Citibank Cancels Bank Account of Objectionable Blogger 265
Keith found this story about Citibank blocking a website's bank account after deciding that the site's blog contained questionable content. I guess it's up to a bank to decide whom to do business with, but this is pretty crazy.
What a shock (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't CitiBank the bunch who decided they can freeze anybodies account for seven days, anytime they decide to?
Fine fellows to do business with.
Re:What a shock (Score:5, Interesting)
Argh why am i responding to Anon...
Re: (Score:2)
So you mean they can get 7 days free interest out of you and make it a royal hassle to leave. Sounds like a great company to do business with.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Citibank is the bunch that *can* require seven days time for you to CLOSE out the account. They did not say they freeze accounts and anytime.
Argh why am i responding to Anon...
They *can* put a 7 day hold on *any* withdrawal they like.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only I knew If I could make some truthful disparaging blogs about Citibank and all the trouble I had they would have canceled my mortgage.
How Is This Nerd News??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You post one side of some obscure blog's events, and this is front page news?!! Of course there must be more details to this, but we wouldn't get it from this lame submission.
I can't even see how this issue is really relevant to nerds here. There's no tech connection, no connection to anything really.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah sure, an international conglomerate swinging it's weight around and closing a *website* because of "objectionable content" is hardly news and has nothing to do with technology at all.
You do know that websites run on computers right? And since when did nerds not care about censorship? Especially censorship by a corporation.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice glossing over the YRO aspect of it. OK, sure a website is not "techy" anymore. Social media is not "techy" anymore. Fine. But this is about a corporation bullying people over content. If this is not a thinly veiled attempt at censorship I don't know what is. I read through a lot of the blog, checked other sites and it seems like a lot of people were willing to pick up the story and run with it. And now apparently Citibank has apologized to the guy. I understand that most, if not all the stories, I foun
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The "obscure blog" is a gay blog with lots of funding, and major backers.
Also, a recent survey of high school students found that more than 10% identified themselves as one form or another of "transgender
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
God, the tech connection is that its on the Internet, so it must be news for nerds.
And also, CmdrTaco didn't really post this story, Timothy or kdawson stole his password used his account to post this story.
Re: (Score:2)
Having a website hardly counts as a nerdy thing anymore.
And it's not even connected to website directly, but objectionable content (I assume the gay dating thingie or whatever). Web is just the medium in this case.
Re: (Score:2)
And it's not even connected to website directly, but objectionable content
Well thats what the story says anyway. But we only have one side of that story. Obviously TFA would NEVER post a one sided blog entry, so we have to assume its the truth, the whole truth...
But I have to ask way designate the bank account as belonging to a web site. Who does that?
The only reason to do so would be because you wanted to process credit card transactions from the site, and appear to the customer as some vague entity. And since the content of the site is sex oriented, the P word comes to mind.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be theft, and they would be criminally liable for it. What I bet happened, is that they said "Your business doesn't agree with our TOS because of questionable content, so we don't want you as a customer" which is fully within their rights as long as that TOS policy was spelled out in advance, and received a copy. Either way, this guy MAY have a claim if he can justify that his busin
Non-story (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Non-story (Score:5, Funny)
Bank does something inexplicable and/or dumb. Film at 11. They already unblocked the account and are doing a "review" of the site apparently. This will probably amount to nothing and they'll simply leave the account open. Wake me if something interesting happens.
Wake you? No, I think we would rather draw a mustache on your face and put your hand in a bowl of warm water.
Re: (Score:2)
They've already reviewed it and apologized: http://blog.fabulis.com/post/411481294/citi-we-said-what [fabulis.com]
Poor Jeph Jacques (Score:5, Funny)
What's wrong with being a webcartoonist?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Have you ever met Randy Milholland? You'd never ask that question again.
Did this really happen or is it just marketing? (Score:4, Insightful)
It could as well be a marketing ploy to get more eyeballs to the website. Did this really (I mean really???) happen. Can someone independent confirm this?
