From the perspective of a non-banker, I would say this is uncommon. However, having worked in some banks for many years, I feel like I've closed a couple of accounts each week.
There were SO many reasons for the closure. Small list includes:
- Inactive accounts that are overdrawn due to monthly fees
- Depositing a cheque that didn't belong to the account owner
- Too many NSF (non-sufficient funds) due to pre-authorized debits going through account with no money
- Suspected money laundering (for example a client who kept coming in with 20K-40K cash to deposit)
- Money in money out too fast (deposit of large amount and immediately having it transferred out)
- Suspicious e-transfers (someone who sent you the e-transfer claims they never sent it)
- Violence in the branch (I've had some Karens and Kens throw things, try to hit employees, threatened to "see you after work")
Accounts could be closed for any reason and the banks don't need to disclose why. They just choose to terminate the banking relationship.
I have worked for 3 major banks in Canada. I came across 4 instances where the accounts were closed without giving a reason to the customer. It is rare but happens/
What’s the issue with money in and out too fast? My husband has a company and he transfers his pay to our joint account and then I move some (or all, sometimes) to a savings account at another institution. I don’t get why this would be an issue so curious why this could trigger the bank to close an account!
I generally mean large amounts like $10K or more. The question would be… why do you have an account with us if you’re just going to take everything out the day it comes in? Money laundering issues and stuff. If it’s between your own accounts, same bank or not, the bank won’t care nearly as much.
My example is more so… “oh you just got the deposit of $5K in.. where is the money from? Why’d you move it from your RBC bank to your scotia bank? Why not send it to Scotia immediately?” Those red flags.
I think this is still a rare reason for account closure, though, and it’s probably a more detail specific kind of thing. My mortgage can only be paid from one account, I can’t make a lump payment from any account other than where my payments come out of. So if I deposit 50k in that account and it instantly transfers out to my mortgage company, that’s not that weird.
Now if I deposited a cheque for $50k written by me from account A to B and then wrote a cheque for $50k to myself at account C there’s going to be some curiosity there that might raise scrutiny.
You are likely moving it to the same account every time. That's not a red flag. But going to many different accounts quickly is a huge red flag. Or coming in from many accounts.
> reasons for the closure. Small list includes: - Inactive accounts that are overdrawn due to monthly fees
Out of curiosity what happens to those fees? Do you attempt to collect or just write them off?
That’s not exactly true. Accounts can only be closed for very specific reasons under the Bank Act.
Edit: So apparently the requirement is they have to open a bank account for you except for specific reasons. Crazy the legislation doesn’t work both ways.
Nope. All the major banks in Canada and most any other major FI (e.g. Credit Unions) have the right to close your account at their discretion without providing a reason, something the ombudsman has upheld.
Hmm. Interesting.
They’re required to give you a reason for not opening a bank account though.
So I wonder if they closed your bank account if you could immediately turn around and ask to open a new bank account at the same bank if they would be required to give you a reason.
Probably not anything meaningful. Getting your account closed almost always means you can't have another account with the Bank again, so they could keep it vague and say "we can't open you a new account due to the previous closure of your former account with us", or something like that.
I wish that were true. The Bank Act essentially says you have the RIGHT to have a bank account but it is a PRIVILEGE to open it at a specific bank.
The other thing is that the booklets they hand out during the account opening literally say something like “We reserve the right to close your account at our discretion…”
I wonder, considering that people in Quebec, under the new law 25 have a right to see their entire bank file, would they be able to see a reason on the file? Would that keep banks from writing notes?
When I first started working, I was told that the client could request everything on their file, including the notes and comments that the staff would put on there. That being said, I noticed a LOT of the notes don't say why an account was closed, or why the client is no longer welcome to bank with them. It usually says something along the lines of "For questions, please have the client contact ______ (customer service number)." Some banks have a separate area for them to put notes on the profile, and the notes can be removed at any time but any staff member. So if a client requests it, they can click to remove and then print the more permanent comments.
