Have you asked Wells Fargo about it yet?

So here, finally, is an update.

I played phone tag all week trying to get a hold of my personal banker.  Someone else scheduled an appointment, but their calendar doubled my time-slot and the lady was already with another customer but she took a couple of minutes for me anyway.

My banker could find no records of problems with the account in question (I have multiple accounts.)  She had asked me to bring in the mail I received.  I did, and she looked at it for a while then went to chat with the bank manager privately.

When she came back she said 'it is bitcoin related.'  She clearly wanted to say more but could not.  This was either because she didn't know any more or there was bank policy stopping her from doing so, or there is a gag order on the bank itself.  I, of course, have no way to know.  I have a good relationship with my banker and was completely up-front with her about what I was doing vis-a-vis Bitcoin.  I even predicted that the account could have problems which she thought unlikely.  She clearly felt terrible about things.

My banker told me that it was not going to work to just set up another account and link it to Coinbase.  It will be shut down.  I told her that at this point Bitcoin has been analyzed in congressional hearings and guidance has been issued by the IRS so it is clearly 'legal'.  Further, Coinbase is a registered business who complies with all of their obligations.  So, if it is Wells Fargo policy to dis-allow accounts to be linked to Coinbase I would like to have it in writing.  She said that she understood this fully and promised to try to produce such a document.

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Several more pieces of potentially interesting news:

I got a weird call from 'Gallop' claiming that Wells Fargo had hired them to do customer satisfaction survey follow-up and wished to know about my visit on a particular day (the day before the call.)  I had not visited the bank on that day so I told the guy (not an Indian) that I could not participate since it was meaningless.  He thanked me and hung up.  When I questioned the banker about that I was told that Wells Fargo did indeed hire Gallop to do such surveys.

Part of the reason I spent three days trying unsuccessfully to set up an appointment with my banker is that my land-line is all fucked up.  I get a stutter dial-tone, but there are no messages.  I called the phone company last night asking them to re-set things.  After a loooong wait, the service person came back and said that it would be re-set and it could take 2 to 4 hours.  24 hours later I continue to have the same problem.

When I went into town today I found that all of the settings on my cell phone have been re-set.  I like outside of cell range so my cell phone only works when I go to town.

If I were a paranoid type guy I would be convinced that 'they' are out to get me.  I'm not, but it remains a valid hypothesis in my mind that I've actually been tagged for enhanced surveillance of some sort.  I could even understand this.  I've done multiple hundred large through BTC and the account in question this year.  A certain fraction of people doing likewise probably have the ability due to either having stolen BTC or some other form of crime.  I have not.  The U.S. government has on me (and everyone else) all my phone calls, movements, e-mails, bio-metric data, pictures of my penis, and God knows what else.  If their algorithms have flagged me, they should put a human on the case for a few minutes and I'd be un-flagged if they have the Tradehill-I data (which I assume they do, and if they do not, they should ask me and I'd give it to them.)

An alternate hypothesis are that I am targeted by criminals who are somewhat technically competent.  I've always assumed that was a possibility at some point and have made significant arrangements to ensure that such entities could at best achieve little or nothing for their efforts.

The most likely hypothesis is that it's all just coincidence and bad luck.

Update:  My interaction with Coinbase.

Preface:  I told Coinbase that I would be thoughtful about public descriptions of our interaction if we cooperated.  We didn't really end up cooperating in a meaningful way, though I'll use some digression anyway since there is no reason not to.  The following condensation is effectively accurate and hopefully amusing.

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Me:  I got this problem with Wells Fargo and Coinbase is implicated by name.

CB:  Can we see the Wells Fargo letter?

Me:  <sends>

CB:  Yup.  Looks like you've got a problem.  Sucks to be you.  BTW, where'd ya get them bitcoins?

Me:  Tradehill.  BTW, do you have a problem with me?

CB: <chirp, chirp, chirp>

CB:  Not at this time, but we'll let you know if we do.

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I don't blame Coinbase for not wanting to get involved with any kerfuffle between me and Wells Fargo.  Doing so could jeopardize their operations and integration with the mainstream financial system is key to their success.  It's just business.

My next step is to see if I can solicit any interest on the part of my elected representatives.  I've funded our governments significantly with taxes which are a direct result of successful speculation on Bitcoin.  Bitcoin has been analyzed in congress and guidance from the IRS has been issued so, in short, it's perfectly legal as are all of my activities associated with it (and everything else.)

Singling out a person for different treatment is, by definition, discrimination.  There is a limit to how much the banking system can engage in discrimination, and this makes sense because they have the legal authority to operate in public.  They (e.g., Wells Fargo) realize a competitive advantage because the government stops other would-be competition from competing.  This is the basis for my continued exploration.  That is, to find out if the discrimination I've experienced is or is not acceptable under our political system.

