Complaint Review: Banco Popular

On Thursday March 18th, a young entrepeneur was excited that all his dreams were finally coming to fruition. A college graduate that survived two tours in Iraq and recieved the purple heart after saving the lives of seven people from his brigade (one of them, the grandson of Gen. Colin Powell), Sharif King was happy about nothing more than the fact that his business
was finally coming together.

With a certified check from HSBC in hand and all the required documentation, King entered into the Banco Popular branch at 171 street & Broadway in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, only to have his dreams crushed and to be openly humiliated by the bank's staff. Banco Popular (or "Popular Bank" in English), founded primarily to market it's services to Hispanic customers, also employs only Hispanic employees and as King inquired about opening a small business checking account at the Bank, he was quickly met with the same racism that the bank has been accused of for years. "I sat there for 35 minutes while they passed over me to wait on hispanic customers and they told me that unless I spoke spanish, I would have to wait for someone else." King, who does speak spanish refused to let on that he was fluent citing principle. "This is a country that bends over backwards to accmomdate non-english speaking people and you're telling me that in my own country, I am now second class because I may not speak spanish?", King vented. But apparently, the problems were just starting.

King states that when he finally did get helped, the branch manager, Yaniris Nunez, made racist remarks about him and he even encouraged the employees to review King's identification and documents with addedd scrutiny because he was black. "Make sure you check everything twice..you know how these blacks are. I bet you the check isn't valid, I'll bet you $10. I don't know why these monkeys don't go to their own banks. We have ours, let them get their own," Nunez said. However the entire dialogue between the branch manager and the employee took place in Spanish in an attempt to prevent King from hearing it. "They spoke in Spanish the whole time becaue they were under the impression that I couldn't understand.

I'm a tall dark skinned mail with not even the most remote latin physical feature...but I am educated. I took spanish lessons all throughout childhood and into my college years because I knew it would be an advantage to my career in the future",
King said.

King says the branch manager blatantly spopke the racist remarks in front of him as if he weren't even there occassionally breaking in English to ask him where he got the check from, what he did to get paid the amount of the check, and why he chose to open the account there instead of "somewhere else". "I couldn't believe she had the nerve to ask me those questions", King said. Both the branch manager and spokespersons for the bank refused to
comment.

Tela P

Heritage_web_victim
NEW YORK, New York
U.S.A.