My bank asks me whereabouts of Syrian Refugees to release my funds
The text regexp raised a flag, and I was asked to provide detailed purpose of payment. So, here is the conversation (in summary, taking away my expletives):
- CHASE: Remitter is to please cite the applicable regulation/authorization and/or licenses.
- Me: This is a 503 organization providing support for syrian and afghan refugees. (my error in mixing up 503 with 501)
- Chase: Please advise of location of Syrian refugees
(And they are threatening to confiscate if I don't send them a timely message.)
Then I tried the following in other payments with the memo fields:
## Other check
- Memo field: "Maya Youssef is a musician from Syria". (something I randomly picked from Google)
- Chase's comeback: "1. Please provide detailed purpose of payment and advise if there is any direct or indirect Syrian involvement in this transaction. 2. Please confirm Final Destination of funds and advise if these funds are intended to be sent into Syria"
## Other check
- Memo field: "Coffee table style Syrian/Afghan".
- Chase's comeback: "Please provide a detailed purpose of payment and explain the meaning of Syrian in the payment details. If related to goods, provide country of origin.. . "
## Other check
- Memo field: Sennacherib was an assyrian king
(This actually went fine, lol, their regexp looks for exact word matches for "syria" and "syrian")
Whose fault is it? Bad software that lacks basic NLP? Compliance officers who don't understand English? Isn't this a bit discriminatory? You should not use the word "Syria" or "Syrian" about anything on your memo fields!
And pray Columbia never gets a sanction, 'cause you cannot speak of "Columbian coffee" anymore. Or one day your Venmo send for "Turkish Coffee" or "Russian tearoom" could get "canceled".
The nature of your financial transactions are none of the bank's business. IMO they only exist to "store and forward" the funds.
Use your own local accounting ledger with a memo for your records.
[1] The ALAB Podcast has an excellent couple episodes about the persecution of the Holy Land Foundation, if you're curious: https://www.alabseries.com/episodes/episode-23-the-scapegoat...
There is zero upside and all downside, AML laws are kafkaesque bullshit.
Other posters here stating that this is your fault are technically correct but also are being arseholes by not giving actionable advice.
It is the fault of an AI doing its job, and a bank saving money rather than providing customer service.
Hopefully your account isn't frozen (happened once to a friend where they accidentally doodled a sanctioned country's name on the side of a check that had nothing to do with that country).
Search on something like "Syria refugee scam" and do your research before sending money. Always research a charity's actual use of money before giving to them. Especially if you can't find any records, they aren't transparent enough for any consideration.