Banks closing checking accounts holding seizing funds with no recourse - Bank of America the worst

[Anonymous]

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@CrSter wrote:

Nothing has gotten better since November.  Still the way it is.  Wells Fargo at least gives a month's notice and allows a wind down with full access to funds before the closing date,

Bank of America shutters the accounts and freezes funds pending closure and sometimes seizes funds.  There are horror stories about BofA's doing this online.

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I was just looking online, since we are there. I see year old stories.

[AndySoCal]

@CrSter  One of the benefits of credit unions is the thier ATM and branch network. Look at any credit union ATM and branch network. With credit unions you can use any credit union atm with no fee. I used a local credit union in California to make a cash deposit to my credit union  in Maryland with no fees.

[CrSter]

Also there is a long history going back many years of complaints about the way BofA handles account closures - freezing funds first, closing much later, sometimes seizing funds entirely. 

I haven't Googled closely but I don't think there are such complaints posted against credit unions.  With CUs don't the funds all technically belong to us? collectively.

[FicoMike0]

Navy's closest branch is about a two hour drive for me, but I only use one physical bank anyway. Id have to enter Hilbert space to get to an amex branch. I think their street address is an imaginary number.

[NoMoreDebt]

Diversity is key and not a bad idea to avoid retail banks all together. NFCU is as close to a regular bank as we have and we don't really do as much with them banking wise as we do with Fidelity or Schwab.

[AndySoCal]

I agree it it's not a bad idea to have a back up just in case. The main reason for me is a ransom ware attack or an account takeover.

Banking wise we are pretty much creatures of habit. The paychecks are direct deposit and the bills you pay are mostly the same month over month. There are some unique months where you do a wire transfer to an escrow company with the down payment or something similar. These types of things as a rule are not a problem.  
A transaction of mine was called into question by US Bank. I written a check long story short somehow  someone got it and washed the check. In the memo part was written babysitting. The person who tried to cash the check attempted to cash it at US Bank branch. The word baby sitting did not match my profile for someone that was 60+ years old. Hence the reason the bank branch called me. It was fraud.

The OP states that the bank's risk department was / is involved.  The risk team will never provide a response due the fact the information given could be used help the bad folks to keep from getting caught. The account closures are not random and arbitrary.

I work for a financial institution I have heard calls where a relative is trying to impersonate another relative.  The intent of the caller is not always a good one.

The bank and its employees must do their due dillegence to prevent the fraudsters from gaining access to customer's account and draining the account(s). The second part of that is the due dillegence is the prevention of fraudsters from using the banks resources to carry out their business.

The reason you only hear of B of A Wells Fargo etc is those banks have in access of one trillion dollars in assets. The largest credit union NFCU has around 180 billion in assets.  This does not mean a credit union will not close accounts if need be.

[TrapLine]

Great write-up! Lays out what is up in the financial market place.

Of late, a credit union and small bank system in my area were part of some type of hit. Add to that certainly Chase and Fidelity Investments.

Frustrating, we don't know outcomes but as you said, a lid on it may prevent other such attacks (or copy cat).

What's this you did not baby sit ... com'mon we all know you have a brood?

[AndySoCal]

@TrapLine  As I have posted more than once fraud today is at a very high level. The level of sophistication of the fraud has also increased as well.  I am almost to the point where I trust little or nothing from an unknown source. I go through the steps to verify everything. I know one wrong step I could open the perverbial flood gates either personally or job wise. Below is a fictional example of due dillegence. There probably several variations of this, that is true in real life.

Grandma Betty goes to her bank or credit union where she has banked at for several decades. She is well known at the branch. Grandma Betty goes to the teller to make deposit the teller notices the there is an outbound wire transfer pending on the account.  This something that this customer has never done.  The teller excuses his or herself and talks to the manager. After the deposit is completed the manager takes Grandma Betty to an office where she is asked about the wire transfer.  Grandma Betty states that she did make that wire transfer. This was the beginning of an account take over. The appropriate steps were taken to prevent the account takeover. Why was the account take over prevented the teller did the due dillegence.

Now to the "baby sitting" check all my checks I print everything except my signature. After the "washing" of the check the payee and the memo line was in script. The penmanship used was a minimum of 25x better than mine. Also there is no brood with my DNA. I am an uncle yes but not a father thank you.

[CrSter]

The articles we read about online are situations where once the press gets involved Bank of America folds and releases the bank account funds to the holder.  So obviously there was nothing going on just innocent people getting caught up in overzealous fraud detection algorithmns.

In any case, as I wrote up above, there are ways to sever relationships and then there are ways to sever relationships.  Shuttering access, refusing to respond to inquiries, and constantly putting foward into the future a resolution date the way Bank of America does it is more than enough reason to avoid them.  Just trying to get the word out there, I have never lost any money to any bank and I would like to keep it that way.

[AndySoCal]

@CaSter  I will start by saying this please note in my siggy below the personal blacklist and  which bank is first in the list.
My initial response is referring to banks and credit unions as a whole. Is any bank or credit union perfect I think not. In my opinion  I would never describe anti fraud efforts as over zealous.  I hate fraud with a passion. I either talked to or listened to a call where a customer had their life savings drained by a fraudster. I do not know if the bank was able to get the funds back.
Show me article(s) of a bank or credit union being to lax in the response to fraud and I will close my accounts in a heartbeat if I have any with them..  Here is an apparent example please note the example is three years old. Not sure if the case is still in litigation

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/money/wells-fargo-looked-on-as-elderly-customer-lose... 

 As far as Bank of America is concerned my recent encounter with them was in 2008.  I was the executor of my mom's trust. So I converted the accounts accordingly by opening two new accounts that were to be linked to avoid any fees. The accounts were not linked. I called Bamk of America customer service for five months to try to get the problem fixed.  I closed the accounts and refuse to business with them at all.