"Debanking" is one of these crazy use cases that Crypto Bros love to talk about. He's probably appealing to the type of people who actually have crypto to give him.
It's also different to "I was rude to several tellers at different branches and I'm self aware enough that I know I'm not allowed back to those branches for my behaviour, but not aware enough to blame myself"
Quite possible. Right wingers have been pushing a story of Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats debanking conservatives via the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Fuentes might be telling the truth or could be trying to use that narrative to rally more donations.
As usual, they have completely inverted the facts for that. The CFPB is not actually lead by Warren, and is primarily concerned about protecting citizen against unjust debanking. They do not, in fact, debank anyone.
But since the far-right has pushed shifted so far into extremism, grifts, and outright crime, and therefore had a growing number of their "influencers" debanked over time, they are now trying to spin that as persecution of conservatives.
Ironically, the CFPB is mostly on their side in this, making it harder for banks to blacklist customers. So this is truly another leopard eating faces moments, in which conservatives are at the receiving end of the "free market" practices they have pushed for so long.
I would assume ONE bank got tired of his shit and closed one account - maybe an account linked directly with activity that they didn't want to be associated with - and he's sitting here crying about being banned from banks entirely. And banned from CC processing - that's beyond fucking stupid. If you've got a card, the processors don't even know what transactions are being done without looking directly into a single account, and they're not going to do that. It's the card that'll get canceled, not the ability for transactions on your card to be processed. That's like having your car towed for driving 300 MPH and whinging that you've been banned from gas.
The way he presents it is likely influenced by antisemitism, but I doubt he’s lying in this instance. Banks can and will stop allowing you to bank with them if you give them a reason to.
Ernst Röhm was an openly homosexual nazi high up in the Nazi ranks back in the 30's.
The Association of German National Jews and the jewish German Vanguard supported Hitler's rise to power right up until the Nazis outlawed them and went and did a kristallnacht.
Ok then genius, if he’s not a white supremacist why was he at Charlottesville and constantly promoting white nationalism? His last name isn’t a shield.
You're both saying the same thing. East isn't calling the idea of him being a white supremacist stupid, they're calling Fuentes stupid for BEING a white supremacist
That’s true but none of that gets you banned from using banks.
Generally you have to commit financial fraud against a bank for that to happen, like those folks a few months ago that did the “free money glitch” at Chase bank.
In that situation banks will share your information with each other and you will not be able to use any US bank.
That isn’t true, based on what you do and who you are you can be blacklisted. This was happening a lot to workers in the adult industry according to news reports a while back when onlyfans took off. Not saying this for sure happened to him but it is possible.
Correct (except the last sentence - with fraud, it’s not incorrect it’s just more of a process/judgment call, it’s not a given or automatic. Idk ajout bank robberies)
Don't forget he also dined with the orange at Mar-a-Scummo in November 2022 along with his pal, Kanye West. The orange claimed he didn't know Kanye's "friends".
People keep saying he’s lying but he’s probably not. If Visa et al think you’re a major legal or brand risk they can and will stop banking with you. It’s one of the few true said things on that side. What they tend to omit is that you have to reach terroristic levels of extremism for them to do that lol.
Edit: Just to acknowledge some replies, yes there are a ton of exceptions for this, I just wanted to reassure people their accounts won’t disappear. Sex work and weed are two I strongly disagree with personally for instance.
My friend got his chase account closed/banned from using them for banking because he gambles for a career and they got tired of all the deposits/withdrawals on his account. First time I heard that a bank would boot someone for non-illegal activities, but makes sense.
Fair enough. Yes I was being sarcastic. I should have added the /s. I wasn’t thinking.
I don’t recommend crimes. Nick brought this on himself and is just doing the pity grift.
(Sorry for the delay, I don’t use my phone at work—which is a good thing. Nice to put it down and focus on other things.)
What they tend to omit is that you have to reach terroristic levels of extremism for them to do that lol.
Eh, that's not exactly correct. Reaching those levels most certainly will result in that, but it's a lot simpler than that. They don't have to provide their services to anyone, he's a clear brand risk and they cut ties with him like that, but they've done so with plenty of others such as WikiLeaks in the late 00's/early 10's for reasons that most definitely were not "terroristic levels of extremism"
You absolutely do not need to reach terroristic threats of extremism to get blacklisted. There’s very little oversight or explanation when somebody gets blacklisted, credit card companies don’t really need to answer to anybody
Visa and mastercard are private companies, not run by the government. Whether you think it's better for a duopoly or for the governement to decide, well...
