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Well, this happened in 2017.. fast forward to this account closure effect on my life: I had to go back to my country, without a degree, was not able to land an

Well, this happened in 2017.. fast forward to this account closure effect on my life: I had to go back to my country, without a degree, was not able to land any job. Unfortunately, good places require degrees. Stayed unemployed, hit with chronic depression as anyone would. Lost 4+ years of professional progress. When covid came, i was able to complete my degree online and graduated in 2021, but because all fresh grad programs require a certain age; i did not qualify. Was able to finally land a good job in 2023. This issue needs a resolution, what happened to me might not happen to everyone, i know my situation is different. but financial institutions should be held responsible for actions like this, imagine someone else who needs to pay for his/her medication...

WinstonSmith84 3y ago
Sorry to hear, but the bottom line here is to not trusting a single entity. Not having funds split between traditional banks and crypto (exchange + offline wallets) is just asking for problems.
neonsunset 3y ago
I wonder if the bank can be sued for this. That's how random bank managers get found in a river, due to policies like these impacting the innocent.
- mcny 3y ago
  I got a random call from Wells Fargo fraud department and I refused to give them my information. Escalated and the supervisor also pretended to not understand my concern. In fact, they placed a stupid hold. I went to a bank and the bank manager has to call them back and basically beg these people to remove my holds. These people in the fraud department don't even deserve to get found in a river.
  - CaptainZapp 3y ago
    Why didn't you politely suggest to call Wells Fargo' central phone number and have the switch board transfer you to him? Seems pretty much a no brainer to me.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It should be standard for all banks that if they have a fraud issue, they call you and tell you to call the number on the back of your card, and press 6 or something. The fraud departments we have are so indistinguishable from actual phishing it’s amazing. They even send you a two factor code and have you read it to them! The text says they’ll never ask for it via phone! Embarrassing.
      - mcny 3y ago
        Worse, as a customer, it is almost impossible to reach a specific person at a bank over the phone. The branch manager who called had to authenticate himself over the phone (at least he was the one who placed the call) and waited on hold for over twenty minutes and even then he didn't talk to a specific person iirc. The strange thing is the supervisor was clearly on a power trip. They made me waste hours of my life chasing this nonsense.
- pjc50 3y ago
  I'm surprised we haven't heard more lawsuits about this in notoriously litigious America. I find it hard to believe that "we can ruin you at any time" is a sustainably fair contract term.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    In order to sue anyone, you need money. To have money, you need a bank account. Therefore, if the bank takes your account, you can’t sue the bank.
    - dwighttk 3y ago
      Yeah, but they’ve never done it to someone who knows someone with money?
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Then they fix it and make it good. Which can be why it can be worthwhile to file suit in small claims court or even pro se. Because then you’re in their legal department which often at least responds. Or you get to foreclose on the local branch. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclosed-angry-homeowner-bofa/story?id=13775638 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclo...
    - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
      Find a lawyer who's willing to split the judgement 50/50. They only get paid once they win.
      - teddyh 3y ago
        That only covers the incentive for the lawyer for one isolated case. But since such a lawyer will probably take many such cases (and often against the same banks), we must examine the incentives of such a lawyer more closely. The incentive of such a lawyer is to keep taking such cases, which means it is actually in the lawyer’s interest to deliberately lose some amount of such cases, in order to keep it profitable for the bank to keep debanking customers, thereby ensuring that the lawyer has enough business.
- j-a-a-p 3y ago
