC just requires banks to have compliance programs and says that the degree and type of compliance will vary between banks, and to "ask your regulator" about it. As the other comment said, there are less urgent ways to check for US citizenship.
      - JackFr 8y ago
        The regulations don't ask for proof of US citizenship, they require country of citizenship.
  - JackFr 8y ago
    https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title31-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010-title31-vol1-sec103-121.pdf https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title31-vol1/pdf/CFR-...
- reaperducer 8y ago
  It’s a regulatory requirement. Banks don’t do these things just to piss off their customers. But banks can comply with requirements without botching the process. It's just a culture of pass-the-buck, bad middle management, and a lack of investment in quality customer service. Send 'em a dodgy-looking letter and freeze the account isn't the only way to accomplish the goal.
vxNsr 8y ago
What Chase thing specifically?
- projektir 8y ago
  http://abc7chicago.com/finance/dead-womans-bank-account-overdrawn-by-%2499-billion/1303860/ http://abc7chicago.com/finance/dead-womans-bank-account-over...
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    This sorta thing happens a lot more often than most people realize, the only difference is that this one was picked up by the news. Most likely an overflow error somewhere.
siruncledrew 8y ago
A credit union would still do the same thing if you were on an OFAC watchlist. The KYC rules still apply.
- projektir 8y ago
  Do you have an example of a credit union doing this?
  - fiatmurder 8y ago
    I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. Their words.
- MBCook 8y ago
  But they may be nicer about it. Like follow up when you don’t reply to the letter with a call before they freeze the account to try to sort it out.

mikelward 8y ago

From an article with some actual information: > A spokesperson for Bank of America said the bank has to collect that information because they aren’t legally allowed to provide services to people from countries the U.S. has economic sanctions against. > But the spokesperson said a person who has U.S. citizenship can still use their account even if they are also citizens of a sanctioned country. http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks-about-citizenship/73372 http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2018/04/13/bank-asks-about-c... See also: https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is-asking-if-I-have-dual-citizenship-in-the-U-S-and-another-country-They-have-never-asked-that-before-Why-is-the-bank-doing-this https://www.quora.com/All-of-a-sudden-Bank-of-America-is-ask...

thecosas 8y ago
For reference: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/
heartbreak 8y ago
This reminds me of the first bullet point here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf In what is known as the most heartless plan imaginable for paying for "the wall." > On day 2 Mexico will immediately protest. They receive approximately $24 billion a year in remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States. The majority of that amount comes from illegal aliens. It serves as de facto welfare for poor families in Mexico. There is no significant social safety net provided by the state in Mexico.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- onion2k 8y ago
  I guess it depends on your definition of "significant" but there is a social welfare system in Mexico. There are several programmes, and it's helped millions of people - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Welfare_in_Mexico

Finnucane 8y ago

"‘Oh yeah, we need to know if you’re a citizen.’ You know, I was born and raised in Kansas like Superman" Superman was an undocumented alien.

haloux 8y ago
. . .(but superman wasn't _born_ in Kansas)
- mnw21cam 8y ago
  Yeah, and there was one episode of the TV series where a reporter asked to see his green card.
- bobbyi_settv 8y ago
  He was conceived on Krypton. He was born in Kansas when the Kents discovered the crashed ship containing him in his "birthing matrix" (Kryptonian artificial womb) and he emerged from it. At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. That version of the story also explains why he looks enough like the Kents to pass for their biological son: the birthing matrix is designed to shape the child to look like whoever removes him from it because only his parents are supposed to do that.
  - jaclaz 8y ago
    >At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. For someone born in or around 1938 (actually earlier as the first 1938 stories depict him already as a past-teen age man) reading the story as re-written in 1986 is not particularly reliable. In the original Kar-El was born on Krypton allright and sent to the Earth as a newborn. And - whether he was actually born on Krypton or on the Earth - the Certificate of Birth is definitely false IF it states that Jonathan and Martha Kent are their parents, an on th eother hand actually adopting him wouldn't have been as easy as it may seem from the comics strips. See also (for fun): http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-adopt-superman/ http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-a... In any case I would say that Superman's citizenship and actual legality of documents as Clark Kent are highly debatable, and I wouldn't be using that as an example for proving US citizenship.