Not that it is a tech story anyways.
Couldn't they just have modded them "-1 Troll"? (Score:4, Funny)
Blacklisted (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah good luck with that. If a bank dumps you for what they decide to be 'questionable conduct', they usually communicate that with other banks. I would doubt he could get an account with anything other than a small community bank now...not that that's a bad thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Having said that, I do not believe that banks should have any latitude to deny service to anyone who is not causing a direct problem for the bank. (i.e. b
Conspiracy theory nut...inside job? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you do not want to do business with someone there are better ways of handling this than locking someone's account without telling them.
The conspiracy theory nut in me wonders if there was the company CEO's buddy in CitiBank who was willing to part with their job in exchange for doing this. I mean, this is a godsend to a yet another social network site doomed to failure - to create news outrage among its target audience weeks before launch - you bet every gay rights group will be talking about this. You can't pay enough for this sort of a publicity.
-Em
Re: (Score:2)
Conspiracy theory nut...inside job?
Really? This is the title you're going to with this as your subject title considering what's being discussed?
link to anything questionable? (Score:2)
I went to their blog, they just seem to sell t-shirts with the name of their site on them. Did anyone find any content that could be considered questionable? I was going to say "porn makers use banks too", but maybe they rape babies or something and I missed it.
Is it because it's a gay site, or... (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't use credit-based banks. Ever! (Score:5, Funny)
These are my rules of a bank that I will not have business with:
These are all highly immoral and in my eyes illegal concepts.
Which is why I will found my own gold/silver-based currency and bank for my big game project, and legally allow using it outside of the game. (But will disallow any of the above behaviors.)
we have to keep up a regular drumbeat (Score:3, Insightful)
because "we" DON'T know, for values of "we" outside the slashdot club
this is wide-open website, not a club with established agreements. as a media mouthpiece, slashdot has influence beyond the gated community of committed readers. this story is now amplified and continues to spread. that's a good thing
so these kinds of stories will never, and should never stop, as long as human beings are reading here and as long as they feel outraged at injustice, no matter how slight
Re:Shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't understand why anyone would bank with a big corporate bank instead of a credit union.
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't understand why anyone would bank with a big corporate bank instead of a credit union.
FDIC
Re:Shut up (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Shut up (Score:5, Informative)
NCUA : credit unions :: FDIC : banks
not a good reason
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, both Credit Union and Bank accounts are insured up to $250,000.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I quit going to credit unions because I got the worst service at the three I've tried. Terrible customer service, even with medium sized accounts (20-60k), terrible people working there, few ATMs, etc.
I find I get way better service at big banks like Wells Fargo or US Bank.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? I've had nothing but bad customer service from big banks, credit unions treat me like family. But the main thing is, big banks nickel and dime you to death trying to make a profit. Any profit made by a CU is split equitably between the owners, i.e., the customers, so they have no motive to screw you over financially like corporate banks do. With a corporate bank, you are paying them for them to lend out your money for their own profit. That seems pretty damn dumb to me, but to each their own, I gues
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose there are bad CUs out there, but the amount of bad customer service, not to mention the nickel and diming to death I've gotten from corporate banks, is just astounding.
Re: (Score:2)
"I find I get way better service at big banks like Wells Fargo"
I caught Wells Fargo restructuring my payments SIX SEPARATE TIMES in order to charge me with overdraft fees.
Plus wells Fargo has sued itself - you bank with WF you're a complete fucking moron.
Re: (Score:2)
I quit going to credit unions because I got the worst service at the three I've tried. Terrible customer service, even with medium sized accounts (20-60k), terrible people working there, few ATMs, etc.
I find I get way better service at big banks like Wells Fargo or US Bank.