  OTOH I do hope a bank is allowed to go full stop on the brakes if needed. I had my CC blocked 4 times because of fraud detection. All done by the CC company and it never cost me anything but inconvenience. If the bank would be liable, we all suffer. How much will banks charge if we would be both secured from fraud risks and indemnified from account closure damages? I would think 1% of your cashflow would not be unreasonable.
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    Banks are almost never liable for fraudulent CC charges. The merchant picks up the tab just about every time.
    - j-a-a-p 3y ago
      Yes been there, still am actually. Also as a merchant I like a pro-active attitude of the bank to deal with fraud. But, more on-topic, bank accounts are definitely more stable than CCs. But they are not immune for seizures and fraud detection.
- pc86 3y ago
  Ah yes the classic "I'm completely innocent so I murdered this bank manager."
trompetenaccoun 3y ago
Horrible. I've heard similar stories but this one's the worst by far. This shouldn't be allowed to ever happen again, such sudden closures without warning need to be illegal. The issue is banking is highly regulated but a lot of the regulation is about AML, terrorism screening and such. Not actually protecting customers from abuse but rather the other way around - banks are taking precautions to protect themselves from customers. Some of the regulation is also the result of decades of lobbying efforts by major players, making it extremely hard for new ones to compete. Banks are rarely held accountable because for some reason most regular people are fine with this or don't understand it. There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance. Good luck to a bank trying to shut down your self-hosted Ethereum wallet. Banks provide important services and will continue to exist, but giving them full unchecked control over our life savings and finance is mad. There are a lot of other issues with the current system, and many people don't really understand the contracts they're signing, including that they don't legally own "their money" in the bank account in most cases (they're creditors). But the question of effective control over ones own funds is the most crucial one to me.
- mcny 3y ago
  > There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance. I want the pendulum to swing the other way. Everybody gets and gets to keep forever an account at the Reserve Bank. > self-hosted Ethereum wallet I'm sorry. The technology might be fine But I simply do not trust the people involved with cryptocurrency. Not just the scammers such as SBF, I don't trust the "victims" to make wise choices. They see this as a get rich quick scheme. They are not "victims". They are money hungry speculators. Most don't even host a full node. Even people who have a means to do so Such as this guy tech deals on YouTube. The miners want to turn a good profit when they should be happy to just break even. The transaction costs are still too high. It should be very close to if not exactly zero dollars. The block chain should not be a place to make huge profits. The prices should not go "to the moon". In fact, you shouldn't even be thinking of the price of your cryptocurrency with respect to the US Dollar. This already means we lose if we constantly compare Bitcoin oh sorry ethereum and the dollar.
Dudester230602 3y ago
Let's transition to cashless society, shall we?
- pc86 3y ago
  This is a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic reply, right? Because the only two cash-less options I'm aware are crypto, which is filled with rug-pulls, scams, and DPR-wannabes, or just having everything in commercial banks which is exactly what got the GP into this position in the first place. Maybe we can go back to bartering?
  - gardenhedge 3y ago
    How does the existence of rug pulls (aka scams) invalidate the option of moving to crypto?
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      It's not the existence of crime, crime happens in real money, too. It's the complete and utter lack of anything else but crime. Originally, Bitcoin only appealed to 1) geeks who enjoyed the technical details and 2) people who wanted to buy drugs. Then, you got to phase 2, where bolstered by the liquidity provided by the people trading drugs and the unbridled enthusiasm of the geeks, the value went up. Then, The Silk Road got shut down, and the value started to fluctuate wildly, leading to runaway speculation, attracting the "fight club for finance" guys. Those guys marketed crypto to the broader flock of normal people, because they needed bag-holders for their (illegal securities trading) schemes. The influx of people gullible enough to listen to the finance bros provided a pre-filtered pool of people who would make good marks for scams. The useful applications of crypto are illegal (buying narcotics) and the majority of the ecosystem today is both illegal and completely economically nonproductive.