sathackr 8y ago

Interesting that they revised their statement. The original statement (emphasis mine, because it took me a couple of reads to figure out what was changed) > "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information, such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. > Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not only specific customers. If we don’t hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements." And the revised statement: > "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information as required by law and regulation. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. > Over time, we reach out to all customers to verify their information, not only specific customers. If we don’t hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements." edit: formatting, because no preview button.

thecosas 8y ago

For reference of countries with sanctions: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/ https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

hugh4life 8y ago

"However, he has been a Bank of America customer for 20 years and was born a U.S. citizen, so he figured it could be a scam and that the bank would follow up if it was legitimate." There is a lot of scamming going on. Just last week my mother got a recorded message with a computer generated voice saying they were from the IRS and they're filing a lawsuit and that she should call them back. I looked the number up online and just 30 minutes ago it seemed someone else got a similar phone call so I reported it to the government. Companies and institutions who need information from people that could be used for identity theft really need to reach people in a way that they won't confuse it for a scam.

dominotw 8y ago
> computer generated voice saying they were from the IRS Looks like someone is doing something about that. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/business/irs-phone-scams-jeff-sessions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/business/irs-phone-scams-...
athenot 8y ago
> Companies and institutions who need information from people that could be used for identity theft really need to reach people in a way that they won't confuse it for a scam. Yes! Occasionally I'll get a call from a company of which I'm a customer and they proceed to ask for PII before going on (usually medical companies). I reply by asking THEM to give me the info they have and I'll check if it's correct. Since some won't, I then ask them to prove who they say they are… as I can't tell them apart from a scam. Even though I know it's a broken process, I refuse to go along because this is something they need to fix. Many companies unknowingly participate in creating an environment of bad processes making a fertile ground for scammers. On a positive note, my banking institution sends me email notifications about stuff on my account, WITHOUT any links to their site. Yes, it takes a few extra clicks to get to their site but it stops the user conditionning to click on any link they see in an email that just happens to have a logo of the company with which they do business.
- thecosas 8y ago
  If they provide you PII that they have, that's just as bad since it could be someone else on the line. Ideally, they would give you a way to call back via the main bank/business phone number.

lbriner 8y ago

"...as a last resort.." obviously means, "we sent one dodgy letter and it wasn't replied to" to BoA!

andreshb 8y ago

You don't need to be a U.S. citizen to have a U.S. Bank Account, you can open a U.S. bank account with a foreign passport and a second form of ID. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can-foreign-individual-open-savings-account-united-states.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060415/can-foreign-...

batbomb 8y ago
This is the correct answer - but that still implies a question on citizenship, though maybe it's implicit that if you have a SSN and a Drivers License then most banks assume you are a US citizen.
- stuckinarut 8y ago
  SSN application is quick and I just traded in my foreign driver license for a WA one.
bdhess 8y ago
That isn’t inconsistent with BoA’s practice. The foreign passport is proof of citizenship. Presumably a French passport would be fine, a North Korean passport would be a problem.
- nraynaud 8y ago
  I'm French, I went to open a BoA account, it took almost 2 hours. Best part is that the humiliating procedure was done by someone with a Spanish accent.
  - markplindsay 8y ago
    What does the employee's accent have to do with it?
  - copperx 8y ago
    Why was that humiliating?

everdev 8y ago

> "Like all financial institutions, we’re required by law to maintain complete and accurate records for all of our customers and may periodically request information, such as country of citizenship and proof of US residency. This is not unique to Bank of America. This type of outreach is nothing new and the information must be up to date. Therefore we periodically reach out to customers, which is what we did in this case. It sounds like the process is mandated, but they screwed up the customer service piece.

