Big Banks Behaving Badly

Decades of consolidation have made large financial institutions the primary partners for small businesses. Two case studies show how this can go awry.

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-09-24-big-banks-behaving-badly/



One Tuesday night in July 2023, Ron Luessen got contacted by a late-shift worker on the support team for Elcon, a construction firm in the Pacific Northwest. Luessen, an equipment manager, was off the clock, but he was the main point of contact, and the worker was puzzled. “We’re supposed to be working tonight, and this place is closed,” Luessen recalled the message. “What do you want us to do?” There wasn’t any reason for the building to be closed. Elcon was steadily busy, recently picking up business in Billings, Montana, beyond its base of operations in Seattle. The company had even just updated the kitchens.

But the next day, around 120 Elcon employees got the official word: Don’t come in. After 42 years building bridges, highways, rail lines, airports, and basic infrastructure Americans use every day, Elcon was history. “Everybody was just dumbfounded,” said Luessen, who had put 16 years in at the company. He started tearing up on the phone. “Sorry, I’m a big marshmallow,” he apologized. “Elcon took me in, I knew nothing about nothing in construction. They were just very good to me … We worked together, had fun together, outside of work we got together. On a regular basis, celebrating birthdays, if they’re doing a charity walk we’d have 10 to 15 people show up. I don’t know how else to put it but family.”

Several months later, Abilene Eplin, a single mother of three, was building a company that set up electronic payment terminals for businesses. She was able to sign a major contract with an automotive dealership group, projecting revenue of $1.1 million per year with the potential to scale past $2 million. It was the fulfillment of a year of toil. “She put 120 percent into this night and day,” said Jenell Cabrinha, her best friend. “It was something to help her create a life for her kids.”



Yet one day, she went to withdraw funds from the company bank account, and the transaction was blocked. Someone else had claimed that they were the sole owner of the business, preventing Eplin from accessing her money. Eplin provided copious evidence that she in fact owned the business, but 19 months later, she has been unable to pry one cent out of the hijacked account. “My bank should have protected me,” she told me. “Had they done any bit of due diligence none of this would have happened.”

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