I've had just the opposite experience. So the point to our two provincialist arguments is, what? Right, non-existent. On the other hand, the business practices of the two institutions (banks and credit unions) are a measurable quantity, and the credit unions win hands down, in most cases. We've recently moved some of our accounts to a local bank and have found the customer service, features, and business practices that leave us with a clear conscience, so there are cases where a bank is a good choice, just
Re: (Score:2)
Same here. I looked at joining the credit union that is loosely affiliated with my employer, when I started working here, and again when I was looking at buying a house, and decided against it both times. The credit union has a smaller number of branches, further from where I live. The online banking options are poor compared to my existing bank, which would force me to physically go to the bank more often, which in turn has worse hours than a regular bank. And from what my office-mate tells me the service
Re: (Score:2)
I have a bunch of bank accounts and citibank (the largest of the ones I use) definitely has the best website. Maybe I won't use them when I want to take out a loan or do some other activity where I would prefer to interact with a banker but for some online juggling of money they work great, especially since they are the only account I have that is able to initiate a "nex
Re: (Score:2)
My credit union, NMEFCU, has an absolutely amazing web site. What credit union web sites did you look at before you arrived at the conclusion that they wouldn't work for you?
Re: (Score:2)
The large banks have also served me incredibly well overseas...I can't think of anywhere I have gone where I wasn't able to find an ATM belonging to o
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a good reason. Was going on a three day weekend holiday with the family. We had accidentally overdrawn the account by about $10 on Thursday. On Friday the payroll was automatically deposited. On Friday evening, all packed up and heading to the mountains we stop at the ATM to get some cash for the trip. Nope. They automatically lock your card if you are overdrawn and do NOT unlock it even after you fix that problem until you call them up. Except you can't call them up after hours, they don't ha
Re: (Score:2)
And because they are a credit union, you can't call them on Saturday, either. We could not unlock the ATM card until Tuesday morning, so they completely ruined our entire holiday over a $10 overdraft that was immediately fixed. F*ck credit unions.
You're making a composition error here. These are policies of a particular credit union, not all credit unions.
I happen to us a local bank with Saturday morning hours. I can't see the advantage of a big bank. On a 6-sigma trip I might rack up $20 in ATM fees. T
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, I have always opened accounts at big corporate banks because I'm in a phase in my life where I'm moving and traveling a lot, and there's a better chance a big bank will have branches and ATMs the next place I go. When I'm more settled I'll probably prefer something more local.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine and dandy, but it's still not news for nerds.
Re:Shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely there's a balance to be struck between flooding the Internet with minor ragefilter mishaps and real misconduct--organizations, especially large ones, are imperfect and make mistakes. A good place to draw a line would be whether or not more than one person is affected, and a bit of editorial judgment on whether it's a single incident or a corporate policy.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Informative)
First, the bank ALREADY HAS HIS INFORMATION because of his bank account. You think he somehow signed up for a checking account without filling out contact information? Citibank doesn't hand out accounts on street corners.
Second, the startup apparently has backing [paidcontent.org] from "The Washington Post Company, Mayfield Fund’s Allen Morgan, Xing founder Lars Hinrichs, and Burson-Marsteller’s Don Baer." E.g. people with money and connections. Hardly a mysterious, unknown person.
Third, they didn't say this was a compliance failure. They said it was because of "objectionable content."
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not exactly.
He SAID they told him it was objectionable content.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be new around these parts. Here on Slashdot we have a pretty low standard of evidence - when somebody is 'wronged' by big business or the government, their claims are assumed to be gospel truth. Actual evidence need not apply.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Funny)
Actual evidence need not apply.
All to often the act of dragging reality, kicking and screaming, into any online discussion is treated as sinful as actually paying for media content or liking a Microsoft product.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not about the bank having his contact info, its about customers having a way to find it.
Either way, everything in this 'story' is conjecture at this point.
Thanks for the excellent and insightful comments.. (Score:2)
...why anyone would want to bank with Citi in the first place is beyond sanity?
Do they love Robert Rubin and the dissolution of the American economy? Do they love the serf-creation machine of Goldman Sachs, JPMOrgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citi and BofA?
