[shadowprofile77]

This. It is so absolutely, positively, disgustingly maddening to see companies like Stripe, Paypal, now apparently transferwise as well, based on this and other comments I've read, simply freeze accounts for seemingly trivial "violations" of some obscure TOC and then not only permanently ban you for what was in 99% of cases an honest mistake, but also simply refuse to state why they do so. What is the bloody fucking point of rules that cause you to kick off customers if you can't even give some transparency on how those rules work. It's insane and even if it complies with some bullshit government regulations on money laundering, grotesquely shitty of major financial services companies. Users should at least be given the benefit of the doubt and told why they're being punished before being booted.

I'd love to see some insider of these companies explain the obsessive habit of booting and then refusing to explain a single reason why.

[jkaplowitz]

I don't know the specifics of any of the companies you've listed, but I do know that financial institutions can't generally tell customers when they're doing something like filing a Suspicious Activity Report.

I suspect one such report got filed for me or a nonprofit I volunteered with when I came across the Canada-US border a few years back to deposit several Canada Post USD money orders plus a single US$20 bill into the nonprofit's US bank account, representing the cash receipts at a conference the nonprofit had held in Canada. (The Canada Post money orders were the CAD cash receipts converted to USD in a way that was safe for transport. We received the US$20 bill physically. Most of the money received for the conference was done via credit cards or PayPal, but not all.)

My reason for suspecting this is how many people came over to the teller's desk to help with handling the deposit, and how long it took with mostly periods of silence. But that said, the deposit happened just fine with no objections raised and no follow-up inquiries reaching me or the nonprofit.

So I don't know whether it happened - but I do know the bank couldn't confirm it if it had. Probably likewise if the same laws required closing an account.

If it's the company's choice without legal obligation, maybe it's just to avoid giving fraudsters information on what works and what doesn't work. Definitely a shitty experience for honest people caught in the mess.

[ValentineC]

> My reason for suspecting this is how many people came over to the teller's desk to help with handling the deposit, and how long it took with mostly periods of silence. But that said, the deposit happened just fine with no objections raised and no follow-up inquiries reaching me or the nonprofit.

Just confirming what I've read: you suspect that a report was filed, but your non-profit's account has not been closed by the bank?

[jkaplowitz]

Right. No consequences of any sort happened which were visible to me, which I'm glad about since everything in that transaction was legitimate and legal and traceable. (The non-profit has proper financial records and could confirm details to investigators if asked.)

Many suspicious activity reports are filed defensively by banks to avoid the risk of getting regulators mad at them for not filing one if something shady did turn out to happen, not because of real individualized suspicions. Many aren't even looked at by investigators.

[emptysongglass]

I wish you hadn't led with a "this" but man you put words to my heart.

It is so brazenly unjust, it strikes me right at the firmament of my being. If this is AML and KYC and not the financial institutions, why aren't there advocacy groups standing up against this gross mistreatment?

[exolymph]

Dude, if you sign up for a payment processor without reading the TOC, you are an idiot. Just straight up. It's a huge dependency of your business and you need to understand the rules. (Silent changes are much more problematic, and I think companies can be legitimately blamed for that.)

> What is the bloody fucking point of rules that cause you to kick off customers if you can't even give some transparency on how those rules work. It's insane and even if it complies with some bullshit government regulations on money laundering, grotesquely shitty of major financial services companies. Users should at least be given the benefit of the doubt and told why they're being punished before being booted.

Your problem here is with United States KYC & AML requirements, not with payments processors.