bad beat from my bank: they "don't condone" my profession

[wheelz]

that's right. for a long time i had been just using my neteller debit card to get money out of neteller. then i started making more money, and then tax time came, so i started withdrawing large amounts of money from neteller to my bank account. of course this set off alarms with the people at scotiabank, and they apparently investigated my account and found out somehow that i was making all this money from online poker (i don't really know how they knew that but that's what they say.) so they called one day and wanted to speak to me about where the money was coming from, apparently to see if i'd be honest about it, i of course told them it was coming from online poker. everything was fine. then 2 days ago i get a call saying that they don't condone how i'm making this money and they won't allow me to make any more withdrawals from neteller.

i was pretty [censored] shocked to hear about this. i was trying to be honest and actually pay taxes on all this money but apparently the bank doesn't want me to. i had a meeting with the branch manager who said he actually sees no problem with it and would love to keep my business, but some higher-ups at scotiabank are refusing to let him accept these withdrawals. am i the only one in canada making multiple withdrawals from neteller? why is this an issue? and where does the bank get off refusing these transactions because they don't like me gambling online??? this whole situation is pretty unreal. it seems like maybe they're not telling me the whole story, but if they know i'm not money laundering or doing something illegal, they know where the money's coming from, why don't they want me putting a bunch of money in my bank account? now i have to write an email to the president of scotiabank appealing this decision, and if he upholds it, then we go to the bank ombudsman who then goes to the CEO of the company.

apparently in the US you need to pass legislation before banks start blocking neteller transactions, but here in canada they can block them because they decide it's against their morals.

[xedin]

hmm that sucks. im with scotiabank too, havnt ever had any problems tho.

[Mossberg]

WTFWTFWTF? There MUST be more to the story. It's amazing to me that the bank can even decide to do this type of thing. How is it any of their business whos writing your cheques? I'd be interested to know if anyone else (Canadian) has experienced this type of thing, or if this is just an isolated incident.

Yikes.

[mperich]

Wheelz: how much have you been withdrawing? i am with RBC and have had no problems so far, but I usually withdraw 3k at one time at the most. The last week I have been making large withdrawls thru wire xfers tho, so I will let you know how that goes

Edit to say, this is pretty rediculous btw, and Im sure one of the other big banks would be happy to take on your considerable business as well as your credit accounts.

-Mike

[Scotty.]

im also with scotia - they have no problems with how im making my money

the only issue i have is that they won't recognize my profession as income until i have paid taxes on it for two years. that means they won't do loans, lines of credit or anything like that for me which is definetly a pain in the ass seeing as i want to start buying property soon.

[wheelz]

5k US at a time, and i was doing it like 4-5 times a week for a few weeks. though one day for whatever reason the transactions lagged, and 3 of them all hit my account the same day...

i had done a handful of smaller transactions before, but nothing of this magnitude.

[Mossberg]

Ya, maybe if your making like 10k withdrawals on a regular basis they may decide to look into things.. Also, i suggest you cross-post this in the legislation forum. You may be able to get some more relevant responses there.

[wheelz]

see, that's what gets me. surely i'm not the only person with scotiabank playing online poker. so you've done lots of neteller withdrawals too? why the hell won't they let me do them????

[Scotty.]

[ QUOTE ]
see, that's what gets me. surely i'm not the only person with scotiabank playing online poker. so you've done lots of neteller withdrawals too? why the hell won't they let me do them????

[/ QUOTE ]

i dont even use neteller anymore except for my rakeback. i just use the EFT directly to my chequing account from party.

[Entity]

Time for a new bank account. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]