TheRealPomax 8y ago
Particularly the part where citizenship does not equate to having a customer from a sanctioned nation. The law is fun that way.
MBCook 8y ago
Which seems like classic BoA. They could have sent additional warnings or called the customer. I hope they move their account somewhere else.
- riffic 8y ago
  pure scum, I couldn't think of a single worse company than these snakes. Stay far away from BoA

AFNobody 8y ago

And this is why you have 3 of everything. Three copies. Three bank accounts. Etc.

lisper 8y ago

I first wrote about this ten days ago, in connection with some other possibly related events: http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous-developments.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/07/three-ominous-development... It remains an unanswered question (AFAICT) why it is ONLY BofA that is asking about dual citizenship. It can't be a regulatory requirement, or all banks would be doing it.

benbreen 8y ago
Exactly. My wife has a US green card and Iranian citenship. B of A has already done this to her twice in the past two years and eventually relents. Fully expect it to happen again now. No other bank seems to be doing it.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, why remain a customer of BoA? They seem to be a terrible bank to do business with for any reason.
  - yayana 8y ago
    As a US expat I'm on the fence as to whether to close accounts when they mess up (or comply more than needed) with these processes imposed on them by a state that is a domestic abuser and considers me its property.. On the one hand, I would want to not do business with an institution that makes things even more unsavory, on the other hand, most foreign institutions don't actually want "US person" customers and benefit from less paperwork and risk if they convince US citizens to go to another one.. Ultimately, I think too much focus on the finance institutions is wrong. These laws are absurd invasions of everyone's rights under a bizarre premise that the US can make us all do it's foreign policy and enforce its bizarre law enforcement plans as unwilling deputies. I don't really see a positive future while any one of the superpowers continues to exist. Personally, I don't think a reform eliminating their special status in the UN would be much, but it would be the first message in a new path.
    - 8y ago

nashashmi 8y ago

This happened after 9/11. The U.S. eventually lobbied all banks throughout the world to require citizenship information especially from U.S. Citizens. And then report that information back to the U.S. This way they can track foreign accounts of U.S. taxpayers.

thisone 8y ago
If that bank also has financial ties to the US, as it's through sanctioning the US side of the business that they enforce it.

jlebrech 8y ago

what type of bank account can you have on a works visa?

ars 8y ago
You are not restricted in getting a bank account unless you are a citizen of a sanctioned country. There is no law against foreigners having US bank accounts.

tialaramex 8y ago

KYC applies everywhere that wants to stop, or even to appear to care about, corruption. I live in the UK. I have been with my main bank since I was a teenager, last century. A couple of years back they wrote to me, saying the KYC regulations mean they need to check who I actually am, they need proof I'm a citizen or my visa status and proof of my address. If I do nothing for six months they'll just cut a cheque for the money in the account and close it. I sent them a photocopy of my passport and driving license. It seems fair to me, the biggest problem with KYC isn't that it's annoying, but that the crooks it's intended to catch are able to get away without. So if anything we need more, rather than less. More annoying to me was the time my mobile phone provider, who I'd been with for about 18 years at the time, insisted on government ID as proof I was over 18 before they'd switch off their stupid censorship system for my mobile Internet. (I wanted to read Oglaf). By definition anyone who has been a customer for 18 years is over 18 years old. Duh.

thecosas 8y ago
For those outside of banking, KYC = Know your Client. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowyourclient.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowyourclient.asp edit: changed customer to client and added reference link.
projektir 8y ago
> If I do nothing for six months they'll just cut a cheque for the money in the account and close it. Seems like you get a lot more time than the BoA folks.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  And BoA sent out random letters asking for highly personal information, without the recipient having any way to know they were legitimate. Instead BoA should have sent out letters asking the customer to call them, or log into their BoA account. BoA just locks accounts because it is easier on BoA than the alternative. The consequences for the customer be damned. That's reason #1,000,000 not to work with BoA or Wells Fargo.

kylehotchkiss 8y ago

Yikes, does anybody have some advice for keeping accounts open while traveling long term without an ID card referring to a permanent address?

