...

[johnyj]

johny J:
did you ever have any wire transfer reversal requests made against you by 'chargeback scammers' or are you hypothesizing potential reasons?

Several times, the account owner have no idea his account is hacked and the hacker send money to me to buy coins, if their reversal request comes late, bitcoin has already been sent, then the hacker get away

[pmorris]

I don't think banks care about bitcoin as a competitive threat. The big banks don't make money with 'transaction' banking. Most of them lose money on this but do it because they have to. They make money on loans, product fees (like mortgage arrangement fees) and investment banking.

If bitcoin became a major currency they would just love to provide currency hedging and all their other products off the back of it.

But what they are truly terrified of is money laundering and sanctions. Several major banks have been fined many billions of dollars this year over not doing what they should in this area. As it stands the bitcoin world just isn't up to scratch in complying with these rules. If a bank facilitates it they are liable.

So my guess is that some banks have decided that the risk profile of any bitcoin business, especially ones that provide bitcoin to fiat exchange, are too risky to deal with.

Those that are well backed and have professional staff and controls that are proven to be good enough (maybe coinbase say) will get an exemption.

It seems harsh but honestly it's how the entire financial system deals with any money broking business. I've seen it first hand because I've consulted for companies and banks to help them comply with the rules.

[FUR11]

Really makes you think whether all the regular banks are afraid of Bitcoin! I mean those are big big big banks and they're afraid that their customers get involved with such a, relatively, small and experimental currency!

[hdbuck]

Really makes you think whether all the regular banks are afraid of Bitcoin! I mean those are big big big banks and they're afraid that their customers get involved with such a, relatively, small and experimental currency!

yes because they are not stupid after all. they know bitcoin is the future.

[CozyLife]

A great idea for a new kind of B2B business would be to offer business banking as a service. (BBaaS) The only way to really do this safely is to have a trusted company. For instance, Coinbase could offer that service and people wouldn't think twice. They could charge a low fee which you could add to your markup. If you run an exchange, then the BBaaS company could provide you with an API to charge the customer's credit cards. Cash couldn't be accepted even locally unless you want to hold onto that cash in your own business which isn't generally safe in large quantities.

I'm not sure if Coinbase provides a portion of their API as a way to buy Bitcoin. If they do, then you could charge the customer's credit card with the API (would have to be HTTPS) and you'd get your Bitcoin credited to your account.

[Meuh6879]

bank can only do business with static account (1% of retrieve) and high amount on here.
client are not dumb ... bitcoin is better in any way.

so bank close account to afraid client.
it's like dog with sheep ... dog don't eat sheep but sheep have afraid of ...

don't be a sheep.
evolve.

[itsAj]

I love how they always close your account and refuse to actually give you a reason why.

It's for liability issues. If they give you a reason, you can use it to sue them. If they don't disclose the reason, it's much harder to legally sue them. This info is straight from the horse's mouth.

This is true, however I think they also usually give a very narrow reason if they do give a reason for closing your account. They probably also have a limited number of possible reasons to give. If why they closed your account doesn't fit any of their reasons they would just say it is because of "business reasons". It is bureaucratic red tape.

[BADecker]

If the account paperwork/contract says that they can close your account for any reason, then there is nothing that you can do to stop them from closing. But, even if the contract says that you will hold them harmless for the account closing, this can't include if the way they close the account damages you.

Seems to me that you said or referred to something about your credit. If the method they use damages your credit, you need to find the link between the closing and the damaged credit - the report to the credit bureaus - that has caused the credit bureaus to drop your credit rating, thereby damaging you.

Once you have done this, start a letter writing campaign, to get to the bank person who caused the damage. When you find out who this person is, contact the person in his/her "human being" capacity, rather than the corporate banking capacity, explaining the damage done, and gently demanding a reversal of the damages. Similar can be done with the credit bureau, but do the bank first if there is a way. If you can't find the person (because they cover for him/her), then go after the top person who covers, often the CFO.

If the banker makes it all good to your satisfaction, fine. If he/she doesn't, start a person to person - man to man, human to human - law suit the Karl Lentz way to break the corporate veil, and to bypass corporate attorneys. You will need to study to determine what to do. Or contact Karl in person.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5duR4OvEHHxOSdEZhANETw

http://www.broadmind.org/

http://www.unkommonlaw.co.uk/

http://www.myprivateaudio.com/Karl-Lentz.html

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=127469&cmd=tc

[BillyBobJoe]

And to be clear, no one deposited to the account besides me. I didn't write any checks either. I was honestly barely using the account.

You really have no clue as to why they closed your accounts. I think the answer is in the above quote from your OP.

[franky1]

A great idea for a new kind of B2B business would be to offer business banking as a service. (BBaaS) The only way to really do this safely is to have a trusted company. For instance, Coinbase could offer that service and people wouldn't think twice. They could charge a low fee which you could add to your markup. If you run an exchange, then the BBaaS company could provide you with an API to charge the customer's credit cards. Cash couldn't be accepted even locally unless you want to hold onto that cash in your own business which isn't generally safe in large quantities.

I'm not sure if Coinbase provides a portion of their API as a way to buy Bitcoin. If they do, then you could charge the customer's credit card with the API (would have to be HTTPS) and you'd get your Bitcoin credited to your account.

some people are already thinking up such an idea, swapping BTC-E dollar (using btc-e codes) for coins in other exchanges as a way to speed up arbitraging without having to use bank accounts or having to wait X confirms for coins.

this use to be done via bitinstant to swap mtgox codes with btc-e codes for the dollar swaps, and it worked very well

[itsAj]

I love how they always close your account and refuse to actually give you a reason why.

It's for liability issues. If they give you a reason, you can use it to sue them. If they don't disclose the reason, it's much harder to legally sue them. This info is straight from the horse's mouth.

This is true, however I think they also usually give a very narrow reason if they do give a reason for closing your account. They probably also have a limited number of possible reasons to give. If why they closed your account doesn't fit any of their reasons they would just say it is because of "business reasons". It is bureaucratic red tape.

I was told that the reason they refuse to give an exact reason is to protect themselves from getting sued. I get the feeling that discriminating against Bitcoin users isn't legal.

They are allowed to discriminate against anyone as long as it is not because of age, gender, religion, national origin, or family status.

Did you use your account for trading in BTC? If so then they may have seen a lot of deposits and withdrawals, making it look like you were either a MSB or were trying to kite checks/your balance.