Letting a private entity decide who may or may not participate in the economy based on their whim certainly seems to have potential for abuse. Not that the government can be trusted to not abuse its power either. It's a pity crypto is so awful from the technological standpoint, because there's certainly a need for being able to send cash over the Internet without third parties being able to block or trace the transactions - because yes, criminals will use that, but a system that can stop 100% of crime also requires whoever makes the rules to be 100% trustworthy, which they are not.
It's probably a lie. There are so many devices you can use which likely have no idea who he is. He can also run it through a company or non profit as well.
I would also lean towards not believing anything he says.
He likely just wants crypto to avoid taxation and to keep his assets hidden.
Not sure if you’re talking about something overseas but KYC is required at basically every US bank post-9/11 so I’m not sure what you mean by anonymous devices. They’re only anonymous to random people, not the bank.
Fuentes has a rabid group of far right fans who call themselves "Groypers". He more than qualifies for "terroristic levels of extremism". That they haven't done anything yet is neither here nor there, you'd have to be a fucking moron of a corporate exec to even risk it with them. It's a matter of when, not "if" - cutting your losses ahead of time is just good preparation. When some Groyper fuck inevitably does something shitty, their hands will be clean.
To clarify - banks are closing accounts when women do completely consensual and legal sex work, where there is no allegation of fraud or anything else.
Deposit a check for whatever amount you want. Then, after depositing it, make a withdrawal for less than the total check amount. Because the first check is still 'clearing' the system, your account will have an inflated balance that you can draw upon. However, once the bank realizes you cheated them, you have 24-48hrs to settle the account or you get in serious trouble, IE: Accounts closed, credit line canceled, banned from banking system, liens on your assets, charges pressed, etc.
Should be an easy lesson, but don't fuck with banks.
Banks take a risk based approach to their dealings. They'll take higher risks if the returns are high. If the reward is low while risk is high, they will not take the business.
They have to adhere to a variety of regulations such as money laundering laws, which involves "know your customer" a process of the bank being able to show can reasonably determine the source of the money is legitimate.
In short, Fuentes may not be able to give the bank enough assurance the source of his money is legitimate (could be he refused to give this info). He may be classed as high risk but he's broke enough that the bank doesn't see enough reward (bear in mind banks have taken considerable risk on drug lords and Donald trump over the years).
He may not be banned in the traditional sense , however banks can choose who they do business with , so if you go to a bank and say "I want an account " they are free to say "No thanks"
Or they may suspect something illegal (money laundering , wire fraud) even if they just suspect this and not not have real proof sometimes they will just drop you and say
"We made a business decision and you have 30 days to close your account"
Because if it does turn out to be fraud or something it will be a PITA to deal with and they might even be liable if they unknowingly helped them so sometimes even if a bank has a slight suspicion something funny is going on they will drop you .
I know a guy from the middle east , he was not doing anything illegal all he was doing is sending somewhat small amounts of money back to his parents to help them out and several banks dropped him .
Sucks for him but on the bank side its just too much of a risk, if it was found he was sending money to ISIS or Hammas or Hezbolla they could get in major regulatory issues.
So its just easier to say "We are closing your account "
I used to work for a credit union, and there was a database we would check before opening an account that banks used to report customers who had committed fraud or account abuse - things like "kiting" checks or repeated overdrafts, etc. Anyone with a history like that wouldn't qualify to open an account - with us or anyone else. That was 10+ years ago, but I would imagine something like that still exists.
Ask Donald Trump. You get blacklisted after so many bankruptcies. CC companies ban you if so many of your customers request refunds it becomes pointless to be your vendor. This is why all his money has been coming from overseas for years or from grifts, he has been blacklisted in the us banking system for decades now.
I work as a banker. In our app on our homescreen we had an interracial family as a background picture once. You would not believe the amount of putrid racist emails we got about that. Every single racist customer was promptly put into an Exit process.
Banks want your money but they also want to be seen as reputable and will not associate with anything that might damage that reputation. It doesn't matter if you're filthy rich.
If you have a lot of bank accounts that go negative, stay negative, and get charged off then youre gonna have a hard time finding a bank to accept you.
