A bank blocked an account because they called someone and that person didn't provide them with personal data? That sounds unlikely.

I've definitely experienced the first half of the story: banks really will do dumb things like this and then be surprised when someone is upset by it (anti-fraud protection tends to be the worst: a text-message from a random unaffiliated number with another unaffiliated number to call, where you must then provide account details in order to get your card unblocked, and trying to call the official number and go through the phone tree does in fact, eventually, tell you that it was legitimate, but only after hours of being batted between departments).

That's not the half I have trouble believing.

Banks do have obligations under AML and KYC laws to get information from their customers. I mean I know a single phone call sounds extreme, but I could believe it.

My bank (in the EU) wrote to me a while back (post, no copy to email, no sms, no phone call, etc.) saying if I didn't provide info on certain recent transactions (my salary) they'd block my account in two weeks. Thankfully I wasn't on vacation and saw the letter and answered and it was all OK.

Having information about you (that you provide when opening the account) is entirely different from calling you out of the blue after you already have an active account for long enough that you trust and depend on it for your migration status. Refusing then is in no way breaching AML/KYC requirements. They would ask them to validate the identity on the call, not to gather regulatory data on their client. If they didn't have any info and were to "call as ask" how would they know it's the right person and data anyway?

How is a bank not validating one phone call grounds for freezing funds?

I am not surprised. I know of a bank that disabled a credit card following a single missed payment for the crime of failing to answer a phone call.

This is one of the reasons I use a local credit union with a handful of branches only in my region. I can always re-establish trust by just walking into a branch to do business, and likewise they can always just ask me to walk in with my driver's license if they need to verify that I'm really me.

A reasonable decision in your case, no doubt.

But the mentions of "his student visa was no longer valid [...] meaning he had to leave the country" make me think walking to a local bank branch might not have been an easy option in the post adrianmsmith recalls.

Absolutely agree! I only brought it up because it seems like, in our quest for efficiency, we are rapidly heading for a world where we try to delegate trust to outside entities (like tech companies, megabanks, or far-off government departments in Washington, D.C.) but, fundamentally, what makes financial transactions work (with anything other than physical currency), is actual real trust between parties. This is how the great banking houses of Europe began, it's how remittance networks still work in much of the global south, and its how the Jimmy Stewart-style small town bank once functioned. National banks with lots of local branches are an approximation of this, but the "branches" keep getting less and less bank-like: there is no "president" at the BoA branch inside Kroger, just somebody with a pulse who can technically pass a background check far enough to get bonded. Finally, many of the big banks are just closing these far-flung branches altogether. Bank of America &co. may get many advantages from their enormous scale, but they may be undermining their own foundations in the name of cost savings by trying to cheap out on "customer service".

They probably know this and don't care because it won't happen this quarter or likely even this fiscal year, so it doesn't matter to anyone in charge. But it does matter to ordinary people trying to conduct their lives without being irreversibly de-personed by a flakey customer service bot.

I understand the desire to be skeptical, but maybe you should give individuals the benefit of the doubt and the giant multinational corporation the skepticism.

I'm being skeptical about something someone wrote online about something the read online. Don't make this about ethics.

That doesn't add up; you're free to call the bank at the telephone number on their website whether the representative who just called you wants you to do that or not.