dalbasal 8y ago

We're in a period where the public polity is pretty amenable to regulating industries. A lot of this is down to "I don't trust the fuckers" which is.. fair, I would say. But..., I don't think people really understand what this means. One thing it means is larger corporations. The first thing that happens when a market regulates is usually "consolidation." Capital markets reward larger companies, when regulation starts. The larger, older companies tend to be preferred by regulators. The large companies are then "safe" as the regulation slows disruptive forces. A second thing that happens is bureaucracy. The bank replies to this guys with a generic "not our fault, regulators made us do it." This can be random, as "compliance" people gain power internally and start making decisions on a purely bureaucratic basis, without thinking about outcomes. Sometimes it's strategic. Smart lawyers interpret some parts in a dumb-literal way, because it allows them to do something they want to do while blaming the regulator. The same lawyers can creatively interpret some other clauses, allowing them to bypass/ignore some major part of the regulation, sometimes the whole point of the regulation. It's almost impossible to know which is happening. David Graeber (provocateur and anarchist anthropologist) had a good bit on this. Basically the bank explains their own inexplicable bureaucracy by saying it's the regulator's bureaucracy, avoiding responsibility. I'm not suggesting that banks should be a unregulated, just that quality matters. Quality is inadequate, currently. So much so that it's hard to predict what effects the introduction of a regulatory authority will have. Its a crapshoot.

emodendroket 8y ago
A big part of the old regulatory regime was much more robust antitrust enforcement, which is one answer to your concern about consolidation.
munificent 8y ago
> But..., I don't think people really understand what this means. One thing it means is larger corporations. The first thing that happens when a market regulates is usually "consolidation." Consolidation is the natural trend of all businesses, regardless of regulation. Adam Smith in the 1700s said "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Business owners have a lot in common with owners of similar businesses, so it's pretty natural for them to know each other, get along, and have aligned goals. From there, it's a pretty short step to cooperation. Why make your business a zero-sum game by competing when you can make it non-zero-sum by cooperating? So cartels and monolithic businesses form all the time and have all the way batch to the Dutch East India Company (though that also had government support too). Remember, anti-trust regulation is a kind of regulation too. > I'm not suggesting that banks should be a unregulated, just that quality matters. Quality is inadequate, currently. I agree, completely. One of the things I've always found dumb is arguments around big government versus small government. What really matters is smart versus stupid. People seem to assume that it's simply impossible to change how well a government works. So small government people "solve" poor government by minimizing it while "big government people" generally think government works pretty well, at least relative to profit-driven enterprises.

maym86 8y ago

Started closing some of my higher value BoA accounts after they started charging people fees for having a low balance. This is predatory and targeting people who can't afford it. https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of-america-ebanking-fees/ https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/bank-of-america-... There are much better accounts elsewhere so even if you don't care about how BoA behaves you can get much better deals/service with fewer fees. This news will push me to close my final credit cards with BoA. No need to rush, it took me 6 months to slowly open alternative accounts before closing the BoA ones. They will slowly loose my business that they could have easily kept for the next 50 years. It wasn't very hard to do, it just takes a little patience.

JDWolf 8y ago
I have been with Wamu/Chase for a lot of years but want to switch now that they are implementing more fees. What are you switching to? The local credit unions seem pretty good but I know there are other options as well including fintech.
- maym86 8y ago
  Ally is what I'm using. 1.75% saving account. 0.1% interest on checking account. No minimum balance. They pay all withdrawal fees. They don't have physical locations but I never used them anyway. Phone service is pretty good. I have started getting in the mindset that I'll just open accounts wherever makes sense for different services. With internet banking there's no need to get everything from one provider, opening new accounts is easy and there is no need to stick with banks that behave like this. Even if it's too much hassle to close the bad account right away it's pretty easy to take the first step and drain it to the minimum required balance.
  - snuxoll 8y ago
    Schwab's also an option to look into, the APY on their savings account isn't as high as Ally's but everything basically comes as a package with their significantly better brokerage account. If you've any interest in investing then it's worth checking out.

