Wells Fargo suddenly closed my bank account because of an “executive decision” | Hacker News Reader

Wells Fargo suddenly closed my bank account because of an “executive decision”

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Flagged for some compliance issue. Perhaps not having a permanent address?

I have a home, but it happened to me twice at two major banks, once for withdrawing cash (apparently, more than $10,000 cash withdrawn from my own account within 12 months constitutes 'structuring'); once for reasons unknown (I was told that the law is such that they don't have to tell me). They made me take out my money.

Scary at the time; 20 years later makes for a funny story.

Banks really dislike when you don’t have a “permanent address” and this quickly becomes a sore point for expats, who also will have issues getting bank accounts abroad. If you try a PO Box, you’re just asking to have your account shut. If you use a virtual mailbox, they’ll catch you too when the mailbox address enters the databases of not-house addresses, probably run by chexsystems or the like.

But banks do not care at all if you use your friends or relatives addresses!

This is part of KYC, and a cornerstone of the Anti-Money Laundering apparatus. No legal financial institution/money transmitter will do business with someone without a permanent residence.

The houseless are basically DoA in terms of being serviced by the financial system at large.

Look up BSA/AML.

Basically, lawmakers/law enforcement has drawn a circle around what is considered "normal" account activity, and anything outside that is considered highly likely to be criminal.

Taking out the 10000 will normally trigger a CSR, and possibly an SAR. Moving 10k in the system is fine since the institution will maintain records for 7 years where the funds came from and go, and make reports to the local tax authorities.

Anything going to cash is going to be very high friction/risky. Making a couple large, individually < 10k withdrawls to cash which added together total more than 10k are explicitly called out examples to illustrate what "criminal structuring" may look like.

Structuring, is defined as the act of engaging in financial activity with the explicit intent/purpose of trying to circumvent or avoid triggering reportable events. It is a federal offense, and the Feds have absolutely no sense of humor around it.

Financial institutions are strictly liable for failure to comply with BSA/AML. They will not tell you any of this generally as a favor to law enforcement. I will, because info asymmetry is the root of all evil, and I try to trigger as many controls rqqas often as possible to specifically annoy those who deem such activity abnormal/criminal. It probably won't change much, but I resent outliers been sus by default.

https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination...

I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which my hard-earned, fully-documented, all-taxes-paid cash, withdrawn from my account can amount to money laundering. But whatever.

Exactly what a money launderer would say. Busted.

The suspicion arises because you're withdrawing to cash. They don't care about Electronic funds transfers because they know the ultimate destination. Large denominations of cash without justification or with refusal to justify are grounds for elevated suspicion, and anything going as high as 10k, especially broken up over several transactions, combined with an agitated customer in response to any refusal to do so, is generally considered a red flag. Financial institutions are, in essence, a fiscal surveillance network for law enforcement.

Pro-tip: Announce you are aware of the CSR/SAR they now have to file, and apologize for the inconvenience. Tends to put them at ease.

Be aware, you'll still draw elevated attention for a while. Isn't AML grand?

Wells Fargo is the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel shit tier banks and that's really saying something.

Their locations are dirty, their employee behavior is reprehensible, and their company morality and ethics is non-existent.

Peehaps they use banking as a facade?

Mafia loans?

Back in like 2014 someone at Wells Fargo opened a new account for me without my permission. I noticed it almost immediately. Recently they got a huge fine for frequently doing things like this but I never saw a dime from that fine.

They were a good CA bank in the old days but were bought out and lobotomized by an unethical MN bank.

Don't know if this is related, but the Fed still has them under an asset cap (size limit) and reiterated in Sept. 2021 that they are not likely to get out of the doghouse anytime soon [1]. This is speculation, but it would not be suprising if they tried raising ARPU.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/heres-what-the-wells-fargo-c...

Posted because it's similar to the "Stripe/Twitter/Facebook closed my account" questions.

Anyone in finance know how this can happen? Maybe they thought the check was fraud, but why?

Corruption and abuse of power. Banks work closely with the gov to weave laws in their favor. A local bank once showed me the legislation saying, bluntly speaking, they can do whatever they want without an explanation.

I'm still praying for a decentralized banking solution to give contest to these criminals.

It's called a local credit union. They still exist (barely) Join one and vote against having it bought out when it comes up in the agm.

One never will without being sanctioned to all hell, or getting into hot water the first time LE fets wind of them being used. Finance is a licensed profession in the United States.

FINCEN and FINRA give not two shakes about your disapproval, sadly.

I want to echo the Reddit comment saying to use a credit union. Wells fargo is such an unpleasant bank and I remember when I first started working how they just eroded my account balance away with fees for low balance, not direct depositing, “overdraft”, etc.

It’s possible that there is something on your chexsystems record that is related to their decision as well. They serve as something similar to a credit reporting agency specifically for banks. Try to get your record from them; they’ll mail it in a letter that will take weeks to arrive but perhaps that helps answer the “why” in your original question.

Edit: chexsystems now allows you to get your report online! You’ll just need your previous addresses from that bank account and drivers license/state ID number. I’d wait a few weeks until Wells Fargo closes account out to try this as the info might be slow to propagate up to the report

There needs to be some sort of termination disclosure law, where they have to demonstrate why they locked you out of your account.

_bank creates one patriot act disclosure mailed to all affected parties_

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