      - gardenhedge 3y ago
        In phase 1, how is geeks enjoying the technical details illegal? You said "It's the complete and utter lack of anything else but crime". Regardless of that, you've stated that crypto can be used to buy things. The parent post said "Let's transition to cashless society". Why can crypto not be used?
kylebenzle 3y ago
You should have switched Bitcoin LONG ago. Soon we will have to stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by the banks as the alternative is just too easy and obvious.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > Soon we will have to stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by the banks as the alternative is just too easy and obvious. OTOH we did stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by crypto bros as the alternative has been just too easy and obvious for quite a while now.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  I think I'll wait for you all to finish the "why financial regulations exist" speedrun before I use it day-to-day.
phil21 3y ago
I think a lot of folks reading this will immediately be critical and tell you exactly how easy it would have been to solve your problems from spiraling out of control. They are likely largely factually correct. What is not being said is that many folks are operating at the limits of their executive function. Add something like this to an already stressful period of time to such people, and they simply will not be able to advocate for themselves in an effective manner or make logical decisions in the moment. I say this from personal experience. Small stuff like this, in particular gatekeeping kafkaesque stuff, absolutely kills my life in a way that is not logical or explainable. It effectively shuts my brain down. I've lost many years of my life due similar issues, where in the end someone else could have handled them as a minor annoyance.
- doingtheiroming 3y ago
  Multibillion dollar organisation with an essentially unlimited scope for bureaucratic work versus kid trying to move house at the weekend. The “why did he do this to himself?” meme seems appropriate. Also, yes. I’ve gotten better over the years at taking a breath and just doing it but it still sets me off. Employers exploit this in people by adding hurdles in expense systems. It’s an oft forgotten corporate dark pattern.
- nullc 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  > What is not being said is that many folks are operating at the limits of their executive function. I don't think this can be understated. I didn't pay income taxes for two years. Not because I was dodging them, but because I was going through a divorce, single-parenthood, and depression and was barely able to hold onto my job. 2 years later, I got my shit together, paid back taxes and fees (I had the money all along), and it was easy... when I had the bandwidth for it. I just couldn't at the time. Most things are easy in isolation, it's having patience for someone-who-can't get-your-one-simple-thing-right-because-they-have-too-many-other-simple-things-on-the-go-right-now that is hard.
skyde 3y ago
What do you mean by "fresh grad programs require a certain age" this seem like an easy lawsuit for age discrimination.
lopolo333 3y ago
Stupid people is perverse. Banks are generally full of these. They power is barely limited and in the corner cases where they are somehow forced by regulation to compensate victims those compensations are peanuts to them (and in most cases to the victims themselves). All this idiocy could have been prevented by a communication stating "come here before one week or we will close your account". They simply do not care about people.
jacquesm 3y ago
What an incredible horror story. I so hate the impersonal way in which large institutions deal with individuals. The least they should do is to realize that banking is 'mission critical' and that shutting down an account has an immediate real world effect that can result in any kind of mishap to a person. Very, very nasty, and props to you for not entirely losing your drive over this.

