Banks are keeping closer tabs on your reputation than ever before

[iced]

Paying to settle is exactly how one skirts the law after having done something wrong, and I personally would love to see the efforts to crack down on this. Pleading no-contest to a speeding ticket and paying the fine doesn't mean I didn't do anything wrong. If I had truly felt I did nothing wrong, I'd be in court clearing my good name. I get that it makes sense to settle in some cases as the court costs render following it through to the legal end a case of uphill battle for diminishing returns, but that should not be equated to the same as no wrong-doing. 

From the article:

Sequeira's employer, eClinicalWorks, an electronic-medical-records company, agreed to pay $155 million to the federal government to settle claims that it had misrepresented its software and used shortcuts to pass some certifications. The company denied any wrongdoing, saying it settled to avoid expensive, protracted litigation.

... 

"We didn't do anything wrong," Sequeira said. "The company didn't accept fault. We didn't accept fault."

That's some screwed-up Gordon Gekko logic right there, from both Sequeira and eClinicalWorks. Paying $155 million to avoid a lawsuit isn't what honest companies do to avoid expensive, protracted litigation; it's what dishonest companies with lawyers do because that's the cheapest option for them after they got caught doing something that would have cost them much more had it been aired in public courts.

I'm with Chase on this one. If someone wants to buy their way out of legal trouble, that shouldn't stop other entities that person does business with from wanting to distance themselves from them.

[trusty]

We need to live in a world where banks don't try to punish people based on assumptions. Paying a minuscule percentage of a corporate fine - to the government - has zero to do with any unrelated party.

The fact that anyone would want a private settlement to be even remotely related to someone else's relationship is highly disturbing. Everyone needs to just mind their own business, and stay in their own lane.

There is a reason the law is adjudicated by judges, and not banks. Now we will need a new law; that banks cannot bring adverse action, unless they are witness to illegal activities occurring, period. Any outside non-debt related, non-criminal, private agreements are not under the perview of the bank.

It matters not what anyone thinks that someone else was alleged to have done. The matter was settled, with no charges. End of story.

If we cannot operate with respect to due process, law and order, and the right to privacy, than there's no hope for civilized society.

[iced]

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@trusty wrote:

The fact that anyone would want a private settlement to even be remotely related to someone else's relationship is highly disturbing. Everyone needs to just mind their own business, and stay in their own lane.

Their is a reason the law is adjudicated by judges, and not banks. Now we will need a new law; that banks cannot bring adverse action, unless they are witness to illegal activities occurring, period. Any outside non-debt related, non-criminal, private agreements are not under the perview of the bank.

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Except banks aren't obligated to give anyone a card or loan, nor are they obligated to keep that account open. Criminalizing taking AA against someone who does things the bank finds suspicious? People can drop a bank like a bad habit if they so much as don't give them a big enough CLI, but banks cannot do the same if the individual does something that they feel could put them at risk? If we do this, we should also criminalize people who dump their stock in a company because they don't like something the company said in a social media or news event. Nothing illegal was done there either, so maybe those investors should just stay in their lanes too.

Privacy hasn't been a thing for almost 20 years. People are just as publicly traded as companies are.

[trusty]

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@iced wrote:

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Except banks aren't obligated to give anyone a card or loan, nor are they obligated to keep that account open. Criminalizing taking AA against someone who does things the bank finds suspicious? People can drop a bank like a bad habit if they so much as don't give them a big enough CLI, but banks cannot do the same if the individual does something that they feel could put them at risk? If we do this, we should also criminalize people who dump their stock in a company because they don't like something the company said in a social media or news event. Nothing illegal was done there either, so maybe those investors should just stay in their lanes too.

Privacy hasn't been a thing for almost 20 years. People are just as publicly traded as companies are.

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The difference is that banks provide a public service.

Extrapolate all of this type of petty, self-righteous behavior out -- where profit centers try to punish consumers, by playing judge and jury... trying to enforce their own ethics - rather than operating based on the law... and you have chaos.

This is how you end up with the government running all of the banks... so that nobody can get kicked off of the rolls based on things that have nothing to do with the bank.

Capitalism puts too much pressure on the existence of sensible secular actors.

[Anonymous]

I find it all quite intriguing and amusing, considering that most banks were formed by shady Business men in the first place. And to date, still maintain that same mentality. So who are they to even act like Moral behavior should be a thing? I find that quite hypocritical TBH.

[Dalmus]

The problem with the government running the banks is exactly what you claim the problem with the private sector is. Now you have banks "discouraged" from providing services to businesses the Government doesn't approve of. Forced social engineering, just like they do with the tax code.
Ok a capitalist society, at least the people have a choice to not patronize such a bank, and if enough make that choice, it goes out of business. In a socialist society where the government is in charge, you have no choice.