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Citibank Cancels Bank Account of Objectionable Blogger
Keith found this story about Citibank blocking a website's bank account after deciding that the site's blog contained questionable content. I guess it's up to a bank to decide whom to do business with, but this is pretty crazy.
Isn't CitiBank the bunch who decided they can freeze anybodies account for seven days, anytime they decide to?
Fine fellows to do business with.
You post one side of some obscure blog's events, and this is front page news?!! Of course there must be more details to this, but we wouldn't get it from this lame submission.
I can't even see how this issue is really relevant to nerds here. There's no tech connection, no connection to anything really.
Bank does something inexplicable and/or dumb. Film at 11. They already unblocked the account and are doing a "review" of the site apparently. This will probably amount to nothing and they'll simply leave the account open. Wake me if something interesting happens.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What's wrong with being a webcartoonist?
It could as well be a marketing ploy to get more eyeballs to the website. Did this really (I mean really???) happen. Can someone independent confirm this?
Not that it is a tech story anyways.
I really don't understand why anyone would bank with a big corporate bank instead of a credit union.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
First, the bank ALREADY HAS HIS INFORMATION because of his bank account. You think he somehow signed up for a checking account without filling out contact information? Citibank doesn't hand out accounts on street corners.
Second, the startup apparently has backing from "The Washington Post Company, Mayfield Fund’s Allen Morgan, Xing founder Lars Hinrichs, and Burson-Marsteller’s Don Baer." E.g. people with money and connections. Hardly a mysterious, unknown person.
Third, they didn't say this was a compliance failure. They said it was because of "objectionable content."
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
Then the comment from the citi employees should have been"We're terminating your account because your business fails the following compliance checks:
1) blah
2) reblah
3) reblahblah"
Instead, they said: your site is objectionable. There is a huge, huge difference here. I don't think citi has a policy of discriminating against gays (hooray class action lawsuit if they do), so the only thing left is that there are some stupidly moronic people at citi who don't understand how to be professional. Considering how many of those people I have met while working in different places.... I'd say that's a fair assessment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Explain real world contact info. Jason Goldberg links two news articles that contain a lot of data on who founded and invested in this company. If you take a sec to google him there is plenty of data on him here: Jason Goldberg on Crunchbase. What? Because his contact info on the site is info@fabulis.com? That's pretty standard actually. Just because he doesn't list his home phone number and personal email address doesn't make him anonymous. He doesn't seem to have anything to hide, quite the contrary actually given the nature of the site. Just because he doesn't list his personal contact info for you to contact doesn't mean Citibank doesn't have it.
My guess is that this is a good old fashion case of homophobia. Especially after reading this: Update on story.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Any more.
Interestingly. The UK courts many many years ago decided you were loaning the money to them and therefore was theirs to do with as they wished. What the bank does is create a book keeping entry and assigns that to you. I guess you could try to describe that as your money.
Deleted
NCUA?
NCUA : credit unions :: FDIC : banks
not a good reason
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Couldn't they just have modded them "-1 Troll"? :-)
Surely there's a balance to be struck between flooding the Internet with minor ragefilter mishaps and real misconduct--organizations, especially large ones, are imperfect and make mistakes. A good place to draw a line would be whether or not more than one person is affected, and a bit of editorial judgment on whether it's a single incident or a corporate policy.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I quit going to credit unions because I got the worst service at the three I've tried. Terrible customer service, even with medium sized accounts (20-60k), terrible people working there, few ATMs, etc.
I find I get way better service at big banks like Wells Fargo or US Bank.
He said they said that. Would it be a story if he said, "I forgot to put my contact info on my site, and the bank shut down my account for 24 hours while I settled things?" I'm not saying the guy is definitely lying, but there is a strong motive for him to do so.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Not exactly.
He SAID they told him it was objectionable content.
From TFA: "I promise you that if we do not get a good response to this on Thursday we are moving our bank account to a bank that respects and appreciates our business."
Yeah good luck with that. If a bank dumps you for what they decide to be 'questionable conduct', they usually communicate that with other banks. I would doubt he could get an account with anything other than a small community bank now...not that that's a bad thing.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
If you do not want to do business with someone there are better ways of handling this than locking someone's account without telling them.
