Banks close dozens of accounts without warning, locking out man with $10,000 deposit
One New Jersey father cried for hours as he pleaded with his parents to pay for him and his 5-year-old twins to eat at a restaurant. Jonathan Marrero, who had recently deposited $10,000 into a Chime account, trusted that the funds would always be there, just like they had every time he checked the Chime app, Newsbreak discovered.
Yet, when he went to cover the lunch check, his credit card was rejected without explanation. A few minutes later, he called the customer service department and was informed that his account had been closed as a result of suspicious activity, effective immediately.
He was frustrated and unable to understand what happened to his account to be abruptly closed, so he checked an email he received on his phone. It informed him the banking relationship of Chime had ended and provided no real explanation that appeared to be relevant to him.
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Sadly, this isn’t the first instance of a bank closing an account without allowing the depositor to get their money back. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has looked into 952 complaints against the financial technology firm over the years, with many complaining that their stimulus checks or tax refunds were frozen.
According to banking officials, the closures were in response to unemployment fraud worth more than $400 billion in recent years. Nearly one thousand people are in dire straits as a result of the account closure, including those facing home eviction.
