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PayPal To Pay $7.7 Million For Sanctions Violations
jfruh writes PayPal may not be a bank, but it's still legally required to follow regulations on transferring money — but the company has admitted to a number of violations, including allowing transfers to an individual specifically sanctioned by the U.S. State Department for helping proliferate nuclear weapons. From Ars: "On Wednesday afternoon, PayPal reached a settlement with the US Treasury Department, agreeing that it would pay $7.7 million for allegedly processing payments to people in countries under sanction as well as to a man the US has listed as involved in the nuclear weapons black market. The company neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, but it voluntarily handed over its transaction data to the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)."
Priceless! :)
I support the right of all individuals to arm themselves as they see fit.
Can you really tryst your government? Of course not, that's why you need the capacity to cause devastating harm in order to make them listen.
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i can see how that would go
Why would a Luxembourg based company be fined by US sanctions?
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
PayPal doesn't seem to like to comply with laws. They don't want to be declared a "bank" yet they still act like one, and they don't respect trade sanction laws. eBay also runs into trouble before complying with a law. These companies need some repair work done.
1) They take deposits
2) They make payments
3) They charge fees
4) They make loans
How exactly do they differ from a bank? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Elon hasn't been involved with PayPal for ages. He took his money and moved on to more interesting projects.
This is like blaming Woz for anything you don't like about Apple today.
I'm not sure if this is good or not, but it does represent a valid usage of OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control) regulations.
I've designed international life insurance admin systems that involved OFAC checks. Resolution requires manual verification.
OFAC provides a list of people that you cannot do business with if you are a US company (possibly if you have a US presence, I'm not sure though, I worked for a US company). It is basically a list of terrorists or otherwise sanctioned individuals that the US blocks financial transaction with.(Osama is still there as far as I know, he was our test case).
I've always considered OFAC to be a Federally mandated job program. Same for Sarbanes-Oxley (worked with that a lot as well). Just extra regulation requiring more bodies at every financial company.
I coined the never heard phrase "OFAC is to preventing terrorism as Sarbanes-Oxley is to preventing fraud" (I have an actuarial and IT background, so it's funny to me).
But in this case, initial appearances would suggest that the fine is justified. If the person on the OFAC list is justifiably on the list.
And that justification is my problem with the system. The rules are pretty secret, anyone could end up on the list and not be able to fight it. It's like the no-fly list which even impacted a Kennedy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Interesting for sure.
BlameBillCosby.com
More interesting, but ultimately doomed to fail. He should have stuck with pure stealing people's money, instead of subtly doing so.
That's the nice thing about lists. The government says you're on it, and that's that. No proof required. No means to defend yourself or prove your innocence. Nope, you're on the list, and now we're going to bully everyone and cut you out of all the conveniences of modern life. Those who don't co-operate, well, you wouldn't want to be "aiding a terrorist" now would you?
The "free" world has gone insane, and I despair when I see a whole new generation growing up that doesn't seem to have a problem at all with this modus operandi.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
...they will pay the sanction using PayPal.
Are you Kursad Zafer Cire?
This is way off topic, but I have reset things and tried others. Slashdot can be difficult to navigate at times.
I attempted to but I can't figure it out, and I'm sick and tired of the pure HTML posting and moderating interface (it sucks wiffle balls).
I have enabled Slashdot.org in NoScript.
BlameBillCosby.com
I will not use a service that enjoys all of the benefits of being a bank without having to abide by the regulations of being a bank. Obviously this article indicates that they are being held to SOME of the regulations of being a bank, but clearly they are not being held to all of them. A bank cannot just decide to freeze your account except under specific and documented circumstances.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There was a total of only $50,000 in transactions that were in violation, and from the article it appears that Paypal failure was that their screening system did not work very well, but they eventually fixed it. Should that warrant $7,000,000 fine? It seems excessive to me.
The ridicules costs which we're all paying for through various means are being added by law in order to inhibit a small group of potentially very horrible people from making money is just insane. I was charged $10 by my make for example because of some ACH transaction that occurred as the result of not having adequate funds in our paypal account. Apparently every time you do an ACH transfer where the money is then sent onto people overseas the money must be audited multiple times. It appears the charge is legally required to boot. For anybody who does a lot of international business these charges add up quick. Just imagine how much of a drain it has on our economy. The reality is we're losing more economically than the entire group of 'bad people' being targeted are losing due to the increased economic costs.
Ignorant
Is like the change I have in my pocket. They payed to keep doing whatever they want.
How so? This article states that Citigroup announced the closure of c2it, and not because of any trademark violation.
Here in the US, at least, I would like to see entities like PayPal regulated within the banking industry.
Over the years, I have heard of and even personally experienced PayPal's many abuses. Written correspondence from the company demonstrates they believe they are above the law and are in their own world. Time for that to stop. The topic of this article withstanding as an even larger concern.
I find it odd that my local State representatives will respond to other inquiries, but when I bring up PayPal it's radio silence. I think the problem goes a little deeper -- and of course it may, it's involving money :-)
Just my 2 cents.