Fox Carolina:
INMAN, SC (FOX Carolina) –
A Spartanburg County business owner is upset after he says SunTrust Bank closed his business accounts because he runs a pawn shop.
Even as a boy, Morris Williams often had a gun in his hands.
“I grew up hunting with my dad,” Williams said.
And now as an adult he sells them at the Inman Gun and Pawn.
“This business has been here since the early 90s,” Williams said.
Not only are there guns, but there are guitars, movies and chainsaws for sale. But he said SunTrust Bank cut him off and asked him to close two checking accounts he opened for his business.
“We have an excellent relationship. We have ample funds in the account to do anything we needed to do,” he said.
Williams said he’s a target of bank regulations influenced by the federal government because he’s a gun owner.
“We thought everything was just wonderful until we received this letter,” Williams said.
The letter states, “Under the Rules and Regulations for Deposit Accounts, and as a result of our recent decision, we must ask you to close the below listed SunTrust accounts.”
“The only thing that they will tell us is that we have been deemed a prohibited business type,” Williams said.
Some examples of what could be considered prohibited businesses are weapons, porn products, bankruptcy lawyers and psychic services businesses.
Sun Trust is lying through their employees and spokesmen. Let’s be clear first of all that Operation Choke Point is a brainchild of Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder. But Sun Trust is doing this voluntarily. There is no legal prohibition on doing business with any particular gun dealers. The CEO or the board of directors has made a decision, and a bad one at that.
They lied again when they said that “we must ask you to close the below listed SunTrust accounts.” They didn’t have to do that. They chose to do that, so again, the action is entirely voluntary on their behalf.
If the folks at Sun Trust are proven liars, on record saying things that are manifestly untrue, I wouldn’t want to do business with them anyway. I recommend in the strongest possible terms that gun owners close their accounts with Sun Trust and open them in a more friendly – and honest – bank. After all, do you want your money to be under the watch and “protection” of liars?