The conspiracy theory nut in me wonders if there was the company CEO's buddy in CitiBank who was willing to part with their job in exchange for doing this. I mean, this is a godsend to a yet another social network site doomed to failure - to create news outrage among its target audience weeks before launch - you bet every gay rights group will be talking about this. You can't pay enough for this sort of a publicity.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Its not about the bank having his contact info, its about customers having a way to find it.
Either way, everything in this 'story' is conjecture at this point.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Hmmm, again, info@fabulis.com does not appear to be good enough for you. How about this then or this. Any google search for Jason Goldberg + Fabulis turns up a ton of news articles, information about the site, it's investors and his past endeavors, like xing. It all looks pretty lame to me, but I think that about Facebook and Twitter too. Other then looking like another useless social media site I don't see anything wrong with it and it doesn't feel scammy to me unless you also think twitter and facebook (and Buzz!) are scammy.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
because "we" DON'T know, for values of "we" outside the slashdot club
this is wide-open website, not a club with established agreements. as a media mouthpiece, slashdot has influence beyond the gated community of committed readers. this story is now amplified and continues to spread. that's a good thing
so these kinds of stories will never, and should never stop, as long as human beings are reading here and as long as they feel outraged at injustice, no matter how slight
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not saying this was the case, or the bank was right even if it was the case, I'm just saying, this may just be an amateurish attempt to turn a personal fuck-up into some site promotion.
Or he might have been hosting kiddy porn on his site. Not saying this was the case, but that bank was right if it was the case. This may just be an amateurish attempt to promote a kiddy porn site.
There. See how easy it is to make stuff up?
Or the three managers who supposedly contacted him may all be homophobes. Which is the more likely explanation? Or the three managers who supposedly contacted him may all be homophobes. Which is the more likely explanation?
Uh, the latter? Sorry, maybe I'm stereotyping here but it is not hard for me to believe that there are three stuffy, conservative PHBs at a bank (especially Citibank) that are homophobes and would use their power to try and bully or censor this guy. And after the latest update - they apologized and said the reasons given should never have been said - I'm even more convinced. Had this just been some little dude in his basement I have no doubt that he would have had his account closed. My guess is once they figured out who he was, his past business experience and who his backers are they are now scrambling to save their ass. Apparently news articles were good enough for Citibank when they decided to apologize.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Look, I'm just explaining how banks work. If you have an online business, you need a real world address and telephone number on your site. Not 'info@.' Not links from other sites. Not google. The bank needs to know that your customers will have a way to contact you in the real world to resolve disputes, otherwise the bank fears it will have to eat the costs of said disputes.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. Not because I agree with you, but because you spelled "definitely" correctly.
While you may be right, the end result of all of this is a very large amount of publicity for this site. Call me cynical, but anytime I see some website whining about some supposed injustice done to them, I think 'shameless self promotion.'
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You must be new around these parts. Here on Slashdot we have a pretty low standard of evidence - when somebody is 'wronged' by big business or the government, their claims are assumed to be gospel truth. Actual evidence need not apply.
I'm interested- if I click "contact us" on Amazon, what will I see?
Will it be a "customerservice@amazon.co.uk", or something along those lines? Actually, you don't even get that, only an embedded comment system. I've just had a quick look and I can't find anywhere that says Amazon's office address, or phone number, and I also can't find any names of any executives, founders, board members, or anyone else. I presume I could find all that information elsewhere on the internet, but it isn't on their main website.
What, basically, is your point?
The company I work for has an online site and we don't post any of our direct contact info. You have to fill out a contact us form. Of course we sell boring shit so there is nothing a bank might find objectionable. The bank obviously has his contact info and made no attempt to explain to him before closing his account that he might need to add some detail to his site out of concern for his customers. They shut it down without notice and then said his content was questionable. Not his business practices, not his site design and not a lack of data. His *content* was in question, pure and simple.
Did you even read the blog? Did you try to do any verification on who Jason Goldberg is before you wrote your post? Banks fund some of the most dubious shit you could imagine and as long as they are getting paid they don't generally give a hit about what you are doing unless it is so obviously illegal that they feel they might get caught up in it and therefore the risk outweighs the gain. It's obvious that Citibank as a company doesn't feel thsi way, they apologized and reinstated his account. But I still think this started as some homophobic conservative getting up in arms over what he percieved as just another Un-American attempt to further the gay/lesbian/communist/liberal/neo-liberal-monarchist agenda.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Look, I'm just explaining how banks work. If you have an online business, you need a real world address and telephone number on your site.
