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Citibank vs. Fabulis: Gay Bashing or Bartleby-esque Mixup?

by Matthew Zuras on February 27, 2010 at 02:00 PM


Does Citbank hate the gays? That's what some headlines regarding the Fabulis fiasco may lead you to believe, but the story is rather convoluted. Jason Goldberg, CEO of Web startup Fabulis, had his site's new account blocked by Citibank earlier this week and questions about the bank's rationale are looming. Fabulis is a social networking site for gay men, onto which users upload videos explaining why they are "fabulous." Goldberg received considerable seed capital from investors led by the Washington Post Company (to the tune of $625,000), and has personal assets invested in Citi's stock. The bank has claimed that the whole issue was simply a red tape mix-up, but Goldberg says he was told that Fabulis was deemed "offensive."

Goldberg has been blogging about the whole blunder, claiming that he was "instructed to come into the branch to view a print-out of the 'offensive' content on our site which was in 'violation' of [Citi's] compliance officer's review of our business account." He further asserts that he had been contacted by several Citibank employees, one of whom said, "Content was not in compliance with Citibank's standard policies."

But in an e-mail on Thursday from Bill Brown, who claims to represent the Manhattan Citibank Branches, Goldberg was informed that "whatever statements that were made by any Citi representative related to the content of your website were inappropriate and made in error." Brown continued his apology with the entirely generic blurb: "We are strongly committed to diversity." He then added that Citi gives money to a homeless LGBT youth organization in New York.

Responding specifically about Fabulis, Citibank claimed -- in yet another statement -- that it was "a technical issue about missing documentation that is required for new business accounts" that shuttered Goldberg's account.

Something smells fishy all around. While Citibank did deny another account a few weeks back (the inscrutable sillyunderwear.com) for "objectionable content," we can't imagine what they would find objectionable in Fabulis. Since all of the claims of Citibank finding Fabulis "offensive" come from Goldberg's own blog, they aren't exactly coming from an impartial source. Is Goldberg crying gay foul, possibly as some kind of scandal-mongering viral campaign to boost his site's brand? Or do Citibank employees simply nix accounts related to 'deviant' sexuality? Or do bank employees, like Bartleby the Scrivener, simply prefer not to do their work, resulting in screwy accounts? We just don't know.

Your entirely un-homophobic (and openly gay) writer has some issues with Fabulis's content, but they are merely matters of taste. (Did Citibank view this video and thus deem Fabulis objectionable? The ability to mistake a two-hour time difference on an analog clock is pretty offensive and downright dumb.) In the meantime, Goldberg's account has been restored, and he has asked his blog readers to suggest whether or not he should move his banking business elsewhere. [From: WSJ]

Tags: citibank, discrimination, fabulis, gay, glbt, jason goldberg, JasonGoldberg, socialnetworking, top, web

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