WinstonSmith84 3y ago

Sorry to hear, but the bottom line here is to not trusting a single entity. Not having funds split between traditional banks and crypto (exchange + offline wallets) is just asking for problems.

neonsunset 3y ago

I wonder if the bank can be sued for this. That's how random bank managers get found in a river, due to policies like these impacting the innocent.

mcny 3y ago
I got a random call from Wells Fargo fraud department and I refused to give them my information. Escalated and the supervisor also pretended to not understand my concern. In fact, they placed a stupid hold. I went to a bank and the bank manager has to call them back and basically beg these people to remove my holds. These people in the fraud department don't even deserve to get found in a river.
- CaptainZapp 3y ago
  Why didn't you politely suggest to call Wells Fargo' central phone number and have the switch board transfer you to him? Seems pretty much a no brainer to me.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It should be standard for all banks that if they have a fraud issue, they call you and tell you to call the number on the back of your card, and press 6 or something. The fraud departments we have are so indistinguishable from actual phishing it’s amazing. They even send you a two factor code and have you read it to them! The text says they’ll never ask for it via phone! Embarrassing.
    - mcny 3y ago
      Worse, as a customer, it is almost impossible to reach a specific person at a bank over the phone. The branch manager who called had to authenticate himself over the phone (at least he was the one who placed the call) and waited on hold for over twenty minutes and even then he didn't talk to a specific person iirc. The strange thing is the supervisor was clearly on a power trip. They made me waste hours of my life chasing this nonsense.
pjc50 3y ago
I'm surprised we haven't heard more lawsuits about this in notoriously litigious America. I find it hard to believe that "we can ruin you at any time" is a sustainably fair contract term.
- teddyh 3y ago
  In order to sue anyone, you need money. To have money, you need a bank account. Therefore, if the bank takes your account, you can’t sue the bank.
  - dwighttk 3y ago
    Yeah, but they’ve never done it to someone who knows someone with money?
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Then they fix it and make it good. Which can be why it can be worthwhile to file suit in small claims court or even pro se. Because then you’re in their legal department which often at least responds. Or you get to foreclose on the local branch. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclosed-angry-homeowner-bofa/story?id=13775638 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclo...
  - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
    Find a lawyer who's willing to split the judgement 50/50. They only get paid once they win.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      That only covers the incentive for the lawyer for one isolated case. But since such a lawyer will probably take many such cases (and often against the same banks), we must examine the incentives of such a lawyer more closely. The incentive of such a lawyer is to keep taking such cases, which means it is actually in the lawyer’s interest to deliberately lose some amount of such cases, in order to keep it profitable for the bank to keep debanking customers, thereby ensuring that the lawyer has enough business.
j-a-a-p 3y ago
OTOH I do hope a bank is allowed to go full stop on the brakes if needed. I had my CC blocked 4 times because of fraud detection. All done by the CC company and it never cost me anything but inconvenience. If the bank would be liable, we all suffer. How much will banks charge if we would be both secured from fraud risks and indemnified from account closure damages? I would think 1% of your cashflow would not be unreasonable.
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  Banks are almost never liable for fraudulent CC charges. The merchant picks up the tab just about every time.
  - j-a-a-p 3y ago
    Yes been there, still am actually. Also as a merchant I like a pro-active attitude of the bank to deal with fraud. But, more on-topic, bank accounts are definitely more stable than CCs. But they are not immune for seizures and fraud detection.
pc86 3y ago
Ah yes the classic "I'm completely innocent so I murdered this bank manager."

trompetenaccoun 3y ago

Horrible. I've heard similar stories but this one's the worst by far. This shouldn't be allowed to ever happen again, such sudden closures without warning need to be illegal. The issue is banking is highly regulated but a lot of the regulation is about AML, terrorism screening and such. Not actually protecting customers from abuse but rather the other way around - banks are taking precautions to protect themselves from customers. Some of the regulation is also the result of decades of lobbying efforts by major players, making it extremely hard for new ones to compete. Banks are rarely held accountable because for some reason most regular people are fine with this or don't understand it. There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance. Good luck to a bank trying to shut down your self-hosted Ethereum wallet. Banks provide important services and will continue to exist, but giving them full unchecked control over our life savings and finance is mad. There are a lot of other issues with the current system, and many people don't really understand the contracts they're signing, including that they don't legally own "their money" in the bank account in most cases (they're creditors). But the question of effective control over ones own funds is the most crucial one to me.

mcny 3y ago
> There is a solution - not sure if everyone's ready to hear it yet: Decentralized finance. I want the pendulum to swing the other way. Everybody gets and gets to keep forever an account at the Reserve Bank. > self-hosted Ethereum wallet I'm sorry. The technology might be fine But I simply do not trust the people involved with cryptocurrency. Not just the scammers such as SBF, I don't trust the "victims" to make wise choices. They see this as a get rich quick scheme. They are not "victims". They are money hungry speculators. Most don't even host a full node. Even people who have a means to do so Such as this guy tech deals on YouTube. The miners want to turn a good profit when they should be happy to just break even. The transaction costs are still too high. It should be very close to if not exactly zero dollars. The block chain should not be a place to make huge profits. The prices should not go "to the moon". In fact, you shouldn't even be thinking of the price of your cryptocurrency with respect to the US Dollar. This already means we lose if we constantly compare Bitcoin oh sorry ethereum and the dollar.