Do they love all that energy/oil speculation to raise everyone's prices at Citi's Phibro?
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm, again, info@fabulis.com does not appear to be good enough for you. How about this [linkedin.com] then or this [crunchbase.com]. Any google search for Jason Goldberg + Fabulis turns up a ton of news articles, information about the site, it's investors and his past endeavors, like xing. It all looks pretty lame to me, but I think that about Facebook and Twitter too. Other then looking like another useless social media site I don't see anything wrong with it and it doesn't feel scammy to me unless you also think twitter and facebook (and Buzz!) are scammy.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Look, I'm just explaining how banks work. If you have an online business, you need a real world address and telephone number on your site. Not 'info@.' Not links from other sites. Not google. The bank needs to know that your customers will have a way to contact you in the real world to resolve disputes, otherwise the bank fears it will have to eat the costs of said disputes.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Informative)
The company I work for has an online site and we don't post any of our direct contact info. You have to fill out a contact us form. Of course we sell boring shit so there is nothing a bank might find objectionable. The bank obviously has his contact info and made no attempt to explain to him before closing his account that he might need to add some detail to his site out of concern for his customers. They shut it down without notice and then said his content was questionable. Not his business practices, not his site design and not a lack of data. His *content* was in question, pure and simple.
Did you even read the blog? Did you try to do any verification on who Jason Goldberg is before you wrote your post? Banks fund some of the most dubious shit you could imagine and as long as they are getting paid they don't generally give a hit about what you are doing unless it is so obviously illegal that they feel they might get caught up in it and therefore the risk outweighs the gain. It's obvious that Citibank as a company doesn't feel thsi way, they apologized and reinstated his account. But I still think this started as some homophobic conservative getting up in arms over what he percieved as just another Un-American attempt to further the gay/lesbian/communist/liberal/neo-liberal-monarchist agenda.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
What if you have an offline business?
Plenty of posts so far have gone back and forth between "he said she said" and "compliance yadda yadda yadda". But it seems no one has actually pointed out how this relates to the "real" world.
I can go down to my bank tomorrow and get a small business checking account with zero "compliance" checks involved (other than proof that I really exist). I can, at the same time (for a monthly plus various per-use fees), sign up to have my bank act as a payment processor so I can accept credit cards from my hypothetical customers.
I conspicuously don't need a website to do any of that. I don't need to put up a sign in front of my business with contact info; I don't need to prove that I have a listing in the phone book; I don't need to demonstrate that I have an advertising budget to make the world aware of me. They simply don't care. I have an account, they hold my money for me. Simple as that.
The bank needs to know that your customers will have a way to contact you in the real world to resolve disputes, otherwise the bank fears it will have to eat the costs of said disputes.
In what universe do banks ever eat the cost of disputes? Okay, they may have some overhead for dealing with disputes (and even that usually gets passed on to their direct customer), but in the end they pick who owes what and call it good. "Eating it" never even enters their consideration.
Re: (Score:2)
In most cases, you DO need to bring a copy of your Occupational License (or Business License or Business Tax Receipt or whatever your locality calls it) to go forward with a Business Checking and a Merchant Account
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
To open the account as a business account, sure. But after that, unless you're suspected of fraud, they don't ( and probably shouldn't) give a fuck.
Having opened 3 small business accounts in the last 15 years, I can tell you that if anyone called my bank to complain that they couldn't get in touch with me to "resolve a dispute" they would promptly be told "Please seek legal counsel, and is there anything else I can help you with? No, then my name is Ingrid, and thank you for calling Heartless Bank and have a wonderful day".
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, its also harder to scam people in real life than it is on a website. Its harder to cut and run when you actually do have a storefront that people come into and see your face. Where the landlord knows you. Or where people come see your hotdog cart and buy hotdogs from you in front of the hardware store. Banks are far easier when someone walks in and askes about getting a CC reader because in most cases some guy is going to bring it to your store and 'install' it for you so they've established you've invested some effort at a minimum and people are going to have seen you and can describe you.
