all 61 comments

[–]EvenYearGiants 39 points40 points  (0 children)

+1

I work directly in the KYC space with one of the fintechs listed above to help prove identity, and not the other three firms listed….meaning if we’re ALL failing him it’s because he (or parts of his PII) are getting flagged on a sanctions/PEP/OFAC watchlist.

Alternatively, he could be failing eCBSV checks with his SSN. That list is directly connected to the SSA and you get a binary yes/no back, no other data gets returned to the vendor/firm.

In theory he should be getting flagged at sign up and shouldn’t make it to account creation, but the firms can sometimes choose to run reports in daily or weekly batches and then retroactively fail. It depends how they each designed their flow.

[–]gw2master 31 points32 points  (1 child)

Better do CFPB fast... it's likely not going to exist for much longer .. or at the very least, have all its teeth pulled.

[–]Ref_KT 72 points73 points  (7 children)

Have you ever given personal details to a scammer/dodgy website or sent photos of your ID?  

Sounds like your details have been used fraudulently on a bunch of these platforms previously. 

[–]Ok_Cartographer_6256[S] 22 points23 points  (6 children)

No, I am confident I have not sent my personal information to anyone untrustworthy.

[–]nozzery 49 points50 points  (3 children)

At this point, with this many financial orgs flagging you, cfpb, congressperson, fbi, etc would be your only avenues for figuring this out. The financial orgs are not allowed to tell you why they flagged you

[–]mrandr01d [score hidden]  (2 children)

Which is ridiculous. The opposite should be true... They should have to tell you why you're flagged.

[–]JauntyTurtle[🍰] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The reason they don't tell you is so that scammers can't can't use that information to figure out what their algorithm is to detect fraud.

[–]TinyEmergencyCake 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Have you gotten your consumer report from lexis nexis yet?

[–]midnitewarrior 55 points56 points  (9 children)

I have worked around this sort of process. One of the things you might be having a problem with is your name if it matches a name on the Office of Foreign Asset Control list (in the US).

No US company is allowed to do business with anybody on the OFAC list, it is against the law. Banks and other businesses will just tell you "we can't do business with you" without a stated reason because they don't want to get into the details.

This list is a list of foreign criminals, terrorists, and people subject to sanctions by the United States government. Vladimir Putin and Osama Bin Laden have been on this list. It is large, and you may have a name that is on this list and you may be confused with a terrorist or other known enemy of the United States.

If your name is on this list, you may need to contact the US Treasury Department to find out how you can address the issue. There's something like this with TSA as well, and when you have a name that's on the No Fly List, but it's not actually you, they give you a Redress Number that basically says "See, I'm the OTHER Osama Bin Laden." I'm guessing there's something like that with the Treasury Department that you can provide your financial institutions if you are on this list.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

If you are on this list, I'd love to know, and know how you get yourself cleared.

Good luck.

[–]Ok_Cartographer_6256[S] 21 points22 points  (7 children)

I just searched my name (with a score of 50 and above), and there is nobody with a name remotely close to mine. Is there a specific way I should be searching? I tried my first and last name, and just my first and last individually; nothing is remotely close.

[–]fusionsofwonder 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Search relative's names?

[–]PasswordIsDongers 7 points8 points  (3 children)

How would the banks do that without knowing any of his relatives and get a hit that way?

[–]fusionsofwonder 7 points8 points  (2 children)

If he's on one of their accounts they may be assuming it's a straw account or something. I don't know if banks do that, but it seems like a super easy loophole if they don't.

[–]BeastMasterJ [score hidden]  (0 children)

Banks do that, but they can't tell when you're joint on an account at another financial institution so probably not what's going on here.

[–]PasswordIsDongers [score hidden]  (0 children)

Seems like a bit of a stretch for that to happen with every service he's tried.

[–]Moneygrowsontrees 15 points16 points  (0 children)

OP would not be able to maintain a bank account if they are on an OFAC list and OP said they have no issues opening an account at a bank. It's only fintech companies.

[–]virtualpotato 65 points66 points  (1 child)

If you've done the normal stuff, pulled your credit report, talked to your local bank about any flags they might see in their system...

Assuming you're an American, reach out to your congress person's office and say that you are being denied online banking and have been unable to get answers on why. They have contacts into a lot of places you'd never think of.

Adding to that, while we still have it, the consumer financial protection bureau might be able to help you as well.

[–]x_driven_x 33 points34 points  (1 child)

Do you have the same or similar name as someone on the OFAC sanctioned list?

Did you ever have a bank account closed before this started? If for example, you deposited a bad check, the bank closed your account and you got out on a list to not do financial business with….

