Chase Freezes Guy's Bank Account For Paying His Dogwalker For Walking Dash The Dog
from the frozen-isis dept
It wasn’t so long ago that we were discussing the problems with the United States Treasury Department’s list of scary names and how it was being used to prevent completely innocent folks from using online services. The ultimate point of that post was that casting broad nets in which to turn suspicious eyes without applying any kind of checks or common sense was a recipe for calling a whole lot of people terrorists that aren’t actually terrorists.
Enter Chase Bank, which reported a man to the authorities and froze his bank account because he paid someone to walk his dog, named Dash.
Bruce Francis transferred some money to his dog walker to pay for services to his pit bull, and wrote the dog’s name, “Dash,” in the notes field. The processors at Chase Bank thought that Dash might be a sneaky way of spelling Daesh (which is the mocking, insulting nickname used by critics to refer to “ISIS”), decided that this was possible terrorist money-laundering, and stopped the payment, froze his account, and notified the Treasury Department that he was a suspected terrorist.
It’s hard to know exactly where to begin, but let’s dig in, shall we? We can start with the fact that Daesh is a name for ISIS, chiefly used by those opposed to it. It’s an acronym of sorts, but it came into being because it sounds like a couple of similar Arabic words that carry heavy negative connotations. In fact, I’ve heard researchers and opponents of ISIS insist that we should all call them Daesh specifically because it pisses them off so much. In other words, it’s fairly unlikely that an ISIS member or supporter is going to call the group Daesh.
And it’s less likely that they’re going to misspell their terrorist benefactors’ group name. It would be like a neo-Nazi funding a group and writing “Not-zees” on the memo line on the check. Sure neo-Nazis are dumb, but if you care enough about the group to fund it, you probably know how to spell the group’s name, right? Dash being a fairly common word only pounds home the question of why didn’t someone just pick up a phone and call Mr. Francis for an explanation.
Because, really, why would someone funding a terrorist group note that on a paper check? That’s the stupidest part of all this. The folks over at Chase apparently thought a guy named Bruce Francis was funding ISIS, calling it Daesh but misspelling the word, and was noting that in the memo on the check. That’s epic levels of dumb. Which is why I had assumed Francis would be royally pissed off about this. But, nope, we Americans have been conditioned at this point, which is how you get this:
Despite the inconvenient mix-up, Francis said he had no hard feelings.
“I think anything we can do to stop the terrorists and the funding of terrorists, let’s do it,” he told KTVU. “And if it means an inconvenience to me and my dogwalker, then that’s a price I’m totally willing to pay.”
Maybe it’s time we just pack this whole America thing up and try again with something new.
Filed Under: automation, dash, terrorism
Companies: chase
Comments on “Chase Freezes Guy's Bank Account For Paying His Dogwalker For Walking Dash The Dog”
Warning to Downton fans
Okay, so you’ve been thinking of naming your new pooch after Lord Grantham’s dear, departed white Labrador… DON’T DO IT. Bad idea to write a veterinary check and annotate it “Isis”.
this is so far past both stupid and bizarre that it is hard to think about it.
Re: Stupid and bizarre
This belongs to the “you can’t make this stuff up” file.
I guess Amazon gets around this by having a prominent Daesh button instead of accepting checks?
So...
Let’s all write ISIS for the memo on our checks now to see how stupid this gets.
Re: So...
I was pretty sympathetic for this guy right ’til the end. Now I’m madder at him than I am at Chase. If you’re happy to accept this nonsense as an appropriate response to terrorism then you’re already well on the way to losing the fight.
Re: Re:
Precisely. I’ll replicate the saddest part which confirms that quite a few Americans have given up to fear:
“I think anything we can do to stop the terrorists and the funding of terrorists, let’s do it,” he told KTVU. “And if it means an inconvenience to me and my dogwalker, then that’s a price I’m totally willing to pay.”
Re: Re: Re:
You defeat someone by denying him his strategic and tactical goals. You achieve victory by achieving your own goals while denying the enemy his goals.
A terrorist is willing to die to scare his enemies into changing how they act, how they think. His tactical goals are to kill a lot of people — the people a terrorist kills are not his targets they are collateral damage — to scare his targets. His strategic goals are what he intends to scare his targets into doing or changing.
Our strategic goals are to live in a peaceful, civilized and free society. Unfortunately, our leaders apparently have not the faintest clue how terrorist tactics work, because their tactics are to surrender to terrorism and hope that will pull out a win. Somehow.
It doesn’t matter how many people get killed in the war on terror. They’re willing to die if it means winning. And the terrorists are winning. They’ve won almost every single engagement so far. All we had to do to win the war on terror was to ignore them and keep living our lives in peace and freedom. Instead, we’ve thrown both peace and freedom away in exchange for imaginary safety. We’ve already lost the war on terror and will keep losing until someone in authority decides they’d rather win the war.
