Coyote Blog

A while back I wrote on my concerns about privacy and being treated like a criminal in opening new business banking accounts in small town California.  My main bank closed so I had to go with the available local bank El Dorado.  Now El Dorado Bank refuses to take my business and open new accounts.  It could be because I criticized them online, but they say it is because they no longer take accounts that are just deposit accounts, ie accounts where we drop our local cash collections and then ACH it from time to time to our other accounts.

I guess I understand why this is not awesome business for them, but on the other hand all they have to do is make 4 deposits a month and they get to carry my $20,000 average balance and charge me a fee as well.  And they still don't want the business.

Here is what I need.  I need some easy way around the country, often in rural locations, I can turn cash into bits.  I can now scan checks anywhere in the country at my desk and have the check deposited to my account.  But not so with cash.   You still have to find someone local who will accept the cash into an account, effectively turning the cash into bits and bytes that I can then transfer to my main bank.  I don't think there is a solution to this but you are welcome to email me if you know of one.  My guess that anyone who tried to start such a service would be immediately hamstrung by the government who believes in its heart that every one of us is a drug dealer, money laundering, or tax evader, or all of the above.

For 15 years I have been a customer of El Dorado bank in a small town in California, just depositing our weekly revenues in the account and sweeping it out from time to time.  When Bank of America closed a few locations we use in other California small towns, it seemed easier to just add additional El Dorado accounts.  WRONG.  I was told today that because we might possibly maybe make three simultaneous deposits at the three banks that total to more than $10,000 in cash in one day, we suddenly are subject to all sorts of disclosure requirements.  I am used to having my privacy raped as a business owner to set up even a simple banking relationship, but now apparently any employee of mine who might make the weekly deposit is going to have to submit all sorts of personal information, including social security number, to the bank just for the ability to deposit money.  We have been doing the same business with El Dorado for nearly 20 years, and suddenly in the little town of Lone Pine, CA, population 2035, we are now treated as presumptive drug dealers and tax evaders.  It aggravates me that I have to put my employees in this position.

It used to be that it was easier to have fewer banking relationships to manage, but now I am thinking the costs may be running the other way, encouraging more smaller banking relationships that don't trigger whatever limits are set for treating customers as presumptive criminals.