PC Financial FROZE my money!

[stanislav]

ALERT!

Not sure where this belongs to but PC Financial FROZE MY BANK ACCOUNT (6 of them). Asking me who to who were all these people I was getting payments from. I told them they were my partners. They said they did not allow any business transactions to go through their bank.

I thought PC Financial was safe for Stealth?

[GreenBean]

No bank account is a given as being 100% safe for stealth.

Using some personal banks for business purposes may sometimes back-fire.

These are points that absolutely need consideration when a bank account is opened.

Are they working with you on this matter?

[stanislav]

They said they will call me in about 2 days to let me know what is going on. Well I guess we can cross out PC Financial along with Ally ... I just hope they will return my money. That's all.

[stanislav]

I guess the only way is to open business bank account as it allows to add DBA.

[stanislav]

I have there about $8k. I think I have transferred more money but I am not sure what is going to happen now.

[GreenBean]

Hoping for the best for you, Stanislav.

I will amend references to this bank as well.

[trig]

you gotta say it's 'personal', not business. acct 1 - powerbills, acct 2 - Christmas money, acct 3 - vacation fund, acct 4 - food money, etc. NEVER say business.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by stanislav

ALERT!

Not sure where this belongs to but PC Financial FROZE MY BANK ACCOUNT (6 of them). Asking me who to who were all these people I was getting payments from. I told them they were my partners. They said they did not allow any business transactions to go through their bank.

I thought PC Financial was safe for Stealth?

@Greenie, hold off on the amendments. 1 bad report does not make the bank bad for stealth.

1. @Stan, 6 accounts...all chequing? Break it down - you did something that seems to have put a manual review on your accounts - 8k, while high, is not killer unless perhaps...all at one shot.

2. Partners? You NEVER say that - if the bank asks for proof, what are you going to do? Like trig said - always PERSONAL.

3. Bank is going to do a bit of investigation. Likely will hold funds anywhere from 90 days to 6 months.

Keep us posted

[stanislav]

I will keep you all posted.

But how do you explain your bank why you received PayPal payments under different names? And no, 8K was accumulated over some time and transfers were mostly between $500-$700 each time.

I used my main checking account for everyday things such as buying food, filling up my gas tank, buying groceries etc ...

Nothing extraordinary. Even if I did trigger security to look at my account closer, all it means that this bank is not safe as it only takes just one incident to trigger freeze on your bank account.

[An0nym0u$]

Thanks for the share stanislav.

This has, at least, made me more aware of the need to spread accounts across multiple banks and keep business accounts and personal ones separate.

Hope things work out w/ you and your bank. Keep us posted.

[stanislav]

Originally Posted by An0nym0u$

Thanks for the share stanislav.

This has, at least, made me more aware of the need to spread accounts across multiple banks and keep business accounts and personal ones separate.

Hope things work out w/ you and your bank. Keep us posted.

Thank you for your support!

[rsot]

Originally Posted by stanislav

I will keep you all posted. But how do you explain your bank why you received PayPal payments under different names? And no, 8K was accumulated over some time and transfers were mostly between $500-$700 each time. I used my main checking account for everyday things such as buying food, filling up my gas tank, buying groceries etc ... Nothing extraordinary. Even if I did trigger security to look at my account closer, all it means that this bank is not safe as it only takes just one incident to trigger freeze on your bank account.

I understand stan - did you leave any money in the accounts? The issue is that you cant just state my "partners" because the bank is going to be VERY suspicious. Deposits coming in different names could be stated as just a form mismatch or so on the part of the sender i.e. PP - and we all know how PP can make mistakes...

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by stanislav

But how do you explain your bank why you received PayPal payments under different names? And no, 8K was accumulated over some time and transfers were mostly between $500-$700 each time.


Nothing extraordinary. Even if I did trigger security to look at my account closer, all it means that this bank is not safe as it only takes just one incident to trigger freeze on your bank account.

You should have used your GREY matter before making the bank accounts.

You have been stealthing long enough to be aware of the POTENTIAL for trouble(s). These are because one party is paypal and the other party is a bank. Both together are dangerous.

Stop talking silly talk by claiming all your transactions were purer than driven snow. I looked over the posts. Only you ever had glitches. I even got laughed at when I recommended changing banks...

[mercurial333]

Originally Posted by stanislav

They said they will call me in about 2 days to let me know what is going on. Well I guess we can cross out PC Financial along with Ally ... I just hope they will return my money. That's all.

Usually they give you the money.

The few times they keep it ( or at least for an extended period of time ), is when they want your immigration status, suspicion of terr.rrorism, under RICO, and other such nonsense.

[jeffweico]

I cannot imagine they will keep the money, but I also don't see them allowing you to continue business as usual. Right now, they are worried about some type of fraud going on. You need to convince them that there is no fraud involved here.

The question is not so much about how many dollars each transfer was, but how much money per month was running through the accounts in total? My best guess is that is what triggered a review of your accounts.

Best course of action for the future? Set up BUSINESS accounts with the banks. PayPal will never know the difference. You could also set up PayPal business accounts and use whatever business names you like. But if you want to keep the PayPal accounts personal, that is OK too. Just use the DBA process to make the business name close to being the same as your stealth names. A PayPal transfer to "Seth Young" will not likely cause a problem when it is being deposited to a business account for "Seth Young Guitars". There are a whole lot of ways to be creative with this!