Better keep him under surveillance
“I think anything we can do to stop the terrorists and the funding of terrorists, let’s do it,” he told KTVU. “And if it means an inconvenience to me and my dogwalker, then that’s a price I’m totally willing to pay.”
Unfortunately, this sounds exactly what a guilty terrorist scumbag would say!
Re: Better keep him under surveillance
Not going to feel a bit sorry for him when we hear in a couple of months how he’s stuck on terrorist watch lists and/or no-fly lists and can’t get off them. Because you know he’s already on them due to this.
Re: Better keep him under surveillance
“Unfortunately, this sounds exactly what a guilty terrorist scumbag would say!”
Friend computer, I would like to report one of my fellow citizens for having not quite enough zeal. Sounds exactly like what a commie mutant terrorist WOULD SAY!
Of course he is ok with the money being held – it was NOT HIS MONEY. Ask the dog walker if it is ok that the bank held up his check. Better yet, is the dog walker’s bank going to not charge him interest on his late mortgage payment because Chase held up money he was supposed to receive?
Re: Re:
You must have missed the part where the bank froze his [Francis’] bank account. That does not even consider whether this incident got him temporarily added to various terrorist watchlists, none of which seem to get pruned. If he got on there, even accidentally, he will probably be on there for a very long time.
Re: Re:
Better yet, is the dog walker’s bank going to not charge him interest on his late mortgage payment because Chase held up money he was supposed to receive?
If missing a dog walking check means he can’t make his mortgage payment, that’s just a crisis waiting to happen anyway. He obviously can’t afford his mortgage.
Why does corporate Amerika have to spy on the peasants?
It is a sad state of affairs when the government has enlisted corporate Amerika to help in its spying. How this is acceptable at any level is beyond me. I hate to be one of those people who say they are going to move to another country, especially since there isn’t really a truly free one around. I think someone should start a free country and watch it prosper; you know, something like America used to be and do.
Re: Why does corporate Amerika have to spy on the peasants?
Since corporate America runs the government… you figure it out.
Re: Why does corporate Amerika have to spy on the peasants?
to prevent an uprising. the more you step on someone the more likely they will fight back.
Imo the government is terrified of people standing up for their rights and dedicates itself to spying on it’s citizens to prevent people from asserting their rights.
I think someone desires to be king and make slaves of the populace.
Try something new?
I thought we were trying something new.
I thought that was the problem.
My kid’s got a track and field event later this month. What are the chances that the 100m dash get raided?
I don’t know what’s dumber, the bank freezing the account or the guy thinking this “inconvenience” is the least bit acceptable.
Re: Re:
“or the guy thinking this “inconvenience” is the least bit acceptable.”
I wonder if Mr. Francis knows how far up the ladder this was escalated, and whether he made it onto any lists?
Re: Re:
My kid’s got a track and field event later this month. What are the chances that the 100m dash get raided?
It depends if the winner is paid via check with a note saying “For the 100m dash”.
The banks will read this as funding 100 meters worth of Daesh supplies, which is worse than the dog-walker!
Sounds like Chase Bank paid off Francis under the table to be “ok with it”.
Aw geez, I just named my new dog Osama Bark Laden.
Re: Re:
Name it Mohammed and have the pleasure of being screwed by the US Govt and targeted by angry Allah devotees.
Soap
This is a true story. I used to have a cleaning lady, who was sent to me by a company called Isis. She also used Dash laundry detergent to wash my dirty underwear.
I guess I am in a lot of trouble now.
> “…then that’s a price I’m totally willing to pay.”
The many bounced-check fees, and the resulting late-payment fees, though, are entirely a different matter.
Out for shopping today passed sign: ISS
There’s a pretty big building that I passed that houses ISS. Hmm… I wondered if they needed to change their name. I think it stands for Intelligent Software Solutions. And then there’s the International Space Station, and there’s a company that makes fluorescence equipment. And there are Chase bank branches all over town and I wonder if ISS employees have problems with their banking there. Oh, hum…
Re: Out for shopping today passed sign: ISS
Our airport cleaning staff are also ISS. Perfect camouflage…Quick, get ’em
Re: Out for shopping today passed sign: ISS
Chase = run and run is what terrorists do when caught…therefore we should shut down Chase Bank immediately, after all it’s only a small inconvenience and I’M ok with it….
Chase are all kinds of dumb
Someone signed up my gmail address as their account email. I get balances, detailed spending activity, alerts and private information. There is no way for me to tell them it’s the wrong address that doesn’t involve a costly international phone call and waiting queue. It’s been like this for months. They don’t validate addresses or provide any reasonable way of third parties to contact them. Idiots.
