In the past I have only seen PayPal spontaneously demand at arbitrary/unexpected moments that I jump their their hoops – to login and give them more info about me. I reluctantly did what they wanted, and they kept my account frozen and kept my money anyway. So I’ve been boycotting PayPal ever since. Not worth it for to work hard to find out why they kept my account frozen and to work hard to twist their arm to so that I can give them my business. Now an actual financial institution is trying something similar. They are not as hostile as PayPal was (they did not pre-emptively freeze my account until I dance for them), but they sent an email demanding that I login and update my employment information (even though it has not changed). Presumably they will eventually freeze my account if I do not dance for them to satisfy their spontaneous demand. I just wonder how many FIs are pulling this shit. And what are people doing about it? Normally I would walk… pull my money out and go elsewhere. But the FI that is pushing KYC harassment has a lot of power because they offer some features I need that I cannot get elsewhere, and I have some stocks through them, which makes it costly/non-trivial to bounce. I feel like we should be keeping a public database on FIs who pull this shit, so new customers can be made aware of who to avoid.

(cross-posting is broken on links.hackliberty.org, so the following is manually copied from the original post)

When your bank/CU/brokerage demands that you login to their portal to update KYC info soloActivist to Privacy@fedia.io ·

In the past I have only seen PayPal spontaneously demand at arbitrary/unexpected moments that I jump their their hoops – to login and give them more info about me. I reluctantly did what they wanted, and they kept my account frozen and kept my money anyway.

So I’ve been boycotting PayPal ever since. Not worth it for to work hard to find out why they kept my account frozen and to work hard to twist their arm to so that I can give them my business.

Now an actual financial institution is trying something similar. They are not as hostile as PayPal was (they did not pre-emptively freeze my account until I dance for them), but they sent an email demanding that I login and update my employment information (even though it has not changed). Presumably they will eventually freeze my account if I do not dance for them to satisfy their spontaneous demand.

I just wonder how many FIs are pulling this shit. And what are people doing about it? Normally I would walk… pull my money out and go elsewhere. But the FI that is pushing KYC harassment has a lot of power because they offer some features I need that I cannot get elsewhere, and I have some stocks through them, which makes it costly/non-trivial to bounce.

I feel like we should be keeping a public database on FIs who pull this shit, so new customers can be made aware of who to avoid.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    AML and KYC are one set of requirements, and those are usually triggered by certain activities

    Asking for employment information, and income information, is separate. That’s the bank trying to manage their credit risk. So if they’re extending you any credit that’s relevant information they want to keep updated.

    • soloActivist@links.hackliberty.orgOP
      21·
      5 months ago

      That makes some sense.

      In my case I think I have credit that I’ve never actually used; and I think I’ve also put on their file that I am unemployed. So in principle consumers who either don’t care for the credit, or are happy to be in the highest risk category, they should not be harassed with this. I will just ignore it and see what happens.