Physical interaction with the person you're ripping off is a lot harder than scamming them on a website while you're in the Ukraine. A website requires nothing more than a well placed adword to rip someone off. All they'll have is a number to track the scam with, and once that number crosses enough lines on maps and network borders, its impossible to make heads or tails of.
Having a phone number also makes you a little easier to track, it means you've established a presence and left more traces with someone else. Something that even if faked will still make it easier to track you down in every case but the CIA trying to rip you off.
You're correct, a website storefront is entirely different than a brick and mortor store front, and they are treated differently.
Are you suggesting that these two entirely different mediums be treated the identically in every way? Do you want sales tax on online purchases charged the same way as sales tax on purchases in brick and mortor stores?
Offline businesses are treated differently than online businesses. Its well known, its intentional and its intelligent, suggesting they be treated the are the same or should be treated the same shows pure ignorance of the subject at hand.
Re: (Score:2)
Look, I'm just explaining how banks work. If you have an online business, you need a real world address and telephone number on your site. Not 'info@.' Not links from other sites. Not google. The bank needs to know that your customers will have a way to contact you in the real world to resolve disputes, otherwise the bank fears it will have to eat the costs of said disputes.
Given the number of sites I've seen that don't include real world contact info, I think this gets a big [[citation needed]].
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its all about taking 30secs to 2 mins to find it.
Google:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/address.html [google.com] (Google.com - About - Offices)
Yahoo:
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/address.cfm [shareholder.com] (yahoo.com - Company Info - Our Address)
Slashdot (Geek Net):
http://geek.net/index.php/about/contact1/ [geek.net] (Copyright Notice at bottom - About Us - Contact Us)
Fabulis:
Requires a manual search of various records or articles to locate. And I've hit my 2 minute maximum attention span for a comment post, CLOSE THEIR ACC
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Really? Expressing honest skepticism makes you a troll these days? I've made it VERY CLEAR that this is all simply my idle speculation, why do you have a problem with that?
Re: (Score:2)
Answer = "Closet Gay"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahhh, no. That is not the action of a closeted gay. That would be the action of someone who has just come out, and sees injustice and homophobia everywhere. A closeted gay would agree with me. Someone who has been out for a while and is comfortable with their identity no longer sees homophobes hiding in every shadow. So, newly out queer with a chip on the shoulder is my guess.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, having a chip on your shoulder is perfectly justified, gay people really do get a raw deal
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your outrage is misplaced. I'm an out bisexual. There was no ad hominem about your presumed sexuality. It is my personal experience, having as many gay friends as I do, that when someone first comes out, they identify as gay and take GLBT issues very seriously. After someone has been out for a while, being gay is just one aspect of their personality and they no longer get so incensed over every imagined slight.
But please, if you still feel I'm some sort of homophobe, explain why you think so. Go on, reread what I said and show why you think it is in any way homophobic, keeping in mind that I know what cock tastes like.
Re: (Score:2)
What exactly is a compliance check anyway? "We don't like your website, so you can't have your money"?
Re: (Score:2)
possibly the check my also look into the profitability and future of the business in question
How is that banks job to do? It's not like he was asking a loan for business from them. How you spend your money (as long as its legally), no matter how unprofitable it may look, it's none of banks business.
Re: (Score:2)
Because in the cases of fraudulent charges, the banks have to suck up the losses if they can't chargeback to the vendor.
Also, the amount of anticipated charge-backs change the VISA surchange the vendor has to pay. If a vendor collects physical signatures on groceries, then the surcharge will be lower than an online 'video' site that collects nothing but the CC number/expiration date. That's even if the site is completely legitimate, they want to profile how many 'problem' transactions a site may have.
Plus
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not saying this was the case, or the bank was right even if it was the case, I'm just saying, this may just be an amateurish attempt to turn a personal fuck-up into some site promotion.
