JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) is abruptly closing business accounts as well as executives’ personal banking accounts in its latest scandal.
This is not the banks first scandal closing or freezing accounts without warning or explanation, but more on that later.
JPMorgan Chase canceled vaccine skeptic Dr. Joseph Mercola’s business account and the personal accounts of Mercola Market’s CEO, his wife and the company’s CFO, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Mercola Market is a Florida-based health business, and Chase abruptly closed its accounts for unspecified reasons, according to the documents. Chase sent the letters on July 13, notifying the company it had until September 10 to shut down account operations and informing CEO Steven A. Rye and his wife, as well as CFO Amy Legaspi, that they have until August 11 to close their personal accounts and open new ones at another bank,” says Daily Caller.
“After careful consideration, we decided to close your accounts because of unexpected activity on this or another Chase account,” the letters stated.
“I was told for legal reasons they cannot tell me why they are closing the accounts,” a Chase representative told Rye in a voicemail.
The representative told Rye to send him the letters he received to begin the process of restoring the accounts but repeatedly stressed there was no guarantee that the effort would be fruitful. “We are going to try because you’re a good client of our institution,” he said.
“I believe they cancelled all of the accounts because of Dr. Mercola’s (our employer) opinions,” Rye told the DCNF. “He … co-authored the best selling book The Truth About COVID-19 which exposed the likelihood that this virus was engineered in a laboratory funded by the NIH. He correctly predicted the vaccines would not prevent transmission or infection of COVID-19. He has been directly censored by the Biden administration and is being targeted by politically weaponized agencies.”
“For privacy reasons, we can’t discuss customer relationships, but we don’t close accounts because of political affiliations, and we didn’t do so in this case,” Chase told the DCNF on Wednesday.
Also Read: Banks Are Now Closing Thousands of Accounts Daily
JPMorgan Closes Religious Non-Profit Bank Account
In May, republican attorneys general from 19 states said the bank is “persistently” discriminating against its own clients and closing bank accounts without warning.
The law enforcement officials, led by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, sent a letter to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon stating that the banking giant’s practices go against the company’s own policies on equality, per Business Insider.
The letter, which has now been published by the Wall Street Journal, states that JPMorgan has repeatedly discriminated against customers based on their religious or political beliefs.
“It is clear that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Chase) has persistently discriminated against certain customers due to their religious or political affiliation.
This discrimination is unacceptable.
Chase must stop such behavior and align its business practices with the anti-discrimination policies that Chase proclaims.”
The attorneys general cite the sudden account closure of a religious liberty organization as an example of the bank’s discriminatory practices.
In May 2022, Chase abruptly closed the National Committee for Religious Freedom’s (NCRF) checking account.
NCRF is a ‘nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the right of everyone in America to live one’s faith freely.’
When NCRF inquired about the reason Chase closed the account, multiple bank employees stated that the decision came from the ‘corporate office.’ Specifically, NCRF’s executive director “was informed that a note in the file read that Chase employees were not permitted to provide any further clarifying information to the customer.’’
A JPMorgan representative told The Journal: “We have never and would never exit a client relationship due to their political or religious affiliation.”
Also Read: Bank of America is Freezing Accounts in New Scandal
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