<story><title>Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/chime</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>syshum</author><text>People like this should be using credit unions, not banks.&lt;p&gt;Credit Unions where created to service customers that would not profitable for a normal bank,  many decades ago I was one of those customers... Still today, even though my financial situation is far better, refuse to put any of my money in bank after the treatment I received from them.  I have been with my current credit union for 20+ years, I love them,  every loan I have gotten from auto to mortgage in the last 15 years is also run through a credit union...&lt;p&gt;Credit Unions is where it is at,  people need to be educated to use them</text></item><item><author>techsupporter</author><text>&amp;gt; The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress.&lt;p&gt;Of course they have.  It&amp;#x27;s no accident that accounts like these are &lt;i&gt;heavily&lt;/i&gt; marketed to people with terms like &amp;quot;faster access to YOUR money&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;virtually no fees&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;manage YOUR MONEY from anywhere, down to the penny!&amp;quot;  These companies are targeting people for whom every single dollar is of vital importance.&lt;p&gt;To then yank the accounts right as a large deposit from a government agency lands is malfeasance, or at least immoral.&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of us who post on this site have plenty of money, or at least credit, in reserve so that even losing $10,000 worth of deposit isn&amp;#x27;t crippling.  It&amp;#x27;s bad, for sure, but it&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m homeless starting tomorrow&amp;quot; bad.  We are not the target market for apps-that-should-be-proper-banks like Chime.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; She was directed to a passage in the company’s account agreement that states, “Chime and&amp;#x2F;or Bank may suspend, freeze, or close your Account for any reason with or without notice”&lt;p&gt;Yup, sounds about right.  And of course there&amp;#x27;s a binding arbitration agreement, requiring all arbitration actions to be on an individual basis.&lt;p&gt;So customers can be turned away with no reason, no recourse, no private right of action against the offending company, and no ability to group together to push back on a larger foe.&lt;p&gt;This is, no pardon requested, fucking bullshit.  I loathe that we&amp;#x27;ve gotten so deep into contracts of adhesion and abstractions between supplying company and supplier and third-party relationships and &amp;quot;oh it&amp;#x27;s someone else&amp;#x27;s problem&amp;quot; and automated customer handling.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kstrauser</author><text>I agree. I got started with a CU because their service is &lt;i&gt;so&lt;/i&gt; much better than any bank I&amp;#x27;ve dealt with. There are nearly no service charges for normal things. I have access to a cooperative no-charge ATM network with about 30,000 locations. I can get in-person service from credit unions I don&amp;#x27;t even belong to thanks to a large partnership network.&lt;p&gt;A few years ago, we needed to buy another car. I filled out the loan application on my CU&amp;#x27;s website. Someone from the CU called me an hour later to tell me the APR and maximum loan amount, and to recommend a list of local dealerships that other members had good experiences with. The car salesperson did the usual &amp;quot;let me see if we can get you a better financing deal!&amp;quot; sort of thing, and when we showed him our loan paperwork, he stopped: &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ve never seen an interest rate that low. I can&amp;#x27;t beat it. That&amp;#x27;s amazing.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I love my credit union and I can&amp;#x27;t imagine a plausible scenario where I&amp;#x27;d ever go back to using a bank.</text></comment>
<story><title>Chime has been suddenly closing accounts, not returning customers’ money</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/chime</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>syshum</author><text>People like this should be using credit unions, not banks.&lt;p&gt;Credit Unions where created to service customers that would not profitable for a normal bank,  many decades ago I was one of those customers... Still today, even though my financial situation is far better, refuse to put any of my money in bank after the treatment I received from them.  I have been with my current credit union for 20+ years, I love them,  every loan I have gotten from auto to mortgage in the last 15 years is also run through a credit union...&lt;p&gt;Credit Unions is where it is at,  people need to be educated to use them</text></item><item><author>techsupporter</author><text>&amp;gt; The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress.&lt;p&gt;Of course they have.  It&amp;#x27;s no accident that accounts like these are &lt;i&gt;heavily&lt;/i&gt; marketed to people with terms like &amp;quot;faster access to YOUR money&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;virtually no fees&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;manage YOUR MONEY from anywhere, down to the penny!&amp;quot;  These companies are targeting people for whom every single dollar is of vital importance.&lt;p&gt;To then yank the accounts right as a large deposit from a government agency lands is malfeasance, or at least immoral.&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of us who post on this site have plenty of money, or at least credit, in reserve so that even losing $10,000 worth of deposit isn&amp;#x27;t crippling.  It&amp;#x27;s bad, for sure, but it&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m homeless starting tomorrow&amp;quot; bad.  We are not the target market for apps-that-should-be-proper-banks like Chime.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; She was directed to a passage in the company’s account agreement that states, “Chime and&amp;#x2F;or Bank may suspend, freeze, or close your Account for any reason with or without notice”&lt;p&gt;Yup, sounds about right.  And of course there&amp;#x27;s a binding arbitration agreement, requiring all arbitration actions to be on an individual basis.&lt;p&gt;So customers can be turned away with no reason, no recourse, no private right of action against the offending company, and no ability to group together to push back on a larger foe.&lt;p&gt;This is, no pardon requested, fucking bullshit.  I loathe that we&amp;#x27;ve gotten so deep into contracts of adhesion and abstractions between supplying company and supplier and third-party relationships and &amp;quot;oh it&amp;#x27;s someone else&amp;#x27;s problem&amp;quot; and automated customer handling.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>techsupporter</author><text>Sure, but consider the marketing. Opening an account at a credit union requires:&lt;p&gt;- Knowing the credit union exists and which ones someone can join (not all of them are &amp;quot;anyone in [region]&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;- Going to the credit union during business hours (no mean feat; several of the credit unions around me have shorter hours on Friday and three hours on Saturday)&lt;p&gt;- Qualifying for an account, and not just membership.  Lots of credit unions pull Chexsystems--credit reports for checking accounts--and a report from the traditional Big Three and having poor credit will be a bar to an account (something that the ProPublica article points out as a reason people use Chime).&lt;p&gt;Those steps even presuppose that you find a credit union that, itself, isn&amp;#x27;t abusive.  I was a member of one that was outright terrible and had miserable fees, but I had to stick with them for a year longer than needed because of a bankruptcy.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing endemic to a credit union that requires it to be a &amp;quot;nice&amp;quot; entity, just that their structure makes it more probable.&lt;p&gt;And it all comes down to how many of us on this site are financially savvy or at least have a better understanding of the pros&amp;#x2F;cons of how banks and credit unions and &amp;quot;fintech apps&amp;quot; work.  The people being targeted by the marketing for Chime are less likely to have that same set of information, and are winding up abused as a result.</text></comment>