After a Facebook post by a local gun shop indicated that their bank closed their account, the bank and business have spoken about the situation.
“They said that their business interest and our business interest no longer aligned,” The Baldwin Trading Post Owner Jeremy Whitesides said. "So the only thing I could take that to mean since we're exclusively a gun store is because we sell firearms."
The post was made by the gun shop on Monday, claiming that United Community Bank in Cornelia shut down the account they had with them since 2020 when the gun shop opened.
United Community Bank gave AccessWDUN a statement on the situation.
“The Baldwin Trading Post’s social media posting is inaccurate. United Community does not have a policy against maintaining accounts for firearms dealers. Although The Baldwin Trading Post has publicized its account closure on social media, it is not appropriate for United Community to disclose the details of our banking relationship. Nonetheless, we can definitively say that we did not close their account because they operate a gun store,” the statement said.
Whitesides said that the bank came into his shop on Tuesday and claimed the closure was due to suspected fraud from a customer's checks.
The checks were from August, September, and December according to Whitesides and they told him that the customer’s signatures did not match up, causing the closure of his account.
Whitesides said the bank operates just across the street from him and it was the first he had heard from them about the checks that had previously cleared.
“We’ve made repeated prior attempts to address the situation and met with the owner in person today,” the bank’s statement said.
Whitesides recalled an instance from last year when the bank requested a physical copy of his business license by 5 p.m. the same day.
“At that time, I moved a lot of my business over to Traditions Bank in Cornelia which is great, very 2A friendly,” Whitesides said.
Whitesides said that the check with the amount left in the account is still in the mail and the bank can not cancel it and reissue a new one for 30 days if something were to happen to it.
“What if that was a small business and they did that and all of their money was in the mail somewhere?” Whitesides said. “For small, family-owned businesses that kind of stuff is detrimental."
United Community Bank did not disclose the reason behind the closure in their statement, but said they are proud to serve the North Georgia community.
“United Community is proud to serve our customers, and we are committed to building our valuable communities across North Georgia,” the statement said.
