s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 1 坐标：堪萨斯城
20+年Bank of America老客户Josh Collins 和妻子Jessica Salazar Collins突然收到
银行来信问卷，要求提供是否公民信息。
Collins夫妇以为是诈骗遂未理会。
几个星期后，妻子在杂货铺买东西发现银行账户被冻结。 打电话给银行被告知缺少公
民信息。电话折腾多番无解，亲自去银行证明自己是公民（第四代移民）才搞定。
事件被当地媒体报道后，不少堪萨斯居民告诉Jessica他们也收到BOA类似的信件。
BOA的解释是他们这么干根据的是臭名昭著的布什时期的爱国法案。问题是为什么20多
年没查，现在突然要查？ | s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 2 To Josh Collins and his wife, Jessica Salazar Collins, something seemed off
about the Bank of America mailer.
They had each banked with the company since the early 2000s, and the couple
from outside Kansas City was surprised to find the letter from their bank
four to six weeks ago. The font looked altered. The bank’s logo looked “
weird.” The paper wasn’t glossy, but instead looked as if it had just come
off a black-and-white photocopy machine.
Then there were the questions, addressed specifically to Josh. What’s your
Social Security number? Your address? Do you have any offshore accounts?
And then: Are you a U.S. citizen? Do you have dual citizenship?
“I knew they already had my Social Security number and my address," said
Josh Collins, 39, who is a photographer for a local news station. "But it
was also asking things they’d never asked before, like if I was a citizen.”
The couple held onto the mailer for a few weeks, then decided it must have
been spam. They said didn’t receive any other mailings or phone calls from
Bank of America about the matter.
“We thought, we’re just going to throw it away," said Jessica, who works
in health care marketing. "They know how to get a hold of us.”
Last Tuesday, Jessica went to buy tacos as her family headed for the pool.
When her debit was declined, she opened her Bank of America app, which
showed she had money in her checking account.
Jessica called the bank, which confirmed her account had been frozen. Then
the operator asked to talk to her husband.
“I could hear them confirming that indeed it was him, and then right away
he said, ‘what do you mean, am I a U.S. citizen?’ ” Jessica said.
Josh said the operator asked whether he’d received a mailer a few weeks
before and then asked his citizenship status.
“At that point, I’m just dumbfounded as to why they’d frozen our assets,
so I wasn’t thinking about the context of the question. Just give me my
money,” Josh said. “So I said, ‘Of course I’m a U.S. citizen.’ I was
born and raised in Kansas."
On its website, Bank of America says that to apply for a checking account, a
person must provide the following: Social Security number and birth date;
phone number and email address; physical U.S. address; and a debit card or
other account information for the initial deposit in the new account.
Special circumstances, where a visit to a storefront would be required,
included if a customer has limited credit history, issues with checking
history or is making a deposit of more than $100,000.
On the application, it asks about citizenship. Questions about citizenship
also appear on checking account applications with Chase, Citi and Wells
Fargo. Wells Fargo’s application says it asks customers questions about
their citizenship because the bank needs the information “to determine the
eligibility and suitability of our products, and to comply with the USA
PATRIOT Act,” which Congress passed in 2001 to strengthen security controls.
In a statement, Bank of America spokesman Christopher Feeney said that “all
banks are required to maintain complete and accurate records for all their
customers. This is not unique to Bank of America, and all customers are
asked to provide the same information."
“Customers provide information banks need to meet a variety of requirements
," Feeney said, “including anti-money laundering, economic sanctions
restrictions and other programs administered by the U.S. Treasury and other
government agencies.”
Blair Bernstein, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association, said in
a statement that banks of all sizes are required to collect information
about their customers to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which
requires American financial institutions to help the government detect and
prevent money laundering — and other “Know Your Customer” standards to
ensure bank services are not misused. Since 9/11, strict regulatory
requirements have expanded to deter illicit activity within the U.S.
financial system, Bernstein said.
“As a result, banks are required to verify the identities of all customers
and to maintain updated and accurate customer information,” she said. "
Federal regulators routinely examine banks for compliance.”
Information that banks are required to collect about their customers include
name, address and Social Security number, said Alma Angotti, an anti-money
laundering expert at Navigant. There isn’t an explicit Treasury Department
requirement for banks to ask about citizenship, but banks can decide what
criteria they collect, including data that can help detect users who present
risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.
For example, it may be helpful for a bank to know if a customer is a dual
citizen of the United States and France if that customer regularly sends
wires to Paris.
“Banks and financial institutions need to figure out ‘what information do
we need to really understand this customer,’ ” Angotti said.
But questions about citizenship could still be a barrier, particularly for
immigrant communities, to establishing trust with financial institutions,
said Rachel Peric, executive director of Welcoming America, a nonprofit
organization that works to build inclusive communities. Banks should
consider how they can build trust with communities that may not have it in
financial systems, she said.
