To an extent, I never understood how this made sense. I could see a case for "we'll throw a plausible-but-nonthreatening status code on a flagged account." Te

To an extent, I never understood how this made sense. I could see a case for "we'll throw a plausible-but-nonthreatening status code on a flagged account." Tell the customer there was data loss and it's out of commission until the SMR-drive RAID rebuilds. But when they start responding with obvious no-answer answers and "system says no" alone, that chasnge in response style in and of itself is leaking information. I've seen plenty of people reporting over the years "I've been blacklisted, nobody will say why" and not one of them ends with "I'm posting a followup from a holding cell", so it's not like they're pulling the plug at the last moment when the charges are filed and the police cruisers in motion. If it happens enough that ordinary people outside banking have experienced it, then I'm sure the cartels and terror cells know about it. I feel like there's an opportunity for a sequence in a mob movie where one of the characters' debit cards unexpected declined, and he immediately excuses himself to tell his compatriates to shut it down.