“We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.”
“Bank of America has reportedly frozen the account of gun manufacturer American Spirit Arms, according to its owner, Joe Sirochman.” [CNS News]
“We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.”
“Bank of America has reportedly frozen the account of gun manufacturer American Spirit Arms, according to its owner, Joe Sirochman.” [CNS News]
This wasn’t freezing his account. His deposits were being held. Big difference.
Banks can and do do this, especially if they are concerned that it is fraudulent. I learned this the hard way when paying my wife-to-be’s senior year with the remainder of my scholarship, which had not fully posted yet.
There was an update from Bank of America. According to Huffington Post, Bank of America claimed that the deposits were held due to a routine inquiry whenever there is a significant spike in deposits. No comment was made concerning the manager’s comments except for a general denial that the industry had anything to do with it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/bank-of-america-guns-american-spirit-arms_n_2432361.html
The implication is that the manager’s comment was an unprofessional, off-the-cuff remark (that they neither confirm nor deny happened) due to dealing with an irate businessman demanding his rightful funds. Given a lack of any other evidence on this matter, I’ll have to go with this, as it is the simplest and most rational of explanations.
American gun manufacturers bad, Mexican drug cartels good.
Bank of America (or Panther Bank as the DNC pretended at the last Dem convention) had no problem with the Los Zetas drug lords routing roughly $1 million per month for two years through Bank of America accounts,…until the FBI made BoA stop.
Source – http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/07/09/mexico-drug-cartel-funneled-money-through-bank-america-fbi-says/
Freezing an account is tantamount to seizure, even if temporary. Had they simple closed the account and provided the funds to their rightful owner, they’d be on less difficult ground. They could also be liable for disruption of the company’s business operations.
It takes a court order to actually seize illicit funds and B of A has no such authority on it’s own.
Banks are governed by Reg CC of the Federal Reserve as to availability of funds deposited and I can assure you 15 days is way beyond legal limits. These days, holds of more than 2 business days are highly suspect.
This won’t be prosecuted criminally, My statement on “grand theft” was an opinion on the morality of it, not the law.
Point taken. If the Bank had given them notice that their account was being terminated, then that would be legal, if rude.
However, before we accuse them of criminal action, we should consider this. There has to be a contractual and/or legal limit to how long they can hold it. This can be surprising long (at least, it was the last time I opened a new bank account). If I properly recall the fine print, my bank can hold deposits for 15 days and can hold withdrawls for a week at the manager’s discretion. Rude, possibly discriminatory. Possibly outlawed in some civil rights law or another, but it’s not out and out theft so long as the hold is allowed by the account agreeement..
By the way, have we gotten any confirmation of this? All I can find are copies of the same story on different news sites based on his Facebook claims. Not the most reliable of sources.
BenofHouston
B of A has the right to set its own policy as to what customers it will serve, but unless they’ve included such policies as part of it’s account agreement, it has no basis for abrogating it’s agreement. It’s especially galling that they’ve seized the assets of a law abiding business.
Barring something in that account agreement, B of A has a BIG legal problem here. Personally, I’d call it grand theft.
B of A has a right to discriminate against ‘white guys’ if it wants to. Only darlings of the Left get special protections. If this gun dealer was a black lesbian quadraplegic single mom on food stamps, there would be hell to pay.
I’m no lawyer, but I’d say ASA has a big lawsuit. BoA has a fiduciary responsibility to manage ASA’s money properly. THAT’S WHAT A BANK DOES.
B of A has the right to discriminate against certain classes of customers and does not have the right to do so against other classes of customers. A firearms dealer is not in the protected class, so the really smart people who decide our lives will overlook or applaud this action. Once they entered into an agreement, I find it hard to believe that B of A has any right to monkey around with transfers. If they don’t like the customer, they should have the decency to tell the customer and ask him to take his business elsewhere. I’d move my accounts from B of A if I had any with them.
When ideologies start driving business decision, the quality of the business decisions can only suffer. With the world banking industry in turmoil, this is NOT the time to be taking risks by refusing to do business with an entire industry.
Reblogged this on Jericho777's Blog.
That is well within their right to do so, and it would not have affected my decision in the slightest, no more than the religious affiliation of the bank president.
However, taking actions against their customers (or others) for political reasons is indecent.
Shooting them would be slightly quicker. Not much though.
Now that you have disarmed the Australian populace, I recommend you get a head start on learning Chinese.
http://www.australiannews.net/index.php/sid/211187169/scat/4a8b544d0e80ba53/ht/China-India-Expand-Navies-Regional-Ambitions
BOA makes large contribution to WWF and other leftist organizations on a regular basis.
A LOT of people will soon be moving their accounts FROM Bank of America to some other facility more friendly to the second amendment.
Hey!! Wait on – my name starts with B
Looks like gun owners with accounts at B of A should pull their accounts, too.
Damn right. There’s enough guns already in existence to last a thousand years. You think I’m kidding? Gun repairers would have a good and successful future. It would create more work for the small guy.
I can’t think of a quicker way to lose a customer.