Banks are among the most highly regulated institutions in the country. They play a critical role when it comes to fighting against financial crime, money laundering, and terrorist financing, and, according to the New York Times, bank account crackdowns are happening now more than ever.
"It could be anybody, at any bank, at any time," says Arizona State University Professor Geoffrey Smith with the W.P. Carey School of Business in the Department of Finance.
Professor Smith told us banks have various ways of monitoring client accounts and can flag or close them at their discretion.
"It's a trade-off between, you know, catching criminals, and sometimes innocent people are going to get swept up just due to the computer algorithms," said Professor Smith.
ABC15 spoke with an ASU student who believes that's what happened to her. She opened up her first bank account in August.
"It was like somebody deposited money and then it was money getting taken out. So, I was like, 'this isn't me. I'm not the one doing it,'" said Aarya Chopra.
After reporting it to her bank, Chopra said her account was put on hold for an investigation. She was without access to her funds for a few weeks.
"They were, like, 'we are officially closing your account because... you have fraud charges and things like that.' And like, they kind of made it seem like it was my fault when I wasn't really... I did nothing," said Chopra.
She was able to get her money back. However, one Valley couple reached out to ABC15 and told us they are still waiting for theirs.
"The card was declined, which didn't make any sense to us, because we had just sold our home in Arizona. So, we knew there were funds available," said Jacob Hylands from Chandler.
Melissa and Jacob Hylands recently moved from Chandler to Wichita, Kansas. They found out their account was closed after they called the bank themselves. They say they were told the bank does not service that area.
"Not only were all the bills due at that time, and also, we were stuck without any money. So, we had to talk to everyone that we owe bills to," said Hylands.
They said the bank has told them several times that they would receive a check in the mail. It's now been nearly two months. We also contacted their bank and they said they are looking into it.
