
Bank of America Closes Roelof Botha’s Bank Account - undefined3840
https://twitter.com/roelofbotha/status/1196234200665346048
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semiotagonal
> And this is exactly what your company @PayPal did to me after ~10 years.
> With absolutely no explanation... #Bitcoin

> Paypal closed my business account, and kept $5000 for 6 months. No
> explanation, no one to discuss with.

Some of the Twitter responses make this sound like poetic justice.

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tluyben2
Yep. Paypal messed up a lot of businesses without giving any reason or
recourse. This is what (some) banks do.

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danShumway
I realize he's no longer in charge of Paypal, but less than a week ago:
[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3abgv/paypal-pulls-
out-o...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3abgv/paypal-pulls-out-of-
pornhub-payments)

I have very little sympathy for anyone behind Paypal, even past founders,
having their accounts frozen now. I should be better, but I just don't have
that kind of charity in me at the moment.

May you reap what you sow.

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Mathnerd314
[https://www.americanbanker.com/news/2018-bank-reputation-
sur...](https://www.americanbanker.com/news/2018-bank-reputation-survey)

Lowest ranked banks: Wells Fargo, _Bank of America_ , HSBC, First National,
Citibank, Chase

It's not really surprising for the second lowest ranked bank to close accounts
without warning.

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tluyben2
Not sure how he can expect sympathy... And yet he gets it; must be the short
memory of the internet. Paypal made many people miserable with their ‘fraud
protection’ so I guess he should totally understand this course of action.

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ianhawes
I’ve had the same thing happen with Citi. No warning, just woke up and found
mine and my wife’s accounts frozen pending closure. I’m sure heads will roll
when they realize who they’ve upset, but as for me I never found out.

~~~
undefined3840
Usually when there’s no reason provided it’s because an account tripped some
anti money laundering rule(s). Someone in a compliance team then reviews the
account and makes a determination.

By US law you can’t tell the customer that you’re closing their account
because you thought it was “suspicious.” You just do it and then submit a
Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to FinCEN.

I can see how a high net worth individual could have account activity that
looks like money laundering, but given his long history with the bank would be
surprised if this decision was made automatically or by some junior analyst.
It must have been escalated to someone senior, and they must have known who he
was and still made the decision.

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conductr
I have no idea who he is, why should some random “analyst”?

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undefined3840
Because that’s literally the job of a compliance person? They have access to
Google, you know, and all your personal identity information.

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dangus
.

~~~
protomyth
I would imagine the relevance is this individual was CFO of PayPal and the
general attitude of replies to the tweet can be summed up as "you reap what
you sow".

