Legal recourse on bank that decides to close account due to living abroad?

[quincy]

In a bit of reading i discovered that banks can be penalized for maintaining accounts where the activity of the ownership is questionable or suspicious. Due to that it appears some banks are closing accounts erring on the side
of caution to avoid such penalties. Given the op alluded to the closures being supported by something within the Patriot Act, I'm having difficulty imagining a situation where the banks acted unlawfully.

Of course if the op cared to provide some additional information...

Never mind. It obviously isn't going to happen.

Yes, I think jissues is reluctant to provide the information necessary to better determine if he could have any legal recourse.

Following is a link to information offered by Charity and Security Network which discusses one recent civil rights claim against a bank - and still others have been filed and are being considered, with support from the ACLU. The federal district court case is Life for Relief and Development v. Bank of America.

http://www.charityandsecurity.org/node/1434

 

[justalayman]

I understand the issues in the provided link but op has stated the basis for the closure was simply that he is overseas. Unless he has something else that would suggest the banks actions were based on unlawful discrimination, I still don't see him having any recourse.

 

[quincy]

I understand the issues in the provided link but op has stated the basis for the closure was simply that he is overseas. Unless he has something else that would suggest the banks actions were based on unlawful discrimination, I still don't see him having any recourse.

Based only on what jissues has disclosed, a legal action does not seem supportable - I agree. It is what he hasn't disclosed that can make the difference between a legal action with some merit and a legal action with none.

Because he seems so reluctant to say what country he is in, I suspect there is far more to his story than just a bank closing his personal account.

 

[LdiJ]

In a bit of reading i discovered that banks can be penalized for maintaining accounts where the activity of the ownership is questionable or suspicious. Due to that it appears some banks are closing accounts erring on the side
of caution to avoid such penalties. Given the op alluded to the closures being supported by something within the Patriot Act, I'm having difficulty imagining a situation where the banks acted unlawfully.

Of course if the op cared to provide some additional information...

Never mind. It obviously isn't going to happen.

There also is the possibility (since this is a small regional bank) that they are simply not set up to deal with the simple practicalities of having account holders that live outside of the US. Mailing statements, address set ups in their system and other bits and pieces. It can sound silly, but if their system is not set up to accept the differences of a foreign address, then everything for that particular client would have to be handled by hand, and that can be more of a complication than one might realize.

 

[quincy]

There also is the possibility (since this is a small regional bank) that they are simply not set up to deal with the simple practicalities of having account holders that live outside of the US. Mailing statements, address set ups in their system and other bits and pieces. It can sound silly, but if their system is not set up to accept the differences of a foreign address, then everything for that particular client would have to be handled by hand, and that can be more of a complication than one might realize.

From what jissues has written, it appears there is more support for the bank's act in closing jissue's account being perfectly legal rather than illegal. There has been no real indication from jissues that there has been anything close to a civil rights violation or any other illegal act committed by the bank with the closure of the account.

It was jissues mention of the "Patriot Act" that raises some questions ... but, because jissues is not forthcoming with the information necessary to determine if he has any legal recourse over the closing of his account, he should probably assume he doesn't.

 

[LdiJ]

From what jissues has written, it appears there is more support for the bank's act in closing jissue's account being perfectly legal rather than illegal. There has been no real indication from jissues that there has been anything close to a civil rights violation or any other illegal act committed by the bank with the closure of the account.

It was jissues mention of the "Patriot Act" that raises some questions ... but, because jissues is not forthcoming with the information necessary to determine if he has any legal recourse over the closing of his account, he should probably assume he doesn't.

I do not disagree at all, I was merely pointing out that there could also be some completely valid practical issues as well.

 

[quincy]

I do not disagree at all, I was merely pointing out that there could also be some completely valid practical issues as well.

I knew you weren't disagreeing. And I was actually agreeing with you.


(it was so much easier when we had the "like" feature to indicate agreement)

 

[Chyvan]

They have told me over the phone several times that it is because I am not in the state anymore.

If this is what they really said, they might have closed your account for moving to Nebraska, and it has nothing to do with you being out of the country. Some banks just don't want out-of-footprint customers.

 

[quincy]

If this is what they really said, they might have closed your account for moving to Nebraska, and it has nothing to do with you being out of the country. Some banks just don't want out-of-footprint customers.

jissues can always discuss his concerns with an attorney in his area if he believes his accounts were closed for a reason outside the law.

If there hadn't been recent investigations into bank operations across the country, and legal actions taken against banks over the questionable closing of accounts, there would probably be no reason to doubt the closing of the accounts in jissues' case.

There is just not enough information provided by jissues to say if the bank violated any law.

 

[cbg]

There also is the possibility (since this is a small regional bank) that they are simply not set up to deal with the simple practicalities of having account holders that live outside of the US. Mailing statements, address set ups in their system and other bits and pieces. It can sound silly, but if their system is not set up to accept the differences of a foreign address, then everything for that particular client would have to be handled by hand, and that can be more of a complication than one might realize.

Gotta go along with LdiJ here. A couple of years ago we had this issue come up with one of our retirees who had moved abroad, and the very large retirement plan administer where he had his funds could not correctly set up his foreign address. It wasn't that they couldn't set up ANY foreign addresses, it was that they couldn't set up THAT one. The specific requirements of this gentleman's address would have required their entire series of address fields to be revamped from the ground up - a very major project. If this very large retirement administrator couldn't do it, I can well imagine that a small or even a mid-size bank might have trouble. Heck, even a large one might under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

 

[quincy]

... It wasn't that they couldn't set up ANY foreign addresses, it was that they couldn't set up THAT one ...

I agree ... but all banks are more cautious now than they used to be about accounts with foreign-based account-holders or with account-holders who have foreign connections.

While it does not appear that the bank illegally discriminated against jissues by closing the account held by him (based on the little that jissues has been willing to disclose), there is still that tiny sliver of possibility that it did. That tiny sliver of possibility needed to be pointed out.