Potentially Millions left without access to their money

10 million people? How much money are we talking about? Chime... I knew that was a scam waiting to happen. And the Federal Reserve is not helping out? I feel badly for all those innocent people that can't get their life savings out of their banks because of technical glitches.

 

In the past I’ve planted some money in a couple of fintechs to get bonuses or higher interest rates. Luckily it’s all out now. Not worth the risk.

I suspect they will get their money back but it could take a while.

 

I do not even know enough on the topic to comment. All of our money is in banks like Bank of America and JP Morgan. I have always held a suspicion about these internet only banks with their fin-tech backends that are not obvious to the clients at all. They are likely fine when things are going well, but the lack of established infrastructure has always worried me when times were bad. I am not even sure why that matters...maybe just old I suppose. I will trade through Schwab and now E-Trade (owned by Morgan Stanley) but I would never send money to Robin Hood.

Even with that prejudice, I had some money frozen when Washington Mutual blew up.

 

I’ve never heard of many of the companies mentioned. Obviously aware of outfits Robin Hood, and “old school” fintech like Paypal.

It boggles the mind anyone would trust that wild west of fintech with any meaningful amount of money. Some of them clearly don’t have Capitol ratios to handle any type of stress, and apparently some of those cowboys think banking laws and regulations are just suggestions.

 

the Fin techs i was in were in banks that are fdic insured - but clearly there is a risk with the somewhat less than transparent fin tech wrapper.

I mostly bailed on BOA after 20+ years when they froze my account - my main account that I had all of my credit card autopays to. They said it would be a month to “ research”. The fraud dept did not like a transfer in of a few thousand from ….one of the fintech banks. I only got it unfrozen by escalating to executive contacts who cleared the problem up. This can happen with any bank but I vowed never again with BOA.

 

Damn, that's enough to make one go postal.

 

I’ve seen small signs stuck in
the ground lately saying
“Investors - 20-40 percent returns secured”

seems worth a shot

 

Reminds me of that house of cards bitcoin bullshit.

 

I see things like that and a ton of advertisements and say to myself; “If that was even 25% true they wouldn’t need to advertise at all”.

No, thank you. I’ll stick to traditional ways of managing money.

 

Opps... looks like they "misplaced" a bunch of the customer's cash ...

Synapse bankruptcy: Trustee says $85 million of customer savings is missing (cnbc.com)

 

No idea why you wouldn’t just use one of the big banks.

BOA has been great for me, I don’t do it but you can deposit checks remotely. Zelle transfers are in an instant for no fee. Their fraud watch is great (scary good how well they know your spending habits).

I switched to them years ago after a Credit Union I had used for decades refused to release funds from a 401k I had deposited, they said it was a fake check yet the money had been withdrawn from the account and transferred to the CU account. Once they fixed it I pulled all my money and closed the accounts.

 

Interest rates on bearing accounts at the big physical banks are abysmal is the biggest reason. From looking quickly, looks like the best relationship savings rate at BOA is less than 0.05% currently, while the best FDIC insured “online only” banks are in the 4 and 5% range.

 

Big banks have ridiculous fees and low interest rates on deposits and high interest rates on loans

 

Gotcha.
I pay no fees (or they are waived) and don’t keep huge amounts in banking for the interest rate.

 

My money is in a credit union. But it's not enough to worry about.

 

All my money is invested in beanie babies and pet rocks.was thinking of diversifying into fidget spinners.

 

You could also look into collecting some vintage Ron Popeil products!

 

Agree re BofA. Became a customer when NationsBank acquired Barnett then merged with BofA ….. so 25+ years ago? I’ve had a great relationship with BofA personally and through employers and clients who bank(ed) with BofA. I can only attribute the big bank hate, especially towards BofA, to be the result of user/customer error.

FWIW, I use the remote deposit function every so often and have never had a problem. I’d not been in a branch in 7 years but did visit one about 2weeks ago to withdraw cash for a motorcycle purchase; still haven’t made the purchase so I’m sitting on a bunch of cash that should have been parked in some S/T treasuries. Oh well.

 

Throw the excess cash into a treasury via Merrill Lynch. BofA makes it very easy to do.