Sorry, I don’t buy that for a couple of reasons:
These are American residents. Why would the being paying bills with accounts from foreign banks?
Why wouldn’t Amex or whoever just reject the payment? Why the demands for all the additional documentation? Why is it any different than a bounced check?
Possible, but unlikely if the individuals, as in the article in question, were long-term U.S. residents, which means that their banking relationships are likely also U.S.-based. Plus, if that were the reason, don’t you think the credit card company would at least mention it as the reason for closing the account?
Perhaps, but they’d never mention it to the press – privacy, and all that.
Personally, I’d like to see privacy laws amended such that if someone cooperates with a news story, privacy laws are repealed such that the other side can put it’s case out there.
Or change the address to an OFAC banned country or do a balance transfer from an account whose parent bank is based in a OFAC banned country.
Banks get audited all the time to make sure we are in full compliance with all OFAC and Federal regulations. Violations can result in being permanently shut down. Maybe Amex jumped the gun, without more details no one can say either way.
I’m sure that literally speaking, it is true. I’m sure that AmEx has Muslim customers that it has cancelled the accounts of. Whether the implied accusation, that they are discriinating against Muslims, remains unproven. The article simply lists several incidents and implies some malicious otive, which may or may not be the case. But the article does seem to be putting a rather large ephasis on isolated incidents. For instance, there’s “First there were hate crimes: the 481 reported incidents in the U.S. in 2001 against Muslims included 3 murders and 35 arsons.” Not that hate crimes don’t matter, but isn’t 481 incidents incredibly low for a nation of nearly 300 million?