<prompt> Human: If you are a freelancer, or have more than one job, or ever sell things on ebay or etsy, or your work pays you with a 1099 instead of a w-2, or you earn commission or bonuses at your job, or are ever paid on an irregular basis, Ally Bank might suddenly shut down your accounts and leave you without access to your money or a way to make deposits for a week or so.They just closed my accounts with almost no warning because I do freelance work, saying we cant allow businesses. Im not a business, im an individual I just got a letter in the mail saying my account would be closed in 3 days and my money sent to me as a check. My wife an I have been panicking to find a new bank and move all our bill pays. its a few days until my mortgage is due, and I cant pay it because my checks arent valid and it takes time for funds to be available at the new accounts were opening. And we cant get my pay checks from work because they go into that account. I called them up to ask what was going on, and heres what they said:Ally: We dont allow business accountsMe: Im not a business, my wife and I are individuals, this is a personal account.Ally: Your wife said she was a DBA when she spoke to our representative. we have no idea why they said this, we dont have a DBAMe: No, she didnt, and were not a DBA, and a DBA isnt a business, its just a different name, an individual can have a DBA, and we dont have one anyways.Ally: You get a different amounts of money from different companies, so youre running a business.Me: Im an employee of those businesses, youre getting paid by ally bank, are you running a business by working there?Ally: Employees earn the same amount every month on a regular basis, and they withhold taxes. If you make money in different amounts or at different times, thats a business.Me: What about people who earn commission? Like someone who sells cars and earns commission? And I have jobs that withold taxes, are you saying you dont allow any freelancers? Thats a majority of people in my city? Ally: If you sell cars for a dealership thats a job, If youre selling goods or services in exchange for money, thats a business.Me: Working for a company is exchanging a service for money, thats what all jobs are.Ally: We saw your wife makes money from etsy, that means shes selling things.Me: As an individual, which can use a personal account, legally thats not a business, thats an individual doing business, which seems to be legally the same as getting a job as far as having a personal account is concerned? How many jobs are you allowed to have before ally considers it a business? Ally: I dont really understand all the differences and rules myself, this is just how they do it.I called back later and spoke to this persons supervisorAlly supervisor: The problem is we dont allow business accounts.Me: were individuals with a personal account, I looked it up and every other bank bases that on if the account is owned by an individual or a corporation. So I can have a personal account at any other bank. Why not ally?Ally supervisor: Well, we just look at all the factors and decide if it seems like a business.Me: But it seems ally has a different definition of business from both the legal definition and every other bank in the world, not as a corporation, but as a bunch of weird rules like how many jobs you have, and that theres no way for customers to know and no warning about whats allowed.Ally supervisor: Yeah, I dont know who comes up with those rules, that comes from higher up.Me: I looked it up, and I could be wrong, but isnt the legal distinction whether or not youre an individual or a corporation?Ally supervisor: Well, we have no way of knowing if you turn into a corporation later, and then we could be in trouble.Me: But were not a corporation. Were individuals. And this is incredibly difficult for us to be losing our accounts with so little notice.Ally Supervisor: Yeah, I dont make up the rules, we have weekly meetings about this.Apparently they have a team that reviews accounts and closes them without talking to you first based on their personal judgement based on those factors. Ally bank is incompetent and dangerous to rely on as Im unable to properly pay bills right now. Dont waste your time with them. Find a new bank if you have them.No other bank Im aware of cares if you are a freelancer, individual sole-proprietorship, partnership, or whatever. You can have all the personal accounts you want.Edit: Jeez people, Im not trying to argue that its illegal for Ally to do this, or that Im not doing anything business related. Im just trying to let people know that Ally Bank has poor policies that arent well defined, can shut you down for various reasons that they dont seem to understand clearly. A lot of people are freelancers, , sell things online, or work for 1099s, and Im trying to let people know I dont think this bank has their shit together.Dont be fooled into thinking that because someone wants to pick a fight with me over whether a sole-proprietorship is a business or not that you should ignore this, downvote, and move on. That argument has nothing to do with my complaint that Ally literally told me anyone who does services for a company in exchange for money will have their account cancelled. Simply put, they cancel accounts without asking based on weird undefined rules that they dont specify publicly anywhere. And many other banks dont.Im now getting downvote spammed by people who are angry with me over this crap. This is absurd.  <response>: Hate to break it to you, bud, but youre completely wrong. An employee performs a service or sells a good for someone else in exchange for payment. If youre a NatGeo photographer, you perform a service photography for, and at the request of, NatGeo. In return, they compensate you. If youre a freelance photographer, you perform the services on your own and sell the result to NatGeo. Because youre selling your work-product directly to another, youre operating a business. Absent any formal filings, your business is--by default--a sole-proprietorship.Youre not getting downvoted because youre hating on Ally. And Ally could probably make their rules more clear at the outset. Youre getting downvoted because youre failing to accept any alternate views, however reasonable they may be.Let this be a lesson to anyone that makes money freelancing web design, photography, writing, uber, airbnb, etsy, selling on ebay: keep your earnings in a business checking account and, if possible, create an LLC to move this money through to your personal accounts. 