Bank closed my account and kept my money
Banks sometimes remove the remaining balance upon closure without explanation and refuse to return it by claiming the funds do not belong to the account holder. This leaves customers unable to recover their money, particularly when tracing specific transactions like online sales deposits is nearly impossible.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Filing complaints with regulatory agencies like the OCC and CFPB
- 2Filing a small claims court case against the bank
- 3Trying to contact the original senders of Zelle or Venmo transfers to file a recall
- 4Keeping the unwanted account open to avoid potential credit score impacts
- 5Maintaining a linked credit card with the same bank to waive monthly fees
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Citi closed my account but never returned my funds, says "funds deemed not belons to me" :( how can I get the money back?”source ↗
“My final statement shows the full balance removed the same day via an entry labeled only "Other Withdrawal" — no explanation given.”source ↗
“It’s 6k here and they are absolutely my money :( i think it’s the Zelle credit we got from selling some stuff online but there’s no way I can have the online buyer to ask their bank to do the agreement form :(”source ↗
“If I close out the account, it’s bound to affect my avg length of accounts. But since this is a checking account, does it matter?”source ↗
“But I find that having to keep this one bank account open - which doesn’t even have branches in my city to be a chore and I’d like to just close it out.”source ↗