The bottom line is, it is always best to have accounts spread out over several banks and to keep the amount of money running through them REASONABLE. It makes no difference that you only withdraw $600 at a time if there is $10,000 per month running through the accounts. You also want to keep it CONSISTENT! If your average withdrawal is $600, then you want to avoid suddenly taking out $5,000. Just because your bank has your real information does not mean that you don't want to stay under their radar.

When I first started in stealth, I had 2 accounts at Charter One bank. They are actually OK for stealth. But, one month I had nearly $6,000 in deposits to both accounts. One name was a slight variation of my real name and the second was totally different. Their fraud department called me to ask who "Jim Smith" was and why I was receiving money in his name. I told him that "Jim" was my significant other, and that I was just a little offended that their bank would consider our relationship to be "fraud" even if they didn't like gay people. The whole thing quickly became a non-issue. Of course, that was several years ago and this tactic may no longer work. Obviously, this also would not have worked if I had six accounts, all under different names. My point is, be creative. Just make sure you think it through FIRST - the last thing you want to do is create even more suspicion of the accounts.

[rsot]

Likely - and I have past experience with bank holding funds arriving for business in personal account (sigh) - there could be a hold of anywhere from 30 days to 180 days...PC financial is CIBC-owned so (in all likelihood) there wont be a long hold - 30-45 days tops as they do their investigation.

[corleone]

I've been working my brain over, trying to think of an excuse that I would tell the bank if they asked me why I have 8 different names of deposits from paypal.

I guess you could alway's claim mental illness. Sometimes insanity can trump logic.

"Hello, Mr Customer Service rep for the bank,

I never give out my real name to any website online, I only give my real info to my banks because it's against the law not to, but any other website that I do transactions on, I alway's use made up names. I take medication for paranoid schizophrenia because I have delusions that people are trying to steal my identity, and I at times, have thought that that someone is spying on my computer activity. Ebay and Paypal have never given me troubles with using a different name, so I prefer to keep my personal info a secret.

So why so many different names? Because sometimes I think that someone has gotten ahold of my information and is trying to steal my money, so I open new paypal accounts so that they can't steal from me.

blah blah blah"

If you ramble on enough about being crazy, and why you have so many different accounts and names, they might just think you're out of your mind, instead of a very intelligent stealth online entrepenuer.

Might just be crazy enough to work. It doesn't need to be an academy award production, it just needs to be good enough to get your money back from the bank.

[css1]

Hopefully they don't do a SAR.

Do they have that in Canada too?

[rsot]

Originally Posted by corleone

If you ramble on enough about being crazy, and why you have so many different accounts and names, they might just think you're out of your mind, instead of a very intelligent stealth online entrepenuer.

Might just be crazy enough to work. It doesn't need to be an academy award production, it just needs to be good enough to get your money back from the bank.

Ha Corleone....that made my day don't think the bank would fall for that - or worst comes worst, they would say Errrr right - wait x amount of time then you will get your money and we don't want your business anymore.

The part about not wanting your business anymore happens quite regularly with banks up here for security issues

[planes]

You could just be honest with them and say you spread your transactions across mulitple ebay accounts to keep better record of what sells based on your selling methods in each account and ebay makes it difficult to do from one account so you open several business accounts to allow for this. Tell them you can come down to the bank with your product receipts to show them you are legitimate.

Don't get into specifics about how you open accounts or anything stealthy like that.

Just be matter of fact with them. If they insist on not allowing you to do it say well, how many accounts can I keep. Argue with them on this point by saying you want as many accounts as possible. The way I see it is unless one is committing fraud,(I assume you're not.) then they have every right to be aggressive and aloof. Even demand to talk with the bank manager.

[BigCJ]

Originally Posted by planes

You could just be honest with them and say you spread your transactions across mulitple ebay accounts to keep better record of what sells based on your selling methods in each account and ebay makes it difficult to do from one account so you open several business accounts to allow for this. Tell them you can come down to the bank with your product receipts to show them you are legitimate.

Don't get into specifics about how you open accounts or anything stealthy like that.

Just be matter of fact with them. If they insist on not allowing you to do it say well, how many accounts can I keep. Argue with them on this point by saying you want as many accounts as possible. The way I see it is unless one is committing fraud,(I assume you're not.) then they have every right to be aggressive and aloof. Even demand to talk with the bank manager.

That might make it even worse...

The banks are not silly. They know that paypal is a hub for fraud and money laundering.

They will want proof for most if not all of stans transactions and then possibly ask for SSN (or whatever numbers canada uses) to verify for each account...

If all other venues fail, i guess he could go into a local branch and try to reason with a manager...but they may not wish to do business with him again.

Please keep us updated, Stan.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by cjmixers

That might make it even worse...

The banks are not silly. They know that paypal is a hub for fraud and money laundering.

They will want proof for most if not all of stans transactions and then possibly ask for SSN (or whatever numbers canada uses) to verify for each account...

If all other venues fail, i guess he could go into a local branch and try to reason with a manager...but they may not wish to do business with him again.

Please keep us updated, Stan.

Quite true cjmixers - the issue is with saying you have "partners"...they could ask for identity proof of those people though I suspect for 8k, maybe just account termination and statement letter of "We do not want your business after we give the 8k"