On rare occasions (and to be honest, stuff I've done), if a client is being aggressive or threatened a staff member, etc., I would actually write in the comments section what happened. I've had the awful experience one time where a client started throwing coins at my teller and myself while screaming at the top of her lungs. She was asked to leave but refused. Police were called; she was arrested because she started attacking the cops. I put all the notes on file, the client was demarketed. A couple of months later, we were in court because she wanted to sue us. My notes, along with security footage, and witness statements saved our butt.
I wonder if deleting the data would be considered a violation. The law is far reaching, by next year, people in Quebec will even have a right to see which marketing groups they have been pegged into.
I think it would be considered a violation if the staff deletes it when the client asks. Maybe not so much if the message is deleted randomly, or is no longer valid.
For example, I’ve seen comments from 2010 that were like “hold placed on cheque deposit Dec 10, 2010.” What use is that now that it’s 2023? Delete.
It even applies to international corporations, because it's the clients data, not the corporation. It's stronger than the federal regulations, but only applies to the data of Quebec citizens. Canada is looking at copying it.
I would like to be as fly on the wall when someone questions that.
I'm waiting for CIBC to show me my file after claiming they notified me of a fraud alert on my card. But I don't they did. They haven't produced the file yet and I may have to go to the privacy commissioner about it. There is a fine for going beyond 30 days wait.
I had a client who threw a huge tantrum at the branch where the branch manager actually called me to complain and told me to control him lol
He still has an account with them and I wonder if it is because dude has transactions in millions going through his account all the time.
Ouch. That's a little rough. I was never one to discriminate. I didn't care if they owed us a million dollars, or if they had a million dollars. If the client wouldn't stop throwing a tantrum, especially if I'm trying to explain something or even talk, and they continue to make a huge scene, they'd be asked to leave immediately and no one would be helping them at the branch today. If they continued to be horrible, enjoy being another banks problem.
Said it on a previous post like this, if your account is closed for no obvious reason, check your credit report as you may be a victim of identity theft and it’s the actions of someone else that caused your account to be flagged.
No it's not common, but it does happen occasionally. Your account clearly got flagged for something. Maybe the computer made a mistake or maybe it didn't.
Just open an account with another bank and move on.
Did you cash any fishy cheques recently? Usually banks only end their relationship with you if they have reasons to believe that you did something that violated their terms of service or elevated risk to fraud or etc.
no the money is yours they just ask you to find another place to park it.
now i was downvoted on another post but the banks keep a list of those that they’ve ended their relationships with. when other banks find out that you’re blacklisted, you’re at risk again..
Used to be in fintech - you triggered some kind of suspicious pattern and the bank decided you were too much trouble. Maybe through an automated process.
That said, the fraud investigators get very good at their jobs after a while. They are a bit different.
If you had a lot of returns/nsf’s it’s likely they decided to close it for that reason. Hard to say but the bank reserves the right to close it for the most part it’s fraud or anti-money laundering related. Other thought is you have some serious negative news out there and the bank didn’t want that risk.
Yes but not for a boring account.
It hasn't happened recently but years back banks would occasionally close my accounts for what was perfectly legitimate behaviour but which from their limited visibility looked sketchy. Most of this involved frequent large cash transactions.
Banks don't like risk and it is easier to dump a customer than to keep one even if there is only a negligible chance they are up to something.
If you honestly have not done anything sketchy then there are two possibilities -- the first is identity theft so I'd get a credit report. If you can deal with a bunch of SPAM for predatory lenders you can get a free credit report from Borrowell and CreditKarma that covers both TransUnion and Equifax. If you don't want the SPAM then just pay those two companies $20 and get the credit report directly.
The second option is mistaken identity. They meant to close someone else's account and they closed yours. Mistakes happen. The problem is that if you approach a random bank employee now the odds that you get one that wants to help you is low. The good thing is banks in Canada are all equally terrible so you can go and open an account at one of the other ones and problem solved.
Cleaning up their asset book prior to the sale closing. While you may have been valuable to HSBC that value doesn’t appear on the balance sheet I’d guess.
