Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Customer Accounts

“When things change, make sure your bank is aware of that so they don’t get caught out of the blue and have you pinged as a teacher, but now you have a used car business and absolutely have every reason to have lots of cash transactions,” Mr. Legear said. “As much as you can, treat your banking account like a relationship.”

That advice is cold comfort to Mr. Martin. After The Times asked about his situation with Chase, the bank reached out to him. Once again, however, it wouldn’t — or couldn’t — tell him anything useful about why it had kicked him to the curb in 2020.

“It was like, ‘Hey, I just want you to know that I still don’t want to date you anymore, and I’m never going to date you,’” he said, recounting the conversation. “‘And you can call us, but we won’t provide you any closure even three years later.’”

This was amusing to Mr. Martin, because a different part of the bank is in frequent touch — to try to hire him. He understands that its compliance department doesn’t talk to recruiting. Plus, he figured that if he was actually interested in a job there — which he is not — whatever it was that caused the bank to not accept his paychecks anymore would make it not want to write any to him, either.

More recently, however, he has begun to joke about the possibility of fixing its problems. As a user experience designer, he wonders about systems that could keep so many innocent people from tripping the fraud wires at the bank.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/your-money/bank-account-suspicious-activity.html