Or he might have been hosting kiddy porn on his site. Not saying this was the case, but that bank was right if it was the case. This may just be an amateurish attempt to promote a kiddy porn site.
There. See how easy it is to make stuff up?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then the comment from the citi employees should have been"We're terminating your account because your business fails the following compliance checks:
1) blah
2) reblah
3) reblahblah"
Instead, they said: your site is objectionable. There is a huge, huge difference here. I don't think citi has a policy of discriminating against gays (hooray class action lawsuit if they do), so the only thing left is that there are some stupidly moronic people at citi who don't understand how to be professional. Considering how ma
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
He said they said that. Would it be a story if he said, "I forgot to put my contact info on my site, and the bank shut down my account for 24 hours while I settled things?" I'm not saying the guy is definitely lying, but there is a strong motive for him to do so.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. This could very well be a cheap ad stunt, an outright fabrication, or anything else. I suspect though that we should see some sort of Citi comment at some point.... we'll know more then.
Re: (Score:2)
How so? What motive would the bank have for bringing him to court over statements of opinion, publicizing this even more, and then losing? He is expressing opinions, there is no issue of libel there.
Re: (Score:2)
If bank employees never told him that his account is terminated because of "objectionable content", and he now lies and writes that they did - as you imply - it would seem to be a pretty clear-cut issue of libel. When he names the reasons given to him by the bank, he's making a statement of fact, not expression opinion.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Informative)
Explain real world contact info. Jason Goldberg links two news articles that contain a lot of data on who founded and invested in this company. If you take a sec to google him there is plenty of data on him here: Jason Goldberg on Crunchbase [crunchbase.com]. What? Because his contact info on the site is info@fabulis.com? That's pretty standard actually. Just because he doesn't list his home phone number and personal email address doesn't make him anonymous. He doesn't seem to have anything to hide, quite the contrary actually given the nature of the site. Just because he doesn't list his personal contact info for you to contact doesn't mean Citibank doesn't have it.
My guess is that this is a good old fashion case of homophobia. Especially after reading this: Update on story [fabulis.com].
Re: (Score:2)
That alone isn't really all that standard. Its common to have, and a lot of sites would prefer that you contact them through a generic address like that so they can have random people filter it.
However, pretty much every website has a phone number on it if you dig hard enough. I won't buy from a site without an address and a phone number listed. Every real business has a valid public phone number and address on publ
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My guess is that this is a good old fashion case of homophobia
I never could figure out why anyone would fear homes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the three managers who supposedly contacted him may all be homophobes. Which is the more likely explanation? Or the three managers who supposedly contacted him may all be homophobes. Which is the more likely explanation?
Uh, the latter? Sorry, maybe I'm stereotyping here but it is not hard for me to believe that there are three stuffy, conservative PHBs at a bank (especially Citibank) that are homophobes and would use their power to try and bully or censor this guy. And after the latest update - they apologized and said the reasons given should never have been said - I'm even more convinced. Had this just been some little dude in his basement I have no doubt that he would have had his account closed. My guess is once they f
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
While you may be right, the end result of all of this is a very large amount of publicity for this site. Call me cynical, but anytime I see some website whining about some supposed injustice done to them, I think 'shameless self promotion.'
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah well I have to agree with you there. And I'm usually just as suspicious of cries of "racism" or "homophobia" but I gotta say, lately I've been giving gays a pass on this one. I really do think they deserve a civil rights movement like African Americans had in the '60's in the US. If all this is is self promotion then yeah, I fell for it. But on the other hand I think that any attention that can be given to this type of activity by a corporation is a good thing. I can't change what people think about ea
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"While you may be right, the end result of all of this is a very large amount of publicity for this site. Call me cynical, but anytime I see some website whining about some supposed injustice done to them, I think 'shameless self promotion.'"
You seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time today, with many many posts, trying to knock this guy down. IMO, the site seems reputable and my sense is that he's probably telling the truth (at the high-end of the bar for most such blogger complaints). To counter
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except I'm an out bisexual, and nothing I've written here today smells anything like homophobia. I'm not trying to knock the guy down, either. I've just seen too many people try to trump up some kind of story to publicize their web site, and I'm not giving this guy a free pass just because he's gay. I am treating him, his site, and this story the same as I would any other. The reason I've posted so many responses is that I've gotten a bunch of reactionary, knee jerk attacks against my suposed homophobia, an
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am treating him, his site, and this story the same as I would any other.
So, you automatically jump to the defense of large corporations, by pulling out obscure arguments that you have no evidence of? You could have simply said you were skeptical of the claims, but instead you made the argument that this was definitely about "compliance checks" even though you had no evidence of that whatsoever.
So, why are you skeptical about the website owner, but not equally skeptical of the bank? In fact, you were not just un-skeptical about the bank, you went out of your way to make positive arguments for them, that even the bank never made. It's really weird.
Re:Because it's a gay site? Or is it because... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm interested- if I click "contact us" on Amazon, what will I see?
Will it be a "customerservice@amazon.co.uk", or something along those lines? Actually, you don't even get that, only an embedded comment system. I've just had a quick look and I can't find anywhere that says Amazon's office address, or phone number, and I also can't find any names of any executives, founders, board members, or anyone else. I presume I could find all that information elsewhere on the internet, but it isn't on their main website.
What, basically, is your point?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean addresses and stuff like this? From Amazon's site?
Amazon.com's Copyright Agent for notice of claims of copyright infringement on its site can be reached as follows:
Copyright Agent
Amazon.com Legal Department
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108
phone: (206) 266-4064
fax: (206) 266-7010
e-mail: copyright@amazon.com
Courier address:
Copyright Agent
Amazon.com Legal Department
1200 12th Avenue South, Suite 1200
Seattle, WA 98144-2734
USA
Took me 5 seconds to find that one. Not sure about generic c
Re: (Score:2)
Many credit card processors require this information to be posted in a visible place on your website. If you are a company the size of Amazon, you aren't working through some credit card processing company, you probably own your own credit card processor, or rather have your own in-house processing service.
Then again, I've never heard of a *bank* requiring you post an address on a website, but perhaps if you use your bank for web-related merchant processing services, they might have that requirement.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Click help, click the bright yellow button labeled "contact us" on the right side, then click the button simply labeled "phone". There you find the following: 1-866-216-1072 - Domestic, 1-206-266-2992 international
It is on their main website, and it took me under a minute to find it. From that page, you can scroll down and click on "Investor Relations", and find the "Officers and Directors" link. Jeffrey P. Bezos is the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Re: (Score:2)
Its possible the site was reported as a gay prostitution site or involuntary outing site by someone who was offended by the content.
Even if they do not actually handle any funds transfer online, all it takes is one call from some vice squad with a court order from some night court magistrate some where to get a temporary block in place.
Such allegations need have nothing to do with this site at all. May be related to some other activity by someone who has signature control of the bank account. May be just a
Re: (Score:2)
If there was a court order to do this, they should have said this was the reason. "Objectionable content" means citybank checks the content itself, and finds it not complying with rules at citibank. If they are acting on behalf of a third party, it's much more professional to identify the third party, and let them explain it.
On the other hand, your other point has merit, we only have the web site owner's word for this...
Re: (Score:2)
You have only the "totally unbiased" word of the account holder for your assertion. Who knows what he was ACTUALLY told? Who knows what Citibank is legally ABLE to tell him?
Those who whine the loudest do not always have clean hands. [king5.com]
Righteous Indignation is best served for desert, rather than as an appetizer.
When you give money to a bank, it's not your money (Score:3, Interesting)
Any more.
Interestingly. The UK courts many many years ago decided you were loaning the money to them and therefore was theirs to do with as they wished. What the bank does is create a book keeping entry and assigns that to you. I guess you could try to describe that as your money.
Re: (Score:2)
I see you're not experienced with citibank.