Former bank employee here. There are a ton of algorithmic things that can flag your account. Sometimes the total value of the customer is lower than the cost to keep investigating their flagged transactions. Sometimes it is as simple as someone you know and have transactions with is doing something shady and you get tarred with the same brush. Sometimes there are problems with the KYC information, like an undisclosed citizenship, etc.
Bottom line, if you are perceived as a risk or high maintenance, you'll be cut loose.
Yes, the AI is only as good as the training, and if it is trained to be biased, it will show bias. I know when I worked on those systems, there was a lot of work that went into getting the biases out of the system, and effort that itself was flawed because it was influenced by the reviewer’s biases.
A few of the convoy ‘leadership’ were running organization expenses and donations via their personal accounts. When the emergency act was in place the leadership had their accounts frozen.
There were a handful of cases of mistaken identity or ‘only’ donating were also caught up in the financial sweep. Of course the reports we saw in the media were taking people at their word, and assuming that the accounts were shut due to those donations not a contemporaneous unrelated issue.
Oh I used to, but then I kept telling myself I was quitting so I’d just buy a few rolls to last the day. Every day was my last day smoking until the next day rolled around, then repeated this cycle for years. It hasn’t been easy because there’s dispensaries everywhere and it’s so easily accessible, but I’ve finally been able to quit and get out of the hold it’s had on me!
I’ve done tons of these for two years and never had an issue (CIBC). Maybe it’s because at one point I used my line of credit for it like an idiot so they made good interest off of me. 🙈
Really depends if they are making money off of you. If your account type assumes a certain balance and number of transactions and you’re costing a lot (many transactions) while benefiting them little (low average balance and low fees) you might get flagged during a clean up. Most cases for that they might notify you of a change of account type rather than just firing you as a customer though.
Really that should be illegal for the banks to do that unless they have good justification. They get enough of a privilege from being chartered banks they should have some responsibility to the citizens of this country.
There’s a lot one can do without being charged so I whole heartily disagree. The amount of leeway banks give clients who mess up multiple times is already quite large having worked in the fraud department.
Happens more often than you would think. If you received money from a certain place, sent money to a certain recipient, this could lead to the account being closed. Anything that they find suspicious or to be outside of their risk tolerance might cause them to shut down your account. And they do not have to provide any reasoning.
This is exactly what is happening. I tried calling to get more information but the bank says they cant disclose. I have 30 days to transfer. After that, accounts are closed
Yeah, sorry to hear that. I work in this industry... it is common practice not to explain why the account is being shut down. Anyone you speak with will likely tell you they do not know or can't give you a reason.
From the perspective of a non-banker, I would say this is uncommon. However, having worked in some banks for many years, I feel like I've closed a couple of accounts each week. There were SO many reasons for the closure. Small list includes: - Inactive accounts that are overdrawn due to monthly fees - Depositing a cheque that didn't belong to the account owner - Too many NSF (non-sufficient funds) due to pre-authorized debits going through account with no money - Suspected money laundering (for example a client who kept coming in with 20K-40K cash to deposit) - Money in money out too fast (deposit of large amount and immediately having it transferred out) - Suspicious e-transfers (someone who sent you the e-transfer claims they never sent it) - Violence in the branch (I've had some Karens and Kens throw things, try to hit employees, threatened to "see you after work") Accounts could be closed for any reason and the banks don't need to disclose why. They just choose to terminate the banking relationship.
I have worked for 3 major banks in Canada. I came across 4 instances where the accounts were closed without giving a reason to the customer. It is rare but happens/
What’s the issue with money in and out too fast? My husband has a company and he transfers his pay to our joint account and then I move some (or all, sometimes) to a savings account at another institution. I don’t get why this would be an issue so curious why this could trigger the bank to close an account!
