All of the American folks here complain how difficult it is to open a Swiss bank account. But as a Swiss who lived in a US for a year, my Bank of America account although it did have a few thousand dollars was inactive for 3 years, and they closed it and transferred the balance to NY state. Apparently this is the pathetic US law to push dormant account funds towards State funds for use.
The bank told me they tried to contact me by sending post to my US address. I told them its not the 17th century that you are sending post. An email, SMS or other media channel communication is mandatory before you do such an act. US is still living in the middle ages in terms of banking and still pay out cheques. Who the hell uses cheques in 2025? People are talking about crypto now adays and digital currencies. There are Neo banks now who understand customers and residence location isnât an issue anymore.
In Switzerland I checked, this can happen after 10 years of account inactivity, but this is also not a hard and fast rule. I donât blame the US banks as this is regulated by US State and Federal policies, and the US government policies aim at collecting unused funds and redirecting them towards their own needs, good way of getting money from people.
Plus the process to reclaim those funds is long and chaotic. Simple conclusion is that, the US is good at stealing peopleâs money and then it makes it more difficult and costly to recover it. So all Americans who complain they have issues with Swiss banks, please read this post clearly and understand how the US government treats non-US domiciled / non-US citizens to steal their money.
Had similar experience with BOA. The credit union I used in the US did not deactivate my account due to inactivity for at least 7 years ⌠BOA is a pirate âŚ
Post is fine, not everyone wants that sort of message via phone or emails. Question is why didnât you update your address with them when you left the States?
I had a sort of similar situation, albeit with the contents of a safety deposit box rather than a bank account.
Years, and three bank mergers, had passed since I checked on that box. When I finally did I was surprised to learn that it had been declared dormant and the contents transferred to the state of Illinois. We were still paying the box fees, but some how the connection got âlostâ in one or other of the bank mergers, and at some point the box was declared dormant.
The good news: reclaiming the contents was easy peasy. The new bank gave me a form verifying when the transfer happened, and pointed me to the online address of the relevant department at the state of Illinois website.
Filled out a claim form on the state website, and in a short time we were told the contents of the box would be sent to us. Since I was in Switzerland I had the package sent to a family member stateside - I canât remember if that was for my convenience or if sending outside the country was a problem. Iâd guess it might be even easier with funds rather than âstuffâ.
Truly, reclamation was a walk in the park. Nothing complicated, at least in the state of Illinois.
If you havenât started the reclamation process, you might be surprised at how easy it can be. The bank should be able to help you get started.
In Switzerland it is 61 years (after 61 years any account balances are lost). After 10 years the banks will move your account off the live system, meaning the account has to be re-activated by providing passport copies etc in order to be used again.
At the end of the day you have nobody to blame but yourself. You did not keep your mailing address up todate as set out in the T&C, did not bother to inform yourself of the operating rules for a non resident account and now itâs eveyoneâs fault but yoursâŚ
Well, I have reservations pointing fingers at the BOA account holder - only because I also know, from experience, that BOA will âclaimâ they will send written communication outside the US. But in reality, neither BOA nor most other US based banks actually send written comm outside the US via mail. They all have fears of fraud concerns, and perhaps also regulatory requirements they have to meet or may not want to meet.
In another post, I did mention that one has to be physically present in the US and provide valid US legal (required) documentation to open an account.
However, I have also been told directly by BOA client advisor(s) that they will open an account for foreigners, say from south america, based on their passport and foreign DL (no need for social security or EIN or ITIN number), as long as they can provide a US address and US number. They did it for my daughter (no ssn, no EIN, no itin) just because I was an account holder there.
I shudder to think of their implementation of AML, etc. LOL
These assets will be liquidated and transferred to the Swiss federal government if no beneficiary has submitted a justified request within a given delay.
although I donâs see whatâs the âgiven delayâ, another 60 years ?? Actually, look at the publication period, looks like itâs 5 years
Their online banking system didnât accept foreign mailing addresses, if I recall when I tried to change it. Its not my fault, no bank in the world does things like this. This is the real America, who is motivated on stealing peopleâs money. My account should not have been closed and my money transferred, it could have been just set as dormant or frozen. There is no damn need to close it and transfer money to the state if there was no transaction made. Your point is really useless.
The law is meanât to take advantage of the public, who entrusts banks with their money. Thatâs why American banks are losers and will always be. I remember paying like 30/40 USD just for local wire transfers from my BOA to Chase checking accounts, then somebody told me use cheques its free. I mean come on give me a break, who does that, in Switzerland domestic transfers are free. American banks and the American government are the real thieves, and its sad the public doesnât realize this. The American banking system is the worst in the world, and they are ripping their own people, thatâs why people in the US are living in misery, with all that CREDIT SCORE crap, so they pay back more interest to the bank. All this credit score crap is just that you are taking out 30 days loans on everything when you swipe your credit card to buy something simple as a loaf of broad or pay for parking. The banks wants Americans to use more credit cards to take out as much as short-term loans as possible, so they can earn more money back on interest from everyone. Who is the real thief here? Every idiot knows this, just pay for small regular items via a debit card, settle the payment right away not after 30 days.
