Last year, my colleague Tara Siegel Bernard and I wrote a series of articles about banks that closed the checking accounts of many citizens and small businesses. Often there was no clear reason, explanation or recourse.
JPMorgan Chase seems to have done a lot of this in recent years. Customers would receive a call from the bank or their ATM cards would stop working and then their credit cards would also be frozen.
One question that remained was what long-term impact this would have on those whose accounts were closed. Fortunately, people who experienced this were usually not barred from opening accounts with other banks, even if their previous bank told them they would never take them back.
But what if you tried to work at a bank that kicked you out?
And so we come to the strange case of Mansoor Shams, a Navy veteran living in Baltimore who used to run a company that exported consumer electronics, including Apple products.
As part of this deal, Mr. Shams used a Chase business credit card that he used to earn frequent flyer miles from United Airlines. He believes he spent over $1 million on it, including on trips abroad to places where he sold his inventory, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
In 2014, Chase canceled that card, even though Mr. Shams paid his bills on time, he said. He recalled that the bank didn’t say much beyond regularly checking customer accounts. It was annoying, but he changed cards and moved on.
Last year, Mr. Shams received a job offer for a marketing position at the bank. He was expected to earn a low six-figure salary once he passed the background check. But it failed and the card cancellation in 2014 was the reason for it.
This matter is so chaotic that it is difficult to know where to start. But let’s start here: In 2022, a year before Chase withdrew the offer for the marketing job, the bank had no problem hiring Mr. Shams for a job in wealth management, where he would help manage other people’s money .
He left that position several months later after failing two licensing exams. However, that wasn’t an obstacle to getting the job offer in marketing a year later. But then a background check revealed the card cancellation and disqualified him.
Mr Shams was confused – and angry. “I hadn’t killed anyone in the past few months, so what the heck?” he said. No one he met during the recruiting process would say much more, either. He even tried Jamie Dimon, the CEO.
After the job offer was withdrawn, Mr. Shams asked the bank’s credit card department for an explanation for the termination in 2014 and received a letter full of grammatical errors that was a copy of the letter the bank had sent him in 2014 that read: ” Closing the account is not a step that Chase takes lightly. We are obliged to regularly review our customer relationships and assess risks.”
So what happened here? In addition to the business account, Chase closed one of Mr. Shams’ personal credit cards around the same time.
“We closed the credit card accounts in 2014 because the purchases made on them did not match what Mr. Shams told us about his business,” said Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Chase.
And what did Mr Shams say to the bank? The bank wouldn’t say – Mr. Dubrowski said federal laws regarding bank security prevented Chase from releasing that information.
Mr Shams said he told the bank the truth about his business and that the nature of the business had not changed after he started using the card. Furthermore, the bank never came forward to express its concerns.
Meanwhile, the bank says it failed to properly vet Mr Shams in 2022 when he briefly worked in wealth management. According to the bank, if this had been the case, he would not have been hired back then.
And did a computer generate this letter? Mr. Dubrowski said someone wrote it.
Banks are not obliged to hire anyone, nor do they have to explain if they do not hire someone or withdraw an offer. No one is entitled to a bank account and financial institutions grant loans at their own discretion.
In addition, shareholders and regulators expect banks to be conservative in their risk management, both in the people they do business with and the people they employ. Something about Mr. Shams’ spending made Chase suspicious, even if it didn’t accuse him of doing anything illegal.
However, few people want to live in a world where we are all subject to the whims of financial services companies and their algorithms. Although people also played a role here, Mr Shams is still more frustrated than before after the bank’s comment.
“You have put a red flag on the rest of my life,” he said. “If it was a risk issue, close the account and don’t flag my name. But if I’m not a criminal, why mark my name in their system, which will affect my career ten years later?”
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2024-06-06 09:03:24
www.nytimes.com
