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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

Haha patio11 is great but he sometimes does things slowly that I can do fast. I went to Chase and needed to withdraw $50k from my account and they were willing to do it. I had some $115k at the time in it.

In the end I only needed $15k. There’s some stuff you have to fill out explaining why but it’s not something that requires too much work.

In my case, I was paying a wedding vendor and they only took Zelle or cash. I only needed $15k but I wanted to keep more in case other vendors were going to be like this too.

They asked me why, I told them, and then asked them if they’d make me 100 accounts so I could get around the Zelle limit. They said it wouldn’t work but that they wouldn’t do that anyway.

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> There’s some stuff you have to fill out explaining why

I have never had to fill out anything. My credit union didn't even ask why I wanted the cash, they just asked for a second form of identification due to the amount being over 10k.

I know they fill out a SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) as required by law, but it's seemless on my end (besides waiting while they fill it out).

I always read about people being hassled by their banks, but never credit unions.

Banks are not required to file a SAR just because you withdraw (or even deposit) over 10k. They are required to report it, but the report is not a SAR - having a SAR filed can be bad, because too many filed about you will likely cause banks to refuse to open accounts for you.

> having a SAR filed can be bad, because too many filed about you will likely cause banks to refuse to open accounts for you.

Aren't SARs private? I thought having too many filed against a person would cause a bank to terminate a banking relationship, but not prevent other banks from opening new accounts.

From what I understand, there are other reporting systems in the US like ChexSystems and EWS that do facilitate this form of information sharing.

Idk, maybe I heard wrong way back when. When I deposited a large amount of money, at another credit union, they knew who I was, but they asked for my driver license number (which I verbally told them) presumably for some report on their computer. Also when I withdrew the money from the first credit union, it seemed like they were filling out some ling form as well.

Maybe that was it and I misremembered. All I know was that it wasn’t onerous. I walked up to the teller, described things, and asked for the money. Then it struck me I could ask for the many accounts thing. Then it struck me I could just take the $15k and deal with the rest later. It was a while back but there was slightly more friction than when I usually take out smaller amounts like a few thousand.

Banks have always worked with me when I needed large cash withdrawals. They always like if you talk about it beforehand (e.g., don't go in and say you need $30k for a car NOW, but tell them you'd like it next week).

It helps tremendously if the bank manager knows you, or at least recognizes you.

Mine was pretty straightforward. I just walked up to the teller. I might have misremembered the filling in thing but I could have had my $50k in the next few minutes if I hadn’t changed my mind.

I’m in SF so this isn’t a big amount and I’d been to this branch once before. So it wasn’t like I was Al Pacino in Scarface pulling up shaking hands or anything.

>> I had some $115k at the time in it.

I'm sorry, but you are an order of magnitude out of touch with the average American consumer. Average savings balance under the age of 64 is below $73k.[1] Median savings is below $9k. Most people will, outside of their retirement savings, never have access to an account that has over $100,000 in it.

Never.

Not one day in their life.

Median household income is $80k/yr.[2] Personal savings rate is under 5%.[3] As is noted in the title of the article, there are two Americas.

[1] https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/average-savings-... [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-28... [3] https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-saving-rate

That's true but I'm not sure how it's relevant.

Most people asking their bank to withdraw $50k+ in cash are by definition going to have above-average assets.

I don't think the OP ever purported to be doing something the 'average American consumer' would be doing, just relating their experiences to the linked article.

Yes, generally the only people who would be able to withdraw $50k from a savings account are people who are well-off enough to have $50k in a non-retirement savings account. Doesn't it follow, then, that such a person would be seen by the bank as a "well-off customer" and thus enjoy higher withdrawal thresholds?

They don't have access to an account with 100k in it because that would generally be pointless for a normal person. A great deal of people have 100k in clear real estate or stocks. Only a moron leaves 100k sitting doing nothing but wait for it to get inflated to oblivion.

Haha, a bit snide but not inaccurate. Over the year I had that money in there gaining nothing, I lost thousands of dollars of value. Even just putting it into a HYSA would have been better.

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