Do not believe any advertisements or statements that suggest Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured accounts at FDIC institutions are not insured. The FDIC insures deposits in federally insured banks up to $250,000 per depositor. Claims that a FDIC bank can seize your insured deposits are not true.

Earlier this year, a financial firm that markets gold investments falsely asserted in its advertisements that consumer-insured bank deposits can be legally seized by banks. In its ad, the firm falsely stated that federal law permits banks to "take its depositors’ funds (i.e., your checking, savings, CDs, IRA and 401(k) accounts) and use those funds when necessary to keep itself — the bank — afloat."

The firm declared that accounts are not FDIC insured when the bank takes customers’ funds.

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During failures of insured depository institutions, regardless of size or whether part of a larger enterprise, the FDIC settles financial issues with the institution using authorities granted in the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. Federal law is clear: In the unlikely event of a bank failure, customers' insured deposits would be fully protected up to a $250,000 limit. Since the FDIC was established in 1933, no depositor has ever lost a penny of FDIC-insured funds.

The FDIC contacted the financial organization and its media company to stop publishing the false ads and to issue a correction to its readers. While I don’t know if the ads stopped, those false claims will live forever online. But now you know better.

Read the FDIC article at this link.