Dudester230602 3y ago

Let's transition to cashless society, shall we?

pc86 3y ago
This is a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic reply, right? Because the only two cash-less options I'm aware are crypto, which is filled with rug-pulls, scams, and DPR-wannabes, or just having everything in commercial banks which is exactly what got the GP into this position in the first place. Maybe we can go back to bartering?
- gardenhedge 3y ago
  How does the existence of rug pulls (aka scams) invalidate the option of moving to crypto?
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    It's not the existence of crime, crime happens in real money, too. It's the complete and utter lack of anything else but crime. Originally, Bitcoin only appealed to 1) geeks who enjoyed the technical details and 2) people who wanted to buy drugs. Then, you got to phase 2, where bolstered by the liquidity provided by the people trading drugs and the unbridled enthusiasm of the geeks, the value went up. Then, The Silk Road got shut down, and the value started to fluctuate wildly, leading to runaway speculation, attracting the "fight club for finance" guys. Those guys marketed crypto to the broader flock of normal people, because they needed bag-holders for their (illegal securities trading) schemes. The influx of people gullible enough to listen to the finance bros provided a pre-filtered pool of people who would make good marks for scams. The useful applications of crypto are illegal (buying narcotics) and the majority of the ecosystem today is both illegal and completely economically nonproductive.
    - gardenhedge 3y ago
      In phase 1, how is geeks enjoying the technical details illegal? You said "It's the complete and utter lack of anything else but crime". Regardless of that, you've stated that crypto can be used to buy things. The parent post said "Let's transition to cashless society". Why can crypto not be used?

kylebenzle 3y ago

You should have switched Bitcoin LONG ago. Soon we will have to stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by the banks as the alternative is just too easy and obvious.

kergonath 3y ago
> Soon we will have to stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by the banks as the alternative is just too easy and obvious. OTOH we did stop having sympathy for people who get screwed by crypto bros as the alternative has been just too easy and obvious for quite a while now.
plagiarist 3y ago
I think I'll wait for you all to finish the "why financial regulations exist" speedrun before I use it day-to-day.

phil21 3y ago

I think a lot of folks reading this will immediately be critical and tell you exactly how easy it would have been to solve your problems from spiraling out of control. They are likely largely factually correct. What is not being said is that many folks are operating at the limits of their executive function. Add something like this to an already stressful period of time to such people, and they simply will not be able to advocate for themselves in an effective manner or make logical decisions in the moment. I say this from personal experience. Small stuff like this, in particular gatekeeping kafkaesque stuff, absolutely kills my life in a way that is not logical or explainable. It effectively shuts my brain down. I've lost many years of my life due similar issues, where in the end someone else could have handled them as a minor annoyance.

doingtheiroming 3y ago
Multibillion dollar organisation with an essentially unlimited scope for bureaucratic work versus kid trying to move house at the weekend. The “why did he do this to himself?” meme seems appropriate. Also, yes. I’ve gotten better over the years at taking a breath and just doing it but it still sets me off. Employers exploit this in people by adding hurdles in expense systems. It’s an oft forgotten corporate dark pattern.
nullc 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
Pet_Ant 3y ago
> What is not being said is that many folks are operating at the limits of their executive function. I don't think this can be understated. I didn't pay income taxes for two years. Not because I was dodging them, but because I was going through a divorce, single-parenthood, and depression and was barely able to hold onto my job. 2 years later, I got my shit together, paid back taxes and fees (I had the money all along), and it was easy... when I had the bandwidth for it. I just couldn't at the time. Most things are easy in isolation, it's having patience for someone-who-can't get-your-one-simple-thing-right-because-they-have-too-many-other-simple-things-on-the-go-right-now that is hard.

skyde 3y ago

What do you mean by "fresh grad programs require a certain age" this seem like an easy lawsuit for age discrimination.

lopolo333 3y ago

Stupid people is perverse. Banks are generally full of these. They power is barely limited and in the corner cases where they are somehow forced by regulation to compensate victims those compensations are peanuts to them (and in most cases to the victims themselves). All this idiocy could have been prevented by a communication stating "come here before one week or we will close your account". They simply do not care about people.

jacquesm 3y ago

What an incredible horror story. I so hate the impersonal way in which large institutions deal with individuals. The least they should do is to realize that banking is 'mission critical' and that shutting down an account has an immediate real world effect that can result in any kind of mishap to a person. Very, very nasty, and props to you for not entirely losing your drive over this.