raincom 8y ago

Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. One day, we all realize that Stasi is better than the current regime of electronic surveillance. Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content. FINCEN assumes that every untraceable monetary instrument (cash, cashier checks, money orders, bank checks, etc) is DIRTY by default. If a bank doesn't know enough details (dob, citizenship, driver license number, ssn, passport number, etc) about controlling parties of any account (LLC, sol prop, C-corp, S-Corp, individual accounts), such accounts are seen as DIRTY. In other words, these are seen as potential sources of money laundering. FINCEN makes banks responsible for spying and reporting any suspicious activity. Banks spend $100B a year on this compliance. There is a $2B software industry behind this (AML compliance software). These software companies hire ex-regulators from FINCEN etc.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
"Don't blame Bank of America. For that matter, any bank. " I absolutely can and will, because those banks are run by people. People who are capable of telling right from wrong. "Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, etc are behind this. Now know the power of administrative state: when laws are passed, much of the content of these laws are filled up by regulatory bodies. In this case, FINCEN is responsible for filling up this content." No. Neither of those requires this course of action.
- raincom 8y ago
  CDD (customer due diligence) became a rule on May 11, 2018 [1]. FINCEN forced banks to do it. Even though it is not in Bank's best interest to go through this exercise at all, they are forced by regulatory laws. There is a whole group at every bank dedicated to this: compliance teams, led by a chief compliance officer. Every bank is examined by internal auditors, external auditors, regulators to see whether a bank is in compliance. Yes, banks run by people; laws are written by people; regulators are people. The issue is not people per se: which set of people has MORE discretion? In this case, compliance teams at banks don't have much discretion. FINCEN has discretion to fill up the content of laws in the name of new rules. Recently, Congress has started attacking this AML-regulation beast; there are a couple of bills in congress, which can ease AML compliance burden. By the time, any reforms are passed, KYC (know your customer, EDD (enhanced due diligence), and CDD (customer due diligence) become the status quo. Of course, we could have expected Banks to push back, by sending lobbyists to rewrite laws. Banks are also helped by software tools to generate letters, file SAR(suspicious activity reports), CTR (currency transaction reports), etc. If there were no automated way of doing these, yes, they would have gone to Congress to push back. As long as there is some automation, expect more of this surveillance. [1] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-financial-institutions-cdd-rule-becomes-effective-today https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-fin...

yodsanklai 8y ago

Interesting. I used to live in the US some years ago and I still have my BoA account. It doesn't cost me anything and it is useful once in a while and who knows, I may need it some time in the future. Nonetheless I called them once to explain that I wasn't living in the US anymore and that I wanted to close my account but they advised me to keep it.

theandrewbailey 8y ago
Why would they want you to close your account? They can't nickel and dime you on fees if it's closed.

edm0nd 8y ago

I dont have a problem with this. Seems like a reasonable measure. People illegally here in our country should not be allowed to have a US bank account. It's as simple as that.

cryoshon 8y ago
... we can't take their tax dollars if we don't have their bank accounts tallied locally. it's as simple as that.
fiatmurder 8y ago
I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank* account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. Their words. *I mean credit union.

pteredactyl 8y ago

Why anyone uses a big bank is beyond me. Credit unions all the way.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Credit unions are still subject to the same regulations.
- trumped 8y ago
  I was asked that information by Bank of America but not from my other bank...
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Because BofA decided how they were going to abide by those regulations.
    - trumped 8y ago
      but what is strange is that they let you avoid it (you can close the "popup" window and keep on doing whatever you were going to do in the first place)
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gst 8y ago