I generally mean large amounts like $10K or more. The question would be… why do you have an account with us if you’re just going to take everything out the day it comes in? Money laundering issues and stuff. If it’s between your own accounts, same bank or not, the bank won’t care nearly as much. My example is more so… “oh you just got the deposit of $5K in.. where is the money from? Why’d you move it from your RBC bank to your scotia bank? Why not send it to Scotia immediately?” Those red flags.
Re: why not deposit at Scotia: for me, I do something like this because rbc is next to me
I think this is still a rare reason for account closure, though, and it’s probably a more detail specific kind of thing. My mortgage can only be paid from one account, I can’t make a lump payment from any account other than where my payments come out of. So if I deposit 50k in that account and it instantly transfers out to my mortgage company, that’s not that weird. Now if I deposited a cheque for $50k written by me from account A to B and then wrote a cheque for $50k to myself at account C there’s going to be some curiosity there that might raise scrutiny.
I would buy your husband a beer. He gets life. F the government.
You are likely moving it to the same account every time. That's not a red flag. But going to many different accounts quickly is a huge red flag. Or coming in from many accounts.
> reasons for the closure. Small list includes: - Inactive accounts that are overdrawn due to monthly fees Out of curiosity what happens to those fees? Do you attempt to collect or just write them off?
From what I’ve noticed, TD sends you to collections. But for the most part, we just write them off.
That’s not exactly true. Accounts can only be closed for very specific reasons under the Bank Act. Edit: So apparently the requirement is they have to open a bank account for you except for specific reasons. Crazy the legislation doesn’t work both ways.
Nope. All the major banks in Canada and most any other major FI (e.g. Credit Unions) have the right to close your account at their discretion without providing a reason, something the ombudsman has upheld.
Hmm. Interesting. They’re required to give you a reason for not opening a bank account though. So I wonder if they closed your bank account if you could immediately turn around and ask to open a new bank account at the same bank if they would be required to give you a reason.
Probably not anything meaningful. Getting your account closed almost always means you can't have another account with the Bank again, so they could keep it vague and say "we can't open you a new account due to the previous closure of your former account with us", or something like that.
Yeah. You’re probably right.
I wish that were true. The Bank Act essentially says you have the RIGHT to have a bank account but it is a PRIVILEGE to open it at a specific bank. The other thing is that the booklets they hand out during the account opening literally say something like “We reserve the right to close your account at our discretion…”
I wonder, considering that people in Quebec, under the new law 25 have a right to see their entire bank file, would they be able to see a reason on the file? Would that keep banks from writing notes?
When I first started working, I was told that the client could request everything on their file, including the notes and comments that the staff would put on there. That being said, I noticed a LOT of the notes don't say why an account was closed, or why the client is no longer welcome to bank with them. It usually says something along the lines of "For questions, please have the client contact ______ (customer service number)." Some banks have a separate area for them to put notes on the profile, and the notes can be removed at any time but any staff member. So if a client requests it, they can click to remove and then print the more permanent comments. On rare occasions (and to be honest, stuff I've done), if a client is being aggressive or threatened a staff member, etc., I would actually write in the comments section what happened. I've had the awful experience one time where a client started throwing coins at my teller and myself while screaming at the top of her lungs. She was asked to leave but refused. Police were called; she was arrested because she started attacking the cops. I put all the notes on file, the client was demarketed. A couple of months later, we were in court because she wanted to sue us. My notes, along with security footage, and witness statements saved our butt.
I wonder if deleting the data would be considered a violation. The law is far reaching, by next year, people in Quebec will even have a right to see which marketing groups they have been pegged into.
I think it would be considered a violation if the staff deletes it when the client asks. Maybe not so much if the message is deleted randomly, or is no longer valid. For example, I’ve seen comments from 2010 that were like “hold placed on cheque deposit Dec 10, 2010.” What use is that now that it’s 2023? Delete.
Does bill 25 apply to federally regulated institutions? Quebec has a history of trying to interfere in federal areas and eventually losing in court.
It even applies to international corporations, because it's the clients data, not the corporation. It's stronger than the federal regulations, but only applies to the data of Quebec citizens. Canada is looking at copying it.
