I used to have 90% of my money in a bank<p>Moved to a foreign country during covid<p>Meantime, the debit card expired, 3 months later when I try to login to mobile app/internet banking, can't do anything without the debit card.<p>Call the bank to send new one<p>3 month waiting<p>Call them multiple times: we can send new one but we'll cancel the one 'in-flight. Do you want to do that or wait another week?'<p>Eventually I requested a new one, two times<p>1 year waiting<p>The last phone call the staff admited they could be getting stolen<p>I've requested multiple times to send the card by Fedex or DHL they refused to do anything that didn't follow "their process"<p>A debit card sent by untracked letter!<p>Meantime they refuse to give me any alternative access to the account, move any money or make any transactions.<p>Lesson learned, don't trust _ONE_ bank with your savings/banking needs!<p>Can't be safe unless you have multiple bank accounts, crypto, and some nice friends.
This is what happens when banks don’t need your deposits anymore. You are an annoyance to them. They don’t care if you pull your money out. They no longer need it.<p>Things won’t be pretty once we go cashless.
Citi is a dumpster fire that I swore off as a teen. Only company to ever send me to collections, since I refused to pay their 'fees' after closing my account, which of course accrued late fees. This was in the overdraft fee era when banks seemed to have fun finding ways to extort you.<p>Now, I'll churn their credit cards time to time just to feel like I'm doing my part to stick it to them.<p>Rant out of the way, I've had something like this happen to me. What's more, all bank security I've dealt with treat you as a liar, always condescending, and are generally not allowed to provide any information as to why they are doing what they're doing.<p>I highly recommend spreading some amount of cash among at least two financial institutions. No matter how great you think they are, they can turn on you in a heartbeat for some esoteric reason.
The fact that they closed his account frankly sounds like the outcome of an AML review.<p>Banks are deputized by the government to check for all sorts of suspicious transaction. They get fined when their procedures are not sufficiently stringent. They're not allowed to tip you as to why your account is being suspended or closed.<p>At any moment, any bank can lock your account for months without informing you of anything. It's unfortunately the power we decided to give them to prevent money laundering.
Citi has flagged my account for suspicious activity three times, each with the same pattern: card gets declined on a routine transaction, followed by absolutely no notice over any electronic means, and then a letter in the mail describing the lockout. If there's a bank I would ever advise against, it's Citi, purely for the reason that they really seem to overreact to fraud signals.
<a href="https://www.occ.treas.gov/" rel="nofollow">https://www.occ.treas.gov/</a> - office of the comptroller of the currency. That is the agency that regulates national banks.
Avoid all single points of failure at all times.<p>* Use 2 credit cards, alternate between them on a weekly basis<p>* keep as little money as possible in your checking account, keep a book balance of $100, transfer # from savings on a weekly basis to cover what is due.<p>* have at least 2 savings/MM accounts at 2 banks that are not the same bank as your checking account.<p>* Keep your investment portfolio in at least 2 accounts at 2 different companies
This really sucks. I don't mean to diminish it. But<p>> <i>Since he was traveling and was relying on @Citibank, he was screwed.</i><p>Does anyone actually do this? I don't know anyone who'd rely on a bank. You just have like 2 or 3 credit cards. Pre-war, one of my friends was actually in Russia and lost their wallet, and Visa (yes, Visa, not the bank) actually hand-delivered him the card. Blew my mind.
Reminds me of my story: I met a girl in Mexico and decided to quit my job and move in with her. Since I couldn't open a bank in Mexico, I decided I'd just wire the girl all my money. Except upon trying my bank (of America) froze my account and took around 3 months to unfreeze, of which time I had access to absolutely no money.<p>It's kind of why I find it funny in all the crypto threads watching people here idolize the current financial system. Yet at a whim or some internal AML flag they can effectively trash your life giving you effectively no recourse.
I've had a lot of this lately, since the introduction of mandatory "two-factor" authentication (the "second" factor is a mobile phone, so neither secure nor a second factor). We have no mobile coverage at home, so it's impossible to use this. Online purchases often don't go through. My bank's helpline is massively overloaded with often 1 or 2 hour wait times. They haven't actually banned me from my own money yet but I'm certainly looking around for other options.
If you travel internationally or do any business, have a local bank and a proper international one.<p>A local banks follow local country laws, so in Canada, bank cards work in Cuba. However, employees are painfully useless about anything outside the country.<p>An international bank, because the employees aren’t clueless about internal transactions. However, they are under the strictest restrictions, cards don’t work in Cuba for example. Iran, Syria, etc will also be a problem. But I can move money between countries as easily as I move money between chequing accounts. Also, they send me my cards via DHL, not regular untracked mail like the very painfully dumb local banks.
It wouldn't surprise me if CC companies monitored social media for reckless spending these days with all the info back doors out there.<p>There is something that triggered the lockout. It's best to retrace steps to be sure about what originally caused the account lockout. That might be something in common with any card provider. When I was young and dumb, I got locked out unexpectedly after losing a job. If you post that you lost a job on social media these days... Lights you can't see can go off elsewhere...<p>They also ALL know your bank account balance without you even telling them.
Americans seems to be enamored with credit unions, when I went to one to look into it, they told me they don’t do international wires and that only big banks do it (I didn’t go check at other unions).
For my main bank account, I have a debit card, sure, but also an old fashioned checkbook. If I write a check, there may be no issue of <i>proving identity</i> to get the check cashed. If so, then go to another bank, open an account, and make a deposit via check on the old account.<p>Did the guy in the OP have an old fashioned paper checkbook?
Never trust any Bank.<p>I Only use Credit Unions, and have multiple accounts, 100% of my loans, checking accounts, saving accounts etc are with various Credit Unions<p>I have a credit card with a non-credit union, and I have an investment account with a non-credit union, but for cash assets I want that in a credit union not a commercial bank
Yup. This is why I hang onto a fancy private banking account that is ridiculously overkill for my pedestrian needs: all their processes are geared towards human interaction
You definitely don't want your bank to decide to unmoney you.<p>Unfortunately, they can do so for any reason or no reason, so don't post too much wrongthink on the internet, or else