Update:

As mentioned, I contacted my representative.  BTW, this is Peter DeFazio who was out front during the 2008 'bailout' and proposed a tiny tax on trading rather than having the bailout be funded by Joe Sixpack taxpayers.  Needless to say, that proposal didn't get far in congress where most members got their jobs in large part thanks to sponsorship from the financial services industry.  But I digress.

DeFazio's office got back to me quickly and suggested that I file a ticket with 'www.helpwithmybank.gov'.  This I did.

It seems that someone glances over complaints and decides whether to escalate them whereupon one gets a ticket number.  I got one the next morning.

It seems that in my mode, at least, this department (which is associated with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) mostly passes the complaint to the bank and the bank then evaluates it and handles things directly with the customer.  I'm currently in the phase of waiting for Wells Fargo to get back in touch with me.

I stopped by Wells Fargo yesterday and gave my personal banker a heads-up about my actions since I had to use her name as a point of contact.  I feel that she has been nothing but responsive and sympathetic to my situation but the problems are well beyond her reach within Wells Fargo's organization.

I almost don't want to provide this information in public least the 'sovereign citizen' dip-shits among us abuse things and try to gum up the works and ruin things for the rest of us.  Given the power of the financial services industry in our government, I find it quite laudable that there even exists a usable system for the masses to try to seek resolution and redress without going broke paying for attorneys and what-not.  In order to be credible in critiquing the failures of our government one really needs to also recognize the things which the government is, or may be, doing right.  IMHO.

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I also hooked up my new bank to Coinbase and did a small test sale to probe for what might be triggered.  So far, so good.  I won't be back on my sales regime until if/when we get up into the $1000+/BTC range most likely.

Update:

A person from the 'high value risk assessment' office at Wells Fargo got a hold of me ASAP due to the OCC complaint.  He was nice enough and seemed to work with me a bit.

Turns out that Wells Fargo also put a block on my credit card which I've had for over a decade.  It was a signiture card.  They gave no warning of this and I found out just before I was doing some travel when a bill I was trying to pay on-line was rejected.

I complained bitterly about this and the guy from the aformentioned dept called the credit card dept and relayed to me info that they refuse to unblock the visa unless his office reversed the decision about the dedicated account.

Recently I got a mail saying that their decision on the checking account stands.  Also another mail saying that the Visa card will be canceled as well.  Nobody will say anything about the rational for any of these actions.  The credit card wing writes:


(The italics are my addition.)

This text gets my 'attention'.  Now they are explicitly defaming me but will not explain the manner in which I supposedly "unsatisfactorily" handled my account.  Again, the ONLY think I ever used the account for was to receive funds from Coinbase.

I'm sort of weighing whether I should drop things or pursue them further.  A little of it depends on whether I am subject to further financial grief at other institutions.  If so I could reasonably infer that Wells Fargo has engaged in libel as well as defamation.

Here's an interesting article, and I have to wonder if it is a factor in the experience I am having:  http://bitcointaco.com/blog/us-doj-closing-bank-accounts-operation-choke-point/

Money laundering is defined by dealing with money acquired by illegal means.  Specifically attempting to hide evidence of a crime.  I know with certainty that I am not in this category.  My transactions were large, but I've dealt with fairly sizable sums of money when buying property and such in the past, and so have many others.  In fact it was with some deliberation that I exceeded the $10k threshold on some transactions and I did this to avoid any potential to be accused of 'structuring'.

The banks does not know that I am not laundering money, but the same can be said for literally anyone else.  In my opinion they should be trying to flag suspect actions and my operations would certainly qualify.  The next step would be to validate or invalidate their suspicions.  In my case they will have to find me innocent of any wrongdoing because, again, that is the reality of the situation.

The banks are taking the easy way out and harming innocent participants in the economy in the process.

As for pursuing the case, if this is related to extra-legal harassment from the justice department for the purposes of interfering with things that they, for whatever reason, simply don't like but are to lazy to pass laws against, then I realistically can expect relatively little support from this same justice system.

This goes back to the reason I got involved with Bitcoin in the first place.  Gold is backed by physics, Bitcoin by mathematics, and the USD by law.  The legal system and thus the backing of the USD is failing.  So far my faith in physics and mathematics are proving more well-placed.

Here's an update:

I was drawing down the balances in my Wells Fargo accounts intending to leave them since they cannot serve my needs and I feel they screwed me.

When I got down to having less than $10k it occurred to me that I am very likely under one of those 'operation chokepoint' type deals where the bank has to supply the Feds with a ton of information about me and it costs them money.

I decided that my best way of getting even is to keep a tiny bit of money in the bank and do little bits of activity.  They won't have many funds of mine to use as 'hot money'.  That is, money to deposit with the central bank and thus be able to create 10x that (or more) in new money to loan out and take interest on.

So, Wells Fargo gets all of the pain of having a 'problem' customer and none of the gain.  I'll switch over to paper bills also which will go direction into the trash.  If anyone can think of other ways to cost them money, lemme know.