[–]Ok_Cartographer_6256[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

First question, no, there is nobody with a remote match to my name on the OFAC search page.

Second question: I closed a savings account myself about a year ago, but that was after the problems started, and I closed it on my own accord (the bank did not close it for fraud or illegal activity)

[–]shoalhavenheads 81 points82 points  (8 children)

you need to escalate a complaint with senior management.

their customer service can only help you within the scope of their training. they're probably told to disengage from situations like yours if you're flagged as a criminal or something.

[–]Ok_Cartographer_6256[S] 35 points36 points  (7 children)

How would I do that? I've been up the "supervisor chain" many times, and even the highest-tier managers say the exact same thing as the low-level reps.

[–]Cryptoanalytixx 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Don't waste your time. Financial servicers cannot relay reasons for bans related to criminal activity. You need to go elsewhere.

[–]noob_picker [score hidden]  (0 children)

If they can’t tell you WHY, have you ever asked them HOW you can fix it? Even if they can’t say why maybe they can legally, or company policy wise, able to tell you your next step if it is a false positive.

[–]the_lamou 50 points51 points  (2 children)

Everyone is saying "fraud", but this doesn't sound like fraud. This sounds like OP is on a watchlist for some serious shit — most likely because of sharing a piece of ID info (e.g. full name but not birthday, first name OR last name AND birthday, etc.) The real banks use better lists and actually check them for accuracy, the digital banks have a shitty spaghetti code script that does the absolute bare minimum to be able to claim they meet compliance regulations, and don't bother ever verifying the information.

[–]penguinpenguins 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Meanwhile Chase Bank let me open an account with no SSN, so when I tried to close it, they couldn't close it unless I flew 2000 miles to close it in person. Required a CFPB complaint (on the advice of this sub) to get it closed.

[–]Moneygrowsontrees 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For accuracy, the services OP mentions are not banks. They are all Fintech companies. It's very possible they have a separate blacklist. Maybe someone has used OPs information for scams/fraud on one/more of those platforms.

[–]JJInTheCity 32 points33 points  (3 children)

Get a nexus lexis report on yourself.

[–]Herropreah 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Correcting for OP, it's LexisNexis.

[–]LurkersWillLurk [score hidden]  (0 children)

And an Early Warning Systems Report as well

[–]LovecraftInDC 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Have you used the same email address for all of these?

[–]Ok_Cartographer_6256[S] 10 points11 points  (3 children)

No, I have used two different e-mails, but with the same name and personal details. The issue seems to occur right after I input my personal details such as my ID or social security number in.

[–]Hoondini 51 points52 points  (0 children)

Someone's using your identity and seems to have gotten you blacklisted.

[–]dayankuo234 13 points14 points  (1 child)

most likely that SSN. I don't have experience with banks, but I worked phone sales, and I know if we thought fraud was involved (or if the system flags the SSN for fraud), we were encouraged to not say the word 'fraud', do what we can to get them out the store, and report it.

your SSN may have been make public, so if you are a victim, call the number here https://blog.ssa.gov/protecting-your-social-security-number-from-identity-theft/

[–]yankeeinparadise [score hidden]  (0 children)

We call fraud the “f” word in my company. Customer Service cannot say it to customers, ever.

[–]CorsairSC2 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Maybe I missed this somewhere in the post, but have you ever committed a financial crime? Or been accused of one? Or haven’t yet been arrested but currently are criminal and the chains of justice are slowly tightening around your neck…?

For real though, what’s the rest of the story?

[–]PungentAura 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Probably related to your email or other personal information was or still is being used for Fraud. And or you've disputed a lot of credit card charges. I could be wrong, but just my first thoughts.

[–]alicantetocomo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Pull up your credit report with all the agencies and see if there are any adverse actions on there. TMF and MATCH are for businesses not individuals.

As some people mentioned, you might be failing one of the myriad of other checks through data brokers.

[–]herpnut 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Lurking to see if this goes anywhere

[–]jonahbenton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would run a background check on myself- this is a thing- but it may be that you have to get on the horn with CFPB or your congress person.

[–]soulsteela 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have a common name that could have led to a records mix up? Definitely happens.

[–]tkchumly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is your credit frozen? Is your Chexsystems account frozen?

[–]woefulraddish [score hidden]  (0 children)

Any chance your SS card isnt real?

[–]GoodZookeepergame826 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Do you have a common name, date of birth or social security number that could be used often?

When you called the social security office near you, what did they tell you?

You can get an in person appointment and they can help you get a new number.

You can then get new credentials.

This is far more common than people think

[–]AWill33 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Does your last name rhyme with Bin Laden?