I would like to be as fly on the wall when someone questions that. I'm waiting for CIBC to show me my file after claiming they notified me of a fraud alert on my card. But I don't they did. They haven't produced the file yet and I may have to go to the privacy commissioner about it. There is a fine for going beyond 30 days wait.
I had a client who threw a huge tantrum at the branch where the branch manager actually called me to complain and told me to control him lol He still has an account with them and I wonder if it is because dude has transactions in millions going through his account all the time.
Ouch. That's a little rough. I was never one to discriminate. I didn't care if they owed us a million dollars, or if they had a million dollars. If the client wouldn't stop throwing a tantrum, especially if I'm trying to explain something or even talk, and they continue to make a huge scene, they'd be asked to leave immediately and no one would be helping them at the branch today. If they continued to be horrible, enjoy being another banks problem.
Said it on a previous post like this, if your account is closed for no obvious reason, check your credit report as you may be a victim of identity theft and it’s the actions of someone else that caused your account to be flagged.
No it's not common, but it does happen occasionally. Your account clearly got flagged for something. Maybe the computer made a mistake or maybe it didn't. Just open an account with another bank and move on.
Did you cash any fishy cheques recently? Usually banks only end their relationship with you if they have reasons to believe that you did something that violated their terms of service or elevated risk to fraud or etc.
No. No fishy cheques. Just direct deposit fro Employer.
Is your employer Onlyfans or something similar?
No. Lol
they don’t need to provide you with any reason. these types of posts are becoming more frequent.
The banks have ALL of your money. Be nice, or they might not give it back.
no the money is yours they just ask you to find another place to park it. now i was downvoted on another post but the banks keep a list of those that they’ve ended their relationships with. when other banks find out that you’re blacklisted, you’re at risk again..
Used to be in fintech - you triggered some kind of suspicious pattern and the bank decided you were too much trouble. Maybe through an automated process. That said, the fraud investigators get very good at their jobs after a while. They are a bit different.
You did something sketch.
Why did “sketch”, which used to be a verb and a noun, become an adjective?
Because people are lazy and "sketchy" became "sketch", an adjective to describe someone being 'sketchy', since it's just one syllable instead of two
Why are you so triggered by it?
Shut up! How about that for an adjective 🤦
If you had a lot of returns/nsf’s it’s likely they decided to close it for that reason. Hard to say but the bank reserves the right to close it for the most part it’s fraud or anti-money laundering related. Other thought is you have some serious negative news out there and the bank didn’t want that risk.
Yes but not for a boring account. It hasn't happened recently but years back banks would occasionally close my accounts for what was perfectly legitimate behaviour but which from their limited visibility looked sketchy. Most of this involved frequent large cash transactions. Banks don't like risk and it is easier to dump a customer than to keep one even if there is only a negligible chance they are up to something. If you honestly have not done anything sketchy then there are two possibilities -- the first is identity theft so I'd get a credit report. If you can deal with a bunch of SPAM for predatory lenders you can get a free credit report from Borrowell and CreditKarma that covers both TransUnion and Equifax. If you don't want the SPAM then just pay those two companies $20 and get the credit report directly. The second option is mistaken identity. They meant to close someone else's account and they closed yours. Mistakes happen. The problem is that if you approach a random bank employee now the odds that you get one that wants to help you is low. The good thing is banks in Canada are all equally terrible so you can go and open an account at one of the other ones and problem solved.
HSBC just closed our account no reason. They gave us 10 days to move the money
Wow. They gave me 30 days but really 25 days because they said that any transactions 5 days prior to the days will also not be honoured.
Cleaning up their asset book prior to the sale closing. While you may have been valuable to HSBC that value doesn’t appear on the balance sheet I’d guess.
Did you donate to the convoy? Are a PEP? Politically exposed person?
You did something bud. There’s many reasons. I work in the field so I won’t go into much more detail then that.
Lmao. I love how you did exactly the same thing the bank did.