Admittedly, how dumb their systems are pales in comparison to freezing accounts for mentioning a dog.
Re: Chase are all kinds of dumb
DO NOT phone the bank to tell them of the error.
They will accuse you of “hacking” and you’ll have a costly legal battle on your hands.
This world is stupid and I wanna get off.
Re: Re: Chase are all kinds of dumb
No, they will not. I personally had this happen with one of my e-mail addresses and when I informed Discover of this, they thanked me for calling them and reporting the issue.
Re: Chase are all kinds of dumb
Thats what you get when you deal with mega-banks like Chase.. The only bank I have ANY connection with is USAA, and frankly I kinda doubt I’d have to worry about this kind of insanity from them. My normal household accounts have been with a credit union for over 30 years, and once again, I can’t imagine my credit union being this moronic…
Re: Chase are all kinds of dumb
I’m surprised they do this. My bank does not push data out, I have to access my records via https and a logon to their portal.
Sending sensitive information in plaintext over unencrypted connections to a gmail account is ludicrously weak infosec.
Re: Re: Chase are all kinds of dumb
I’m surprised they do this. My bank does not push data out, I have to access my records via https and a logon to their portal.
Same way with my Chase credit cards.
I’ve long suspected that the Mrs. Dash in my cupboard was harboring a deadly secret. It’s phonetically similar to something related to terrorism, and I find that deeply disturbing. It’s Montreal steak seasoning from this point forward, sorry Mrs. Terrorist.
Guess this means many out there will just pay their dog walkers in cash.
Re: Re:
But civil asset forfeiture.
Re: Re:
paying in cash is one of the hallmarks of being a possible terrorist. Apparently terrorists only use cash never plastic.
See something, report something, never think about anything, just do what you’re told.
Re: Re: Re:
This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Apparently – only terrorists know their rights.
This sounded like April’s, but seeing the original piece of news, it doesn’t look like it (check the date).
It’s strange, that guy doesn’t mind having his bank account frozen to stop terrorism, even if he isn’t a terrorist and yet, even if he, because of this stupid incident, might end on some “non-fly” list or whatever sikrit list the government has for “terrorists”.
Now, let’s see… tell this guy that cities are going to ban the use of cars, or that speed limits are going to be reduced by 20 kph or a measure like that, and I bet that he’d be fuming, claiming his right to kill himself on a car (and others too).
When, statistically, car accidents have way worse death rates than terrorism (50 to 1 on average?), with lots more injured and money in damages.
And yet, people agree to have their ass raped because of terrorism, when actually, that rape will do nothing to save them from it.
But come to them with measures to reduce their risk of car accidents, and with real measures that work, and they will go up in flames…
These romans are crazy…
Re: Re:
Now, let’s see… tell this guy that cities are going to ban the use of cars, or that speed limits are going to be reduced by 20 kph or a measure like that, and I bet that he’d be fuming, claiming his right to kill himself on a car (and others too).
I imagine he’d be asking what a kph is.
There is no punishment for them doing this, there is however punishment if they don’t.
Some idiot suspected something and did something, we see this all the time as the ‘power’ to report suspected terror things is spread out to people who shouldn’t have this power.
The fact he is happy to have been screwed over because it was ‘doing something’ to stop terrorism. We have massive banks who have been caught laundering money & not asking the right questions but a check for dog walking fees which is most likely a small amount well thats got to be terrorist funding.
They are ‘deputizing’ more and more people to fight the war on terror, despite the fact we are more likely to die at the hands of a cop than in a terrorist attack. This is a prime example of going through the motions to make people feel better without actually doing anything useful.
Re: Re:
And the cops are the ones killing people because, in the words of Shrub, “they hate our freedoms”. They really, really do.
Personally I think it’s a massive insult to people like Benjamin Franklin who spent a majority of their lives fighting (in courtrooms, in backrooms, and on the battlefield) for the principles this country was founded on so people like this can piss it all away.I firmly believe anyone who thinks like this guy should have to relinquish their American citizenship and move to England otherwise everything the founding fathers fought for is just a waste of time.
Security agency special
This article is written as if the author thinks Chase made up. Magically got the idea over its Wheaties one morning, to start searching for the word “Dash” in payments.
Bullshit. The word “Dash” was provided to Chase on a government list, and Chase was told to report any matches.
Re: Security agency special
I believe that most likely this was NOT provided to Chase on a government list because Dash is a common English word.
It would be stupid in the extreme (not that our government cannot be stupid) to put Dash on the lists of ‘words that get you screened’.