A lot of 'merchants' lose access to credit card processing when their account gets hit with too many chargebacks. Visa/Mastercard will usually just suspend the account rather than try to sort out why the chargebacks are happening. That's why you sometimes see weird names appearing on your credit card statements rather than the name of the company who you've bought from, because they've had to contract their payment processing out to a third party because Visa/Mastercard has suspended them.
Same with banking services. Too many overdrafts, too many 'suspicious' transactions (any transaction over 5K can be considered suspicious and subject to reporting by a bank), so a bank could see five or six transactions a week and think 'where's all this money coming from?' and suspend the account until the FINCEN people get done with their investigations.
So the banking system has various levels of regulation aimed at hindering money laundering activities. You have certain "Know Your Customer" requirements and banks are also required to file suspicious activity reports for certain situations (for instance a customer moving a large amount of money into or out of their accounts and then being cagey as fuck about where that money came from/where it is going, or engaging in "structuring" activities in order to evade reporting thresholds.) Usually next to fuck-all happens with these reports because our financial crime apparatus in this country is woefully underfunded and under staffed, but it can still help pile up evidence against you if you are involved in criminal activity that someone eventually gets around to investigating.
Money coming from certain industries/activities is considered "high risk" and requires "enhanced due diligence" on the part of the banks to make sure everything is on the up and up. One of those high risk sources of funds is, of course, Crypto (for reasons I hope are obvious to everyone at this point, regardless of your stance on Crypto.) If you're moving in huge amounts of money in from a crypto exchange, banks are going to have to do a lot of extra work to stay in compliance with these rules. If you don't make it easy for them, they're likely to sever the business relationship.
For some reason, this has been happening to a lot of figures like our boy Nick here. They just can't seem to explain where all their money comes from in a way that will make legitimate financial institutions want to continue doing business with them.
That this seems to be a problem for a lot of right wing figures is either proof of a government conspiracy to silence them if you believe the likes of Marc Anderseen, or just the natural result of their shady business practices if you pay attention to their specific complaints.
Either way, expect a lot of these already weak requirements and regulations to be significantly watered down in the coming years.
Of course, the funny thing about this is if any cryptocurrency actually functioned as, you know, a currency, the barriers to interfacing with the US banking system and its regulatory framework would be a moot issue.
Yeah, I had my bank account locked down by the bank after the EU money laundering rules came into effect.
Took me a while to meet their requirements. But I was never banned from banking services! My other accounts in other banks worked fine. The blocked account became fully operational once I’d addressed their money laundering concerns.
But perhaps his problem was that he actually committed money laundering. Or dealt with sanctioned parties. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on Russia’s payroll.
Felony conviction, associated with terrorism by the federal government, or other equivalent crazy shit if that’s legit.
Could possibly not be a US citizen, idk.
Lots of banks and similar services decline to do business with controversial figures who express violent and bigoted views. It's not worth the reputational risk
Most likely Nick solicited donations from viewers and some of them sent in money, but then when those idiots' parents found out their loser kid living in their basement stole their credit card info to give money to an internet huckster they did a charge back. Enough of those and credit cards blocked Nick from taking donations.
Being banned from accepting credit cards isn't hard - just sell porn. Most (if not all) credit card companies will ditch you faster than you can say "I sell porn".
As for banking services, it depends largely on what he means by "banned" and "banking services", but based on what I know of Fuentes, I suspect one of two things:
He's lying. Obviously the simplest and easiest answer to this - he isn't banned from banking by any sense of the word (maybe he is banned from some banks, but at least not all), and is choosing to claim he is for any number of reasons.
He was unable to convince a bank that his cryptocurrency dealings weren't illegal. Banks are (rightfully) incredibly skeptical of people who make large transactions involving cryptocurrency, because of how easy it makes money laundering (and other illegal activities).
He's probably lying, given the fact that most cryptocurrency exchanges require bank accounts. Unless he's exclusively meeting up with people and doing exchanges that way (which he definitely isn't), he'd need a bank account in order to convert any donated cryptocurrency into actual money.
Probably BSA stuff. If money is possibly going to a terrorist organization like the proud boys that’s frowned upon. I’d be willing to bet if his name was run through OFAC it would be a hit
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u/BringBackAoE 1d ago
I’m curious how one even gets banned from that!
Guardianship? Fraud conviction?