What if you have an offline business?
Plenty of posts so far have gone back and forth between "he said she said" and "compliance yadda yadda yadda". But it seems no one has actually pointed out how this relates to the "real" world.
I can go down to my bank tomorrow and get a small business checking account with zero "compliance" checks involved (other than proof that I really exist). I can, at the same time (for a monthly plus various per-use fees), sign up to have my bank act as a payment processor so I can accept credit cards from my hypothetical customers.
I conspicuously don't need a website to do any of that. I don't need to put up a sign in front of my business with contact info; I don't need to prove that I have a listing in the phone book; I don't need to demonstrate that I have an advertising budget to make the world aware of me. They simply don't care. I have an account, they hold my money for me. Simple as that.
The bank needs to know that your customers will have a way to contact you in the real world to resolve disputes, otherwise the bank fears it will have to eat the costs of said disputes.
In what universe do banks ever eat the cost of disputes? Okay, they may have some overhead for dealing with disputes (and even that usually gets passed on to their direct customer), but in the end they pick who owes what and call it good. "Eating it" never even enters their consideration.
Well it is not that far off track for Citibank. In the 90's I showed up at a branch and wanted to open a savings account. The teller called over the branch manager and he told me that they would not open a savings account for me. I didn't know why I couldn't have a savings account so I asked, the answer was a little shocking. "It's a character issue." I guess unfortunately for me long hair and slayer t-shirts are not a protected class under the Constitution. Anyways, now they always want to gimme credit cards and whatnot but they lost my business for life.
All points of time and space are connected.
Actual evidence need not apply.
All to often the act of dragging reality, kicking and screaming, into any online discussion is treated as sinful as actually paying for media content or liking a Microsoft product.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Assuming that the problem is even real, or even related to content (I have my doubts, because this seems like a great marketing ploy)... Is it because it's a gay site or because it's a "hookup" site? As i read the front page, this is about meeting someone for a "hookup". From what I've heard, postings in such forums are often deceptive and/or fronts for other sorts of "opportunities". If that's the case, Citibank might legitimately wonder whether this is a good business for them to be involved with, if only because of the opportunity for chargebacks.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Good grief, are you an internet newb?
Click help, click the bright yellow button labeled "contact us" on the right side, then click the button simply labeled "phone". There you find the following: 1-866-216-1072 - Domestic, 1-206-266-2992 international
It is on their main website, and it took me under a minute to find it. From that page, you can scroll down and click on "Investor Relations", and find the "Officers and Directors" link. Jeffrey P. Bezos is the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board.
If you're going to make a comment, actually try to use real data, not stuff you made up because you're too lazy to try.
To open the account as a business account, sure. But after that, unless you're suspected of fraud, they don't ( and probably shouldn't) give a fuck.
Having opened 3 small business accounts in the last 15 years, I can tell you that if anyone called my bank to complain that they couldn't get in touch with me to "resolve a dispute" they would promptly be told "Please seek legal counsel, and is there anything else I can help you with? No, then my name is Ingrid, and thank you for calling Heartless Bank and have a wonderful day".
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
These are my rules of a bank that I will not have business with:
These are all highly immoral and in my eyes illegal concepts.
Which is why I will found my own gold/silver-based currency and bank for my big game project, and legally allow using it outside of the game. (But will disallow any of the above behaviors.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
And that $250,000 amount the FDIC insures is set to drop back down to $100K. Not so with NCUA.
Your outrage is misplaced. I'm an out bisexual. There was no ad hominem about your presumed sexuality. It is my personal experience, having as many gay friends as I do, that when someone first comes out, they identify as gay and take GLBT issues very seriously. After someone has been out for a while, being gay is just one aspect of their personality and they no longer get so incensed over every imagined slight.
But please, if you still feel I'm some sort of homophobe, explain why you think so. Go on, reread what I said and show why you think it is in any way homophobic, keeping in mind that I know what cock tastes like.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"While you may be right, the end result of all of this is a very large amount of publicity for this site. Call me cynical, but anytime I see some website whining about some supposed injustice done to them, I think 'shameless self promotion.'"
You seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time today, with many many posts, trying to knock this guy down. IMO, the site seems reputable and my sense is that he's probably telling the truth (at the high-end of the bar for most such blogger complaints). To counter that today, Slashdot has rabid-insane conspiracy theories like, "Maybe a friend at Citibank decided to take a dive, sacrifice his job, and give this social site a publicity stunt". That's raving nuts.
As much as I truly hate to say it, the odor here today says, "Homophobia".
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
You've never owned an online business, have you? Banks have had this policy towards online sites for over a decade.
Three of them over the past almost twelve years, only one currently still in operation.
However the first of those was started ~12 years ago, so will grant the decade part.
The second was started only 5 years ago, and I had no such issues with either business checking or merchant accounts.
The 3rd doesn't count for this, as I'm using the same business checking account for that, and don't take credit cards.
But only had to file a change of doing business as with the bank to have the company name/address changed with them.
I must have just been lucky with my choice of banks, or they screwed up in my favor. (Key bank for first account, Huntington for the second/third)
I've just never heard of anyone else having to do that.
I'll also grant that most of the people I know that have started online businesses are on the tech side more than the legal side, so it's also quite possible they were just breaking the rules unknowingly and nothing resulted. Which seems more likely then.
Yes, its also harder to scam people in real life than it is on a website. Its harder to cut and run when you actually do have a storefront that people come into and see your face. Where the landlord knows you. Or where people come see your hotdog cart and buy hotdogs from you in front of the hardware store. Banks are far easier when someone walks in and askes about getting a CC reader because in most cases some guy is going to bring it to your store and 'install' it for you so they've established you've invested some effort at a minimum and people are going to have seen you and can describe you.
Physical interaction with the person you're ripping off is a lot harder than scamming them on a website while you're in the Ukraine. A website requires nothing more than a well placed adword to rip someone off. All they'll have is a number to track the scam with, and once that number crosses enough lines on maps and network borders, its impossible to make heads or tails of.
Having a phone number also makes you a little easier to track, it means you've established a presence and left more traces with someone else. Something that even if faked will still make it easier to track you down in every case but the CIA trying to rip you off.
You're correct, a website storefront is entirely different than a brick and mortor store front, and they are treated differently.
Are you suggesting that these two entirely different mediums be treated the identically in every way? Do you want sales tax on online purchases charged the same way as sales tax on purchases in brick and mortor stores?
Offline businesses are treated differently than online businesses. Its well known, its intentional and its intelligent, suggesting they be treated the are the same or should be treated the same shows pure ignorance of the subject at hand.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Except I'm an out bisexual, and nothing I've written here today smells anything like homophobia. I'm not trying to knock the guy down, either. I've just seen too many people try to trump up some kind of story to publicize their web site, and I'm not giving this guy a free pass just because he's gay. I am treating him, his site, and this story the same as I would any other. The reason I've posted so many responses is that I've gotten a bunch of reactionary, knee jerk attacks against my suposed homophobia, and I've felt it necessary to explain my reasoning.
This fellow is not really a blogger, he's the CEO of a gay dating site that will be opening to the public in a few weeks. He happens to have a blog on his corporate site.
Do you see why I'm a bit suspicious?
Now, no one is claiming anything like the insane straw man argument you put out. No friend at city bank. Just a standard check of a brand new online business, leading to a bank account being put on hold for a short while, and a lot of hearsay.
Now, if you still want to make ad hominem attacks suggesting I am homophobic, please explain how anything I've written is actually, in any way homophobic.
Go on. I'll wait.
And no, sorry, but "I don't like what you've written and you should be more sympathetic to this guy 'cause he's gay" does not make what I've written homophobic.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am treating him, his site, and this story the same as I would any other.
So, you automatically jump to the defense of large corporations, by pulling out obscure arguments that you have no evidence of? You could have simply said you were skeptical of the claims, but instead you made the argument that this was definitely about "compliance checks" even though you had no evidence of that whatsoever.
So, why are you skeptical about the website owner, but not equally skeptical of the bank? In fact, you were not just un-skeptical about the bank, you went out of your way to make positive arguments for them, that even the bank never made. It's really weird.
... and then they built the supercollider.