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In a quite shocking event, Bank of America, one of the leading commercial banks in the world, closed an account of former PayPal CFO and Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, and that too, without giving any explanation. While this comes as a surprise to many, there have been similar instances in the past with several crypto stakeholders. Botha, who said he was the customer of the Bank of America for 20 years, shared the incident via Twitter.
After being a customer of @BankofAmerica for 20 years, I received this notice today that they decided to fire me as their customer! With absolutely no explanation…. pic.twitter.com/IJu3peiIWX
— Roelof Botha (@roelofbotha) November 18, 2019
As per the pictures shared in the tweet, the bank has asked Botha to stop signing cheques immediately, as they will be returned unpaid. The notice sent by the bank states,
After a careful review of your banking relationship, we’ve made the decision to close your account above. As a reminder, your Deposit Account Agreement, which you received when you opened your account, allows either you or us to close your account at any time. This decision is final and won’t be reconsidered. We’re notifying you in advance to give you the opportunity to make banking arrangements at other financial institution.
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Interestingly, Justin Sun, founder and CEO of Tron Foundation, retweeted Botha’s tweet, adding that he too had been a Bank of America customer for 8 years before getting “fired.” It indicates that Bank of America, which is currently the 8th largest bank in the world, has been quite irresponsible while shutting accounts. Customers with as much at stake as Botha or Sun deserve to know the reasons for which their accounts were closed, and not giving it that can be quite disturbing for them.
However, there’s also a different perspective popping up on Botha’s tweet, which shows that the former PayPal CFO is facing a sort of Karma. A few comments on the tweet indicate that PayPal has been doing the same thing with their customers, that is, closing their accounts with providing reasons for the move.
A Twitter account by the name of Bitgenstein replied to Botha’s tweet stating,
And this is exactly what your company PayPal did to me after 10 years. With absolutely no explanation… #Bitcoin.
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Similarly, Sarfaraz Rydhan tweeted on the thread that PayPal had closed his business account for no reason, and kept $5,000 for six months without any reason.
