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My bank asks me whereabouts of Syrian Refugees to release my funds

29 points by tshealthcare ↗ HN
I used CHASE bank pay to send money to a US Based 501(c)(3) organization. They had winter aid for different purposes including refugees. Affected by tragic pictures of Syrian and Afghan refugees, in the memo field I put "Refugee Winterization Syrian/Afghan" to cue them on my wish.

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".

14 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] thread
throwaway23kll
I never use the bank's memo field, ever. As you have found, it will eventually be mis-used by them, and most likely not in any way that benefits you.

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.

dv_dt
I use the memo field to communicate to the check casher - e.g. pmt for account # 123.
notananthem
The Syrian government committed enough war crimes on Syrian civilians to warrant a spot on the SDN list, this is not just a US block either. Its well known so anyone sending money to anything tagged Syria will be blocked. You can donate money to syrian refugee 501c3's because they're US-based nonprofits. Just don't be a nonce and tag it syria, because banks are legally compelled to reject those.
duped
There are criminal penalties (fines and jail time) for violating the economic sanctions against Syria, you can't blame Chase too much for being cautious.
rdtsc
Right. It might be a case that the bank knew it’s ridiculous too, but once it was flagged they had to investigate. When investigating they had to ask some script questions expecting some specific answers. Sometimes you have to read between the lines and see what they really would want you to say to move on, and they can’t spell it out as they’d be audited and scrutinized.
ReallyOldLurker
Others commenting about sanctions are correct. Chase did what was expected. Your experience was your fault.

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.

faangiq
Oh you expected a human response from a company? Sorry, that’s deprecated in Boomerica.
ozfive
Soon enough they will all be gone. Dusts hands off
leephillips
I have to agree with several other commenters here. I don’t understand what you‘re objecting to. The bank is making a reasonable attempt to comply with sanctions.
throwaway22032
When sending bank transfers you can't put anything other than "money" in the subject field.

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.

kant_adorn_arts
> fault is it? Bad software that lacks basic NLP? Compliance officers who don't understand English? Isn't this a bit discriminatory?

It is the fault of an AI doing its job, and a bank saving money rather than providing customer service.

james-redwood
An Iranian colleague of mine ran into a similar conundrum. The solution is to never give away more information than strictly necessary.