Same thing happened to me with Simple (the banking startup). After they got acquired by BBVA they moved their customer's checking accounts from The Bancorp to BBVA. As part of that process they re-verified their customers and closed accounts of non-citizen customers (they also closed accounts of permanent residents physically residing in the United States). That migration pretty much happened in the worst way possible: While customers had several months to migrate once the migration started you only had something like 30 days to verify your documents and open the new account. Also once the migration was started there was no way to cancel or pause it. I'd at least have expected them to notify non-citizen customers in advance so that they have plenty of time to open another account. Instead, I didn't get any information about this issue until after I started the migration, and once I started it they told me that it's not possible to prevent/delay the closure of my account anymore. Fun fact: According to Reddit/Twitter non-citizens who used a driver's license for KYC weren't affected (because Simple newer checked for their citizenship status). But if you used a Greencard for KYC they noticed that you aren't a citizen and closed your account. (So there's probably a large number of customers left whose accounts will be randomly closed at some future point.) As a consequence (for non-citizens) I suggest using a bank or credit union which has a known track record of handling non-citizen accounts (especially with the current BofA news). The United Nations Credit Union (https://www.unfcu.org/ https://www.unfcu.org/) looks like a good choice, as they target UN workers and it appears that a large number of customers aren't US citizens (and don't even live in the United States). And don't forget to keep one or two backup checking accounts in case your main account gets closed down.

kylehotchkiss 8y ago
Yeah, for as online-friendly as they claim to be, they have some really wacky rules on kyc and long term travel. I asked them to close my account as I don't want to support those policies.

fiatmurder 8y ago

I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist. The banks words.

sehugg 8y ago

If you have the means, it's helpful to have redundant bank accounts, especially for travelers, as this ratchet seems to only tighten. There's a couple sailing the world that had some snafus that required a flight back to the U.S. which they describe in detail: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money-international-banking https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/travel-money-international-...

fiatmurder 8y ago

I am homeless and due to the patriot act. I am unable to open a bank account as the bank without a utility bill is unable to determine that I am not a terrorist.

Lasher 8y ago

As someone who does have dual citizenship (UK and USA) and has been a BOA customer for over 20 years, my big question is what happens if you say "yes"? I didn't see this mentioned or discussed yet in the comments so far.

raincom 8y ago
If you say "yes", nothing happens. Basically, the purpose behind this is to track "tax evaders", even though BSA, Patriot act, and FINCEN regulations sell this rule under the name of "anti-money laundering". Think of this as NSA meta data gathering. NSA doesn't search metadata every day for some body. Instead, they use the meta data once suspicious person is located by other means. IRS, FINCEN, FBI, etc want to have access this info on their fingertips.

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Pica_soO 8y ago

This could have happened with the bank of crypton too...

arisAlexis 8y ago

it's exactly why we need sovereign money

mtw 8y ago

They should just move to a much smaller bank. To Bank of America, he's just a number, they don't care about him. A much smaller bank would value his business and would take time to discuss with him before shutting down.

bonestamp2 8y ago
Even another large bank... I moved away from BoA because they kept canceling my Visa and sending me a new one anytime I shopped somewhere that had fraudulent activity reported by another cardholder. I would go through a 3-5 cards a year. This eventually became a huge pain the in the ass because all of my autopay accounts had to constantly be updated and every website I shopped on had to constantly update my cards (which isn't as easy as it should be on some sites). I switched to Chase a few years ago, still on the same card.
snarf21 8y ago
That isn't so easy. All the smaller banks get bought by the big ones as soon as the reach a certain size. The shareholders of the small bank are more than happy to take their returns and move on regardless of the negative for their now ex-customer.

pseingatl 8y ago

Happened to me. BoA is buying customer information from data brokers who get it from social media. Anyone with any foreign contacts at all gets flagged by their algorithm. Accounts are instantly frozen with no suspicious behavior whatsoever--unless pulling money from an ATM is supicious. Eventually this foolishness will cause the U.S. to lose its position as a banking center. In the meantime, enjoy your closed account.

einhverfr 8y ago

As an American residing abroad, and married to a non-American, I tend to get a lot of trouble from FATCHA and the like. These laws effectively force me to put all savings in my wife's name because that's the only way I can deal with banks in Europe. Now we have these kinds of issues in the US. But proving citizenship isn't trivial. When we were in the US, my wife, to my knowledge didn't have to prove citizenship, only provide ID (such as a driver license) and a social security card (which also doesn't prove citizenship). Of course they can't just ask everyone for birth certificates or passports on short notice. So they just ask for verbal answers? Really? But there is more. Why is there this focus on dual citizens? And why are banks being asked to effectively surveil people for dual citizenship?