> I tried closing my French bank account, but they wouldn't let me (IIRC because the cell phone provider was making ongoing withdrawals)...The French bank continued sending me demands for money.
This is the worst level of fraud. The bank is pretending to be providing you a service here! But instead they funnel your money to someone else.
I had another variation of this, with AIB in Ireland, in case anyone ever thinks of doing business with them. Vodafone started billing me for a defunct account, due to (I charitably believe) an operational error. AIB refused to revoke Vodafone's unlimited access to withdraw funds from my account.
I'd guess the scope of this fraud is in the billions to hundreds of billions EU-wide, but it doesn't seem to have come to the attention of regulators yet.
This is the worst level of fraud. The bank is pretending to be providing you a service here! But instead they funnel your money to someone else.
I had another variation of this, with AIB in Ireland, in case anyone ever thinks of doing business with them. Vodafone started billing me for a defunct account, due to (I charitably believe) an operational error. AIB refused to revoke Vodafone's unlimited access to withdraw funds from my account.
I'd guess the scope of this fraud is in the billions to hundreds of billions EU-wide, but it doesn't seem to have come to the attention of regulators yet.