Let me state FIRST that I’m going to go on the record and suggest you just let it go and move on. Long Term it probably isn’t worth the hassle and it probably will never become a lawsuit anyway.
That said according to attorney Michael Fattarosi, your account cancellation “may be actionable” under a California law called the Unruh Act.
It has a mandatory damage of $4000.00 per incident.
The Unruh Act states :”All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever”
If you want to consider this you should have a copy of your original paperwork from when you opened your account and you must have opened your account in the State of California.
Heres what fattarosi said:
There are several problems with suing Chase. The first is that no one kept their account agreement when they signed up. I need to see that first to determine whether there’s an arbitration clause governing the situation.
I also need to see if there’s a class action waiver. And if there’s a federal law preemption of state law.
In many ways that agreement controls. However the “we can close your account for any reason” may not.
In general it’s not a great case but in California we have the Unruh Act which may make this discrimination actionable. Unruh Act has been used in situations when businesses denied service to customers with long hair or tattoos. It’s very broad. This is a larger stretch but US courts abhor discriminatory practices.
In Cali even “Ladies Nights” are actionable or even giving women discounted anything ends up in a lawsuit.
So it’s possible but I need to see the initial agreement.
So bottom line if you think you want to proceed sounds like Michael Fattarosi is the only guy even considering it, he can be contacted via his website www.adultbizlaw.com
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If You Had your Account Cancelled By JP Morgan/Chase because You Are In Adult You May Have Recourse http://t.co/F1fBOmCEQB
Sounds like classic discrimination.
it is but discrimination is NOT actionable in and of itself….everyone discriminates every day….Im not gay and I dont have sex with men…thats discrimination by definition but it isnt actionable…..restaurants that say no shoes no shirt no service…thats discrimination. The question here is the basis of that discrimination if they closed the accounts of all black people…THAT is actionable. The question will be can they close the accounts of a specific occupation that is legal…in 49 states they can…in California that will be up to a judge and jury should it go to trial
still think that heads will roll when they try to explain to their shareholders why they had such a hige drop in depositors in such a short length of time
The depositor agreement is the paper(s) you got a copy of the day you opened account and is usually updated at least annually with a notice in statement.
Having been on the banking end everything Fatterosi is saying is true and my guess on how it would play out…Chase will defend this by saying that they have a fiduciary right to protect other depositors by limiting their exposure.
The best I can see coming out of this is a long protracted fight that results in high risk pool banking with a separate fee structure similar to auto/life or home insurance.
As individuals they may be able to prove their record is okay but as a class this gets very ugly because the members have to overcome the reality that too many fiscally irresponsible peers have caused a risk that resulted in losses to the bank.
My guess is that these account closures are part of a new or little known regulation to stem the underground economy which isn’t covered by any discrimination laws.
They were payment processors for my website until 2004. They gave us a 30 day notice to find a new one. Nevada State Bank is where Intuit and Harbor were depositing our funds until 2011 when NSB ordered us to close our accounts due to the adult connection. This is nothing new.
Chase is run by a bunch of crooks anyway.
Did ” Chase account closures” search, by page three I was convinced these account closures were part of an automated TOS violations scan…they are and this was confirmed with a call to an acquaintance in Chase risk/fraud dept here in Columbus Ohio.
They enter varied TOS flags that can indicate illegal or suspect activity. Every account that got a closure letter has at least one activity present, doesn’t matter if it’s on the up and up, it’s a valid reason to close the accounts.
During the search it was interesting to glance at Michigan Muslims who had 50 plus account closures who concluded it would be easier to fight for Federal regulation than sue the banks. Their assumption was that terrorist funding prevention was behind their account closures.
With that I stand by original assumption that these accounts were flagged as underground economy.
Financial institutions, including banks and insurance companies, use a lot of data points beyond the ones that would lead to a discrimination suit by a protected class (age, sex, religion, etc.) to decline to do business or do business under onerous terms. Insurance companies will use your FICA score and credit worthiness to set your auto insurance rates, for instance. The theory is that a guy with a bad credit rating might total his vehicle or burn down his house for the payout.
Porn isn’t a protected class – financial institutions, I believe, can make a determination that the risk from doing business with them is greater than the risk of not doing business with them. Even if there is a suit, in the end, its cheaper and easier to just find another financial institution.
If the response to that is: Yes, but none of them want to do business with porn, that tells you how unlikely it is that a suit will prevail.
Well, after thinking about it for a little bit I think a class action suit would be a complete waste of time. There are so many ways to fight a discrimination lawsuit in regard to porn stars… the easiest being connect a few performers to illegal escorting and that’s about all they would need to prove there is illegal activity within the industry. Then you have the dangers of an unregulated industry and one that blatantly doesn’t follow regulations and I could potentially see how they would consider it high risk.
This is not to say it’s right. I still think Chase sucks, but from a shareholder standpoint I’m not exactly sure I would want that risk either… it seems like the same circumstances that surround porn stars and health insurance. The risk is huge which is why getting health insurance is impossible or expensive…
Does a bank want to risk getting hit with illegal activity violations? Just another example of why porn isn’t “legal” across the country. I’m going to guess if the Bunny Ranch had Chase accounts they probably weren’t closed… that would be interesting see… which sex worker accounts were closed and which ones remained open? At least it would give a clue as to which segments they considered high risk?
The facts have to revolve around legal, financial and/or risk policy… not personal feelings. Being gay, black, female, etc. isn’t connected to any particular “industry.” Especially one with a long history of illegal activity.
I still say fuck Chase. Capital One and BOA can suck it too….
Lacey: As a reporter, I did a number of stories on how insurance companies and financial institutions were deciding who they wanted as customers and who they did not want as customers. Unless its blatant discrimination against a protected class – red lining against doing business with minorities or charging Hispanics and African Americans higher rates because of ethnicity – this is business as usual. Financial regulations post 9/11 and the financial crisis have given them even greater leeway under the law because there are serious penalties if things go awry.
Maybe there is some California exception – I’ve reported on this at the national level and never got into the minutia of individual states. But given the amount of escorting in porn, the potential for under the table money, and the reported problems with websites ripping off consumers or using their sites as a pretext to attack consumers with viruses, can you blame a financial institution for saying this is a risk we don’t want to take?
I can’t imagine the jury that’s sympathetic to an actress whose running a webcam and escorting on the side – all of which would be fair game in a deposition.
@BT
Did you ever run across a retail branch manager willing to tell you how it’s done?
IG carpet store owner pissed off commercial lender by reneging on deal to give him deal of a lifetime…commercial lender walks over to retail desk…how do I shut his ass down? Retail branch manager pulls up account for review and flags it for possible churning or floating and boom two days later mr carpet guy has his loan called and between 30-60 days depending on account type & flag to close accounts.
Since this gets run as part of batch during the evenings routine TOS violations scan …nobody is gonna say anything more definitive than it was flagged during routine TOS scan.
Chase isn’t gonna say why or what specifically caused them to flag accounts but I can damn sure bet it won’t be the real reason…somebody for what ever reason got a bug up their ass.
Ps. It hasn’t changed much from when banking was limited to counties in the mid 80s
Why would you help promote this? I thought you were a libertarian, South. If JP Morgan-Chase doesn’t want to deal with porn people, why should they have to? The bank belongs to them, not their customers. To say that they have to do business with porn people, simply because it’s irrational not to, is exactly like saying that people shouldn’t be able to look at dirty pictures simply because doing so is irrational. If you’re going to ask for the freedom to be irrational, you have to be willing to give it to other people too. Have some fucking consistency.