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Joking About Giving Money To ISIS Can Cost You Money (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-to-lose-money-and-other-curious-ideas dept.

Reader rudy_wayne writes: A person who was using Venmo, an app that allows people to send money to each other via their phones, sent $42 to repay a friend, and jokingly labelled it "ISIS Beer Fund". He immediately got an e-mail from Venmo questioning the purpose of the money. Although he tried to explain "The $42 was payment to a dear friend for two pitchers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager" he was informed "Due to OFAC regulations, we are not allowed to give the funds back to you or issue a refund." The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control is a 54-year-old institution, quietly working to keep money out of the hands of America's enemies.From the report, "It turns out -- shockingly -- this isn't the first time someone's Venmo transaction was cut off at the knees with a reference to subjects that are a matter of national security. Venmo won't explicitly say what words will trigger blockage, Gawker pointed out in October.

6 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Did you expect a different result? ~nt~ by Calydor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Meanwhile, terrorists are smart enough not to label a money transfer as ISIS BOMB FUNDING.

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  2. Re:Did you expect a different result? ~nt~ by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah they probably memo that as "Payment to a dear friend for two pitchers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager"

    And the Department of Financial Security Monitoring (comrade) goes "Oh that's so nice - we approve of that".

  3. Same as drugs by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 5, Informative

    I once transferred money from my savings to checking account and wrote 'supplies for meth production' in the optional for section and it was rejected.

  4. Re:Did you expect a different result? ~nt~ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, and that explains why the money didn't get to the recipient, but does not explain why the money was stolen from the sender.

    We never should have let the authoritarians get away with their war on politically incorrect drugs. It led to our government being able to steal whatever they want.

  5. Re:Did you expect a different result? ~nt~ by Sperbels · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Knowingly ignored? Because four English letters that don't even represent the name of the terrorist group, but do represent many other things: Accidentally typing a common English word twice, An Egyptian god, a lunar crater, and asteroid, many geographical locations... a whole bunch of stuff actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  6. Where does the money end up? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Surely the money can't remain with Venmo?

    I would have thought that it would have to be remitted to a government department complete with a report detailing why it was seized, who the people involved in transaction were etc etc. Otherwise you have a massive incentive to a company to make up reasons to seize money and you are not providing any evidence to the security forces that would want to track money to terrorist organisations.

    If the money is sent to OFAC or similar it should be possible to have that money returned to you on completion of 200 forms and waiting 11.5 months.