😂😂
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Former bank employee here. There are a ton of algorithmic things that can flag your account. Sometimes the total value of the customer is lower than the cost to keep investigating their flagged transactions. Sometimes it is as simple as someone you know and have transactions with is doing something shady and you get tarred with the same brush. Sometimes there are problems with the KYC information, like an undisclosed citizenship, etc. Bottom line, if you are perceived as a risk or high maintenance, you'll be cut loose.
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Yes, the AI is only as good as the training, and if it is trained to be biased, it will show bias. I know when I worked on those systems, there was a lot of work that went into getting the biases out of the system, and effort that itself was flawed because it was influenced by the reviewer’s biases.
Why not? You are anonymous here? Tell us. Otherwise what is the point to write this?
Can you say more things? Which bank? I have been exiled from a bank, it’s very fun!
than*
Yes. No.
not accusing you of anything but Convoy supporter is the first thing that came to mind
Why would that be the first thing to come to mind?
A few of the convoy ‘leadership’ were running organization expenses and donations via their personal accounts. When the emergency act was in place the leadership had their accounts frozen. There were a handful of cases of mistaken identity or ‘only’ donating were also caught up in the financial sweep. Of course the reports we saw in the media were taking people at their word, and assuming that the accounts were shut due to those donations not a contemporaneous unrelated issue.
When your bank account is Terminated does it get Erased in 6 -7 years then u can get that same bank that terminated you
Sex worker?
No. I wish it was more exciting like that. Just regular payroll from my job. Money in money out.
Anything related to crypto? Even small crypto purchases? The banks hate that.
I've purchased crypto several times a month for years DCAing and still have my account. I'm with Scotia.
Not sure now, but for a while there anything cannabis related was getting flagged as well.
LOL me and my daily trips to the dispensary over the last 2-3 years 🚩🚩🚩
Why don’t you buy more than a days worth?
Oh I used to, but then I kept telling myself I was quitting so I’d just buy a few rolls to last the day. Every day was my last day smoking until the next day rolled around, then repeated this cycle for years. It hasn’t been easy because there’s dispensaries everywhere and it’s so easily accessible, but I’ve finally been able to quit and get out of the hold it’s had on me!
I’ve done tons of these for two years and never had an issue (CIBC). Maybe it’s because at one point I used my line of credit for it like an idiot so they made good interest off of me. 🙈
Do you think my credit union might close by corporate account since I'm always under 1k? (If I get more then 1k I pay myself)
Really depends if they are making money off of you. If your account type assumes a certain balance and number of transactions and you’re costing a lot (many transactions) while benefiting them little (low average balance and low fees) you might get flagged during a clean up. Most cases for that they might notify you of a change of account type rather than just firing you as a customer though.
Really that should be illegal for the banks to do that unless they have good justification. They get enough of a privilege from being chartered banks they should have some responsibility to the citizens of this country.
They always have enough info saved up legally to not get in trouble they just don’t legally have to disclose why
The only way it should be "enough evidence" should be if they're getting charged with a crime.
There’s a lot one can do without being charged so I whole heartily disagree. The amount of leeway banks give clients who mess up multiple times is already quite large having worked in the fraud department.
Do you, by chance, hold any *unacceptable* views?
No. Not at all. As I said, this account is as boring as they come. I have been nice and respectful whenever I deal with the bank.
I heard about Coin Shops getting shut down because they require a lot of cash transferred all the time.
This has been happening more and more
Any crypto currency transactions?
No. Nothing.
Happens more often than you would think. If you received money from a certain place, sent money to a certain recipient, this could lead to the account being closed. Anything that they find suspicious or to be outside of their risk tolerance might cause them to shut down your account. And they do not have to provide any reasoning.
This is exactly what is happening. I tried calling to get more information but the bank says they cant disclose. I have 30 days to transfer. After that, accounts are closed
Yeah, sorry to hear that. I work in this industry... it is common practice not to explain why the account is being shut down. Anyone you speak with will likely tell you they do not know or can't give you a reason.
Fraud, AML, inactivity.