“It’s important that financial institutions, and all institutions, take a
good hard look at what they’re incentivizing because what they want to be
incentivizing is inclusion,” Peric said.
On the phone, the bank operator told Josh the bank would unfreeze his money
but that the account wouldn’t be accessible until 2 a.m. the next morning.
Jessica said the couple had $12 in cash on them. It was noon.
The next day, Jessica tried to buy movie tickets and again had her card
declined. She got back on the phone with the bank, which passed her among
multiple people who couldn’t help. By then, her bill pay had been
deactivated. So she and Josh went to a Bank of America storefront looking
for help.
That’s where a service representative pulled up Josh’s customer profile.
“Right away, she turned the screen around and said, ‘Look, this is why
your accounts are frozen,’ ” Jessica said. “There was a little flag above
‘citizenship.’ ”
Under the flag were the same questions that had appeared on the mailer. “
Are you a U.S. citizen?” and “Do you have dual citizenship?”
Jessica and Josh said that the bank’s explanation was that it was updating
its customer profiles and that all users would eventually be asked about
their citizenship. But that didn’t answer why Josh had gotten the questions
, and not Jessica, or why he had been asked after nearly 20 years banking
with the company.
Since the story was reported in Kansas City, Jessica said she has been
contacted by multiple people who described similar experiences. She shared
some of those exchanges with The Washington Post, including messages from
people who were locked out of their accounts — and blocked from accessing
their money — for weeks.
Josh said he wondered why his bank needs to know whether he is a citizen.
The bank isn’t a government or law-enforcement agency. He isn’t one of its
employees.
“And I got to feel for somebody who does have dual citizenship, or someone
who’s not a citizen, that still has a bank account. At what point are they
going to remove themselves from the system?” Josh said. "What if? The ‘
what ifs’ always come later.”
Jessica, who is Latina and is a fourth-generation American, said the
questions stood out as particularly “unacceptable” given her family
background and today’s charged political debates over citizenship and
immigration.
“It’s really scary. Where does it end? Can other businesses start asking
their customers this?” Jessica said. “I choose you as my bank; you don’t
choose me as a customer.”
The couple stuck with Bank of America for nearly two decades. On Friday,
they plan to go back and close their account. | k*******g
发帖数: 7321 | | m********5
发帖数: 17667 | 4 又不是非公民就冻结
【在 s******r 的大作中提到】
: 坐标：堪萨斯城
: 20+年Bank of America老客户Josh Collins 和妻子Jessica Salazar Collins突然收到
: 银行来信问卷，要求提供是否公民信息。
: Collins夫妇以为是诈骗遂未理会。
: 几个星期后，妻子在杂货铺买东西发现银行账户被冻结。 打电话给银行被告知缺少公
: 民信息。电话折腾多番无解，亲自去银行证明自己是公民（第四代移民）才搞定。
: 事件被当地媒体报道后，不少堪萨斯居民告诉Jessica他们也收到BOA类似的信件。
: BOA的解释是他们这么干根据的是臭名昭著的布什时期的爱国法案。问题是为什么20多
: 年没查，现在突然要查？
| s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 5 反细分的生怕政府知道自己是华人，难道不怕银行的MAGAts知道？
【在 m********5 的大作中提到】
: 又不是非公民就冻结
| h****e
发帖数: 1 | 6 迟早的事
早点把姓也改了
整容成白人，比如特朗普那个样子
照片更新
这样靠谱些
: 又不是非公民就冻结
【在 m********5 的大作中提到】
: 又不是非公民就冻结
| a*****8
发帖数: 2957 | 7 [在 hhcare (龙龙) 的大作中提到：]
:迟早的事
:早点把姓也改了
:整容成白人，比如特朗普那个样子
:照片更新
:这样靠谱些
:<br>: 又不是非公民就冻结
:<br>
没办法，你就是不滚 | s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 8 刚查了一下，冻结移民财产的事还真不是空穴来风。去年英国政府就通过查银行账户的
方法找非法移民，并且通过冻结账户的方法让移民在英国无法生存。
疮党的反移民政策啥时候走到这步很难说，但一旦实施按lastname封账户恐怕会是常事
了。大家都做好准备。
Banks and building societies are to carry out immigration checks on 70m
current accounts from January in the biggest extension of Theresa May’s
plans to create a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants in Britain,
the Guardian has learned.
The Home Office expects to identify 6,000 visa overstayers, failed asylum
seekers and foreign national offenders facing deportation in the first year
of the checks, which are to be carried out quarterly.
The accounts of those identified will be closed down or frozen “to make it
harder for them to establish or maintain a settled life in the UK”.
Officials say freezing accounts that hold significant sums “will create a
powerful incentive [for those involved] to agree to voluntary departure” so
they can secure their money once they have left the country.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/21/uk-banks-to-check-70m-bank-accounts-in-search-for-illegal-immigrants |
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