To big to fail, and not to big to pilfer my hard earned taxes. No wonder you have fleas.
Does this mean that if someone sends me a check and I write ‘Sarin Pork Militia’ near the memo field, banks like Chase will freeze the sender’s bank accounts and put him on a permanent terrorist watch list?
That's nothing.
I actually had a bank freeze an account because I gave them a cell phone number as a my primary contact number. Apparently having a land line was an account requirement. This was around 2000. I haven’t had a land line for home service since around 1998.
But yeah, woke up one day about a month after opening an account, and my ATM, savings, checking etc. didn’t work. At least I had enough gas in the car to go to work. They tried to give me the line: “You’ll get a check in 30 days”. They adjusted their position when I threatened to get lawyers involved.
It was a Colorado bank. I wish I remembered their name so I could name em’ and shame em.
Didn’t you know? Liquidity is a crime, but your digital accounts may just disappear at any time for no reason. And if you have a problem with that you can wait for a court date, some time next year.
It sounds like paranoia until it happens to you.
Re: That's nothing.
A land line as a requirement? Give ma a break here.
Whatever bank that did that even back at the turn of the new century should have been told that they were morons.
Re: Re: That's nothing.
Up until 10 or 15 years ago this was a very common requirement, not just with banks.
The Republic is falling right in front of our eyes.
Re: Re:
I prefer the analogy of a closet police state wearing the skinned off face of a free society
Guess we would have never heard about this line using such criteria…
“it depends what the meaning of IS,IS”
Then no doubt he supports having himself imprisoned for the rest of his life just to be certain he has no ties to terrorism.
After all what is one life compared to making people safe everywhere because “terrorism”
Something new for you.
“Maybe it’s time we just pack this whole America thing up and try again with something new.“
Breaking news!!
America’s VIPs – Wall Street’s Successful Capitalists, The MAFIA and the members of the United States Federal Government – already did.
Not that Fascism is actually something new – just something new to non-millionaire Americans.
—
Restaurants and other businesses with Terroir in their name are going to have fun with Chase.
Old Names
In about the year 1830, the English writer Charles Lamb had a dog named Dash. It didn’t work out, because Dash discovered that his will was stronger than Mr. Lamb’s, and that he could just go wherever he damm well pleased, dragging Mr. Lamb at the end of the leash. So Dash went to live with another writer, P. G. Patmore, who, being firmer, had no difficulties with him. We are talking about an old and traditional dog-name.
I doubt there is a single common work in the English language, which cannot be stretched into something else in some other language. Well, you’ve all read Orwell. You all know what NewSpeak is. So why not charge the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) with attempting to implement a version of NewSpeak (“All dogs must be named Rover”), in an attempt to impoverish the language and make it unsuitable for the expression of complex ideas? Further, why not presume that OFAC is doing this with a view to treasonably overthrowing the government from within?
As for Isis, Mother Isis has been around for a matter of five thousand years, and she will certainly still be there when OFAC and a certain Arab political organization have been gathered to the dust of time. We had a Doberman bitch in the family named Isis, and I’ve known a Great Dane named Echo. Echo lived up to her name, very quiet and shy, and only barked under outrageous provocation from the Scottish Terrier next door.
Since we are talking about things Egyptian, we might link to Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
“‘I am OFAC, king of kings’… nothing remains but the bare desert stretching away…”
There is training for the 100 yard Dash going all around the world in preparation for an enclave this summer in Rio. They claim it is something called the Olympics.
Just install a CCTV on that idiot’s entire house. I’m pretty sure the idiot will accept it because terrorism.
Spineless coward.
Sounds like he’s scared shitless. He just found out how easy it is to be declared a terrorist. Realizing that it would not take much to wind up in solitary isolation somewhere with a little torture thrown in, he’s kissing up as hard and fast as he can.
Maybe it's time we just pack this whole America thing up and try again with something new.
We already did that – didn’t work – they just got uppity.
The English
Re: Maybe it's time we just pack this whole America thing up and try again with something new.
*The British
The Time's Ripe
“Maybe it’s time we just pack this whole America thing up and try again with something new.”
We have the guns…and iPhones.
The banks will launder drug money and facilitate political figures money laundering efforts, but they draw the line at dog walkers?
Keep bitching about the state of the country, over and over again. And when a politician comes along like Bernie Sander that wants real change, just keep saying “he can never win”.
TUTORING YOUR DOG TO STAY CALM IF THE DOORBELL RINGS
Learn a few tips to teach your dog how to stay calm instead of barking when the doorbell rings. The arrival of guests will no longer be a stressful time! http://doocare.com/tutoring-your-dog-to-stay-calm-if-the-doorbell-rings/