Their account was just frozen forever. Apparently that's the lowest risk thing for the company to do to not get in trouble with authorities for facilitating money laundering.
The filters that triggered this were laughable too - things like having an unusual unicode character in your name could trigger it.
My friend had deposited some money in one of those online banks. Then it got frozen and they requested some additional documentation which my friend provided. When the service did not release the funds, he went to the court and the bank immediately released the money without explanation. Apparently their evidence wasn't really so convincing to withstand court scrutiny. However, it is possible that the regulations require freezing funds even on the basis of flimsy evidence.
Do you want to screw someone with very little effort? Send a wire transfer to that person and set reference to "contribution to Al Qaeda", "payment for bombs" or something stupid like that. That will match some filters, raise alarms and trigger money laundering, counter-terrorism, etc protocols. The receiving bank must investigate the issue so they will block the transfer and most probably even the receiving account. Very funny. Not.
I fucking can't. It's the banks themselves laundering on the large scale and they just pay a fine that's less than what they make doing it. If little people wanted to launder money they've got cash and crypto. All this does is fuck normal people over. If I hadn't moved somewhere I make more than twice the median salary working remote I would have been homeless after Truist did something similar to me.
As to fighting "money laundering." That's completely fucking retarded. Make the actual crime illegal and go after criminals. Put them in jail if you need to. The idea that no one can have privacy (or even functioning banking, bitcoin works better than this) because some people are poorly behaved is completely braindead.
[1] https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/EN/Press...
I’ve never heard of account closing, money blocking and lack of contact in traditional banks (at least in Germany/France/Switzerland) while N26/Revolut ask for additional personal info to data mine like bank statements from family and friends.
I use one of these online banks just for virtual cards to be extra safe and no more than 100€ in the account