I can claim it, it was just like hardly 2000 or 2500 USD. I kept it above the threshold of 1500 USD as they said. To reclaim that money the amount of documents I need to send, get them translated into English (as Americans donât know any other language than their own, even its not their own came from the British, but when you ask them for their origins they always point to Europe, but cannot speak a single damn European language other than Spanish due to their southern influence) and verified by notary in Switzerland will already cost a few hundred, then from there they would send a cheque (as if it is still the 16th century), which then not even every Swiss bank accepts, and some that do, charge a heavy fee. So at the end of the day, American banks openly steal money in day light. Who in their right mind would want to go through that hassle and maybe after that I maybe could only get half of the money after deducting all the expenses? Screw American banks, the Swiss are the best, at least they wonât steal your petty cash.
Let me tell you another thing. After I left the US, a few years later my ex-employer in the US told me they paid me less like 40 USD, which I never realized, it was due to some law change that they had to give me back that amount. So they sent me a cheque and letter to my Uncleâs address which was listed as my registered residence in the US. I never got it cashed, because I was never in the US after that.
Then the IRS sent me a tax bill via post on that for like 12 USD or something, and asked me to pay for it, which I did. Question is, how did the IRS find my address in Switzerland then, I never gave it to them? The thing being they can find people if they want their money back even a few bucks, but if they want to take my money, they wouldnât even bother about finding me. Now sometime ago my Uncle got a letter stating that the 40 USD something is unclaimed and it will be transferred to the State. Hell, for what I care, they can take everything, I hope their State Treasuries go bankrupt, the dollar is suffering anyway, would be a matter of a few years when the dollar ceases to exist!
If the American government is really so sincere in giving me my money, I can give them my IBAN, but why would they send it to me when they can reclaim it themselves and use it for their own purposes.
Moral of my story is: If they need money from you, they will find you, if they want to take your money, they donât really need to investigate and locate or track you down.
I wonât get poor for like 2000 USD, hardly a few days vacation costs more than that now days to be honest, but the illegal, unjust practices is what will screw them one day. Karma.
Same thing like now, even Swiss companies are filing back cases that they want their money back from Trump after his tariffs were declared as illegal by the Supreme court, and its not only Swiss companies its many other companies globally, and since Trump has spent already all that money in his war mongering agenda, their treasury is more empty, so they add another blanket tariff globally to get more money. Just waiting for the day where majority of the world says, we donât want to trade with you anymore, build everything that you need yourself, because your policies are childish, taking a U-turn everyday, its not like your running a country, you are acting as an immature stubborn ignorant and arrogant child who runs a SME. So if you screw someone, there is a day where you will get screwed back, so I always say, let nature take itâs course. Plus who pays the tariff? Its the importer! and the importers are American people and SMEs.
Bottom line is the American government and American banks are stealing from you guys. I have nothing against the American people or citizens, they are very friendly people.
First of all there are a lot of people on here who know way more than you do about banking, including myself. We all that banks regularly freeze and/or close accounts etc⌠as required by law and policy. And they are not going to do anything that would endanger their banking licence not matter what you want or think.
The fact that you were not allowed to use a foreign email address is simple you were not entitled to use that product. Again this comes back to you not doing your homework - reading the T&C etc⌠and abiding by them etc. If you want to continue on your merry little way blaming eveyone for your mistakes so be it, but donât be surprised when it does not work out for you.
Now we are done.
Banks close and freeze accounts because itâs tempting to steal peoples assets and liquidity simple fact, and this is what this lunatic Trump is trying to do now with tax payers money. There is no law and policy in the US, they act against United Nations and international laws. Bullying people is what the US is good at, de-dollarization is coming and they will face it soon.
The fact that you were not allowed to use a foreign email address is simple you were not entitled to use that product.
Get your facts right, this was not the case.
If you want to continue on your merry little way blaming everyone for your mistakes so be it, but donât be surprised when it does not work out for you.
I am not blaming anyone on the forum, just looking if people had similar experiences. If you want to be ignorant and arrogant fine, one day you will get screwed as well one way or the other, then donât complain about it, its just a matter of time my friend. Banking policies in the US are the worst, I would never store a single penny there. The IRS are thieves as well, currently the biggest thief and pedophile of them all is Trump himself.
Who said that I was complaining about the banks, its the US government and state law who makes these policies, banks just comply with them, but the law is aimed at targeting un-unused or un-claimed assets.
US government should be ashamed of themselves if they want to steal âtrinkgeldâ money.
Banks are neither owners nor beneficieries of abandoned accounts. Banks are custodians. Period.
The US law and regulations empower banks to turn over âabandonedâ funds to the US Govt for safekeeping and management. US law allows for recovery of the mmoney for a certain additional period. There are processes for that, to get the money back.
Learn, follow the process. US is a different country than CH. Just like every other country, each country makes and follows itâs laws.
Ignorannce onn your side or laziness does not entitle you to use practices of one country to apply to other countries.
To emphasize what has been said several times in this thread - the assets in your account have not been âstolenâ.
What has happened is that because the account has been declared dormant or abandoned, custodianship of the assets has been transferred from the bank to the State of NY.
The money is there, waiting for you to follow the process to reclaim it.
I think this was linked before, but nonetheless⌠From the relevant pages at the NY State Comptrollerâs Office:
âAfter a period of inactivity, lost money is legally considered abandoned property and turned over to the New York State Comptrollerâs Office, where thereâs no fee or time limit to claim it.â
As per my post upthread, in my experience reclaiming assets from the state of Illinois, it really was an easy process. Follow the steps outlined in the linked NY State Comptrollerâs office.