Your sites not going to attract anyone unless it's written in comprehensible English.  I can't what the hell you're talking about - it sounds like you're trying to promote a multi-level marketing scheme.

And everyone hates a spammer, so you might want to get a mod to merge your threads.

Don't spam the forums.  You've posted this to Newbies, Discussion and Economics so far.

What would the site offer users that they can't already find on here, reddit, Bitcoin.org, Stack Exchange, the Bitcoin Wiki, Valadmir's forum, etc?

It sounds a bit like you're looking for people to write personal testimonials - unfortunately, that kind of promotion tends to make products sound very sketchy.

It's fine for you to regard Bitcoin as a disruptive technology and promote it as such, but keep in mind that a significant amount of users couldn't give a shit about attaching any kind of political ideology to Bitcoin - they just want a cheap payment method or to speculate on BTC for profit.

Do you have a verified account with them?

You need to open a support ticket with MtGox and you probably need to get a verified account with them before you can wire transfer that kind of amount.

It possibly has more to do with the time zone where the claims are being processed than anything else. 

Dwolla requires merchants to apply more stringent KYC rules to their customers than they did in the past.  You must have a verified account now if you're using Dwolla.  Regardless of whether you sent the money before 25 May, that rule is going to apply to all transactions after that date - such as withdrawals.

It's not even clear that Dwolla is going to continue allowing Bitcoin exchanges to continue using their service - it's rather pointless complaining about MtGox enforcing Dwolla's requirements.

This bothers me too.  Computer intrusion is a crime in the US (as it is elsewhere in the Western world), especially if you mess with or delete critical records relating to customers (it's even listed on FinCEN as a crime).

The HB Gary hackers were arrested and charged.  People have been prosecuted for stealing virtual furniture from Habbo Hotel customers.  The "but...Bitcoin" excuse really doesn't fly when a business has lost the equivalent of several hundred thousand customer dollars to intrusions in a few months and had their critical information destroyed. 

It's not exactly like that because there's nothing inherently illegal about pointing you to public information regarding the rules.  The FinCEN website is full of information about the rules, cases where people have been prosecuted a a result of data received by FinCEN and cases where FSPs have been fined for failing to comply with and enforce AML requirements (the last is especially interesting because it helps clarify FinCEN's actual expectations as opposed to vague, broad principles).

Similarly, AUSTRAC's website is also full of information about the various types of reports which need to be filed with them and under what circumstances.  There's nothing "secret" about the rules - there are entire sections of the website devoted to explaining them (this is necessary because the Act itself and the Rules Instrument are quite confusing).

If it seems like services often go above and beyond what is required by the relevant AML/CTF/KYC requirements, it's because the cases where service providers have been fined and/or prosecuted demonstrate that the regulating bodies expect a much higher level of customer identification and transaction monitoring than their "all about your obligations" type material for reporting entities first implies.

Here's a list of cases where service providers have been fined for not adequately complying with AML/CTF/KYC requirements.

http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/ea/

Notice that even though Western Union was compliant in reporting "bright line" suspicious activity, it was still fined for having inadequate systems in place to detect and report structuring.  Notice also that these fines have been applied as consent orders.  That basically means that the services are accepting the government's interpretation of their obligations as being legally correct.  The day will probably come when someone challenges such interpretations and the actual legal obligations of services are clarified by a court.  Until that happens, though, services will continue to be cautious because the consequences of getting the whole "risk-based assessment" thing wrong are so huge.

Here's a list of cases where FinCEN data has played a role in the prosecution of people for various financial crimes.  You'll notice that not all of these involve what people traditionally think of as "money laundering".  That's because many FATF member countries now regard using money from "any serious crime" as money laundering rather than specifying certain types of crimes as predicate offences.

http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/rp/sar_case_example_list.html?catid=00005

And here's a basic flow chart regarding ongoing customer due diligence requirements in Australia.

http://www.austrac.gov.au/img/ocdd_large.jpg

Here's a basic primer on reporting obligations and what triggers them in Australia.

http://www.austrac.gov.au/rg_9.html#ifti

http://www.austrac.gov.au/rg_9.html#faq

The irony of Maria demanding money from zhou and the CoinExchanger website carrying this message is rich.


For those with short memories, CoinExchanger claimed following the Linode intrusion that the hacker was dumping the stolen coins on his exchange and that they were his to do with what he wished.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67044.0

Apparently Leo and Maria's philosophy when it comes to Bitcoinica thefts is "do as we say, not as we do".  

A great deal of this information is publicly available on the websites of FinCEN and other AML/CTF regulators.  Because it's such a complex area, there are even flow charts, Power Point presentations, and newsletters highlighting current trends.  There are also a great many summaries of cases which have been prosecuted using FinCEN data.

First of all, "the community" isn't a collection of people to whom Matthew or anyone else owes any duty of disclosure.

Second of all, apparently you also knew of these "shady", behind the curtain deals and told no-one.

Third of all, this forum contains a permanent record of you seeking assistance to help people bypass Venezuela's laws regarding online purchases.  I doubt you're going to be suing anyone.

Their services seem aimed at initial identification rather than ongoing customer due diligence, which is probably one of the biggest burdens reporting entities providing designated services face.  

For what it's worth, Australia Post offers in person 100 point ID checks, AML checks and customised ID checks in its own right.  They verify that the documents have been sighted, record the details and send the completed form to the organisation requesting the ID check.  


Hawala is already subject to AML/CTF requirements.  Pretty much any system which seeks to hide the origin or destination of funds is going to run into problems with the Act on multiple grounds.

The continued silence on this question is especially annoying when the profiles of the general partners show them as having been online (phantomcircuit's last activity was only a couple of hours ago) recently.  It's pretty galling for Bitcoinica customers to see Patrick posting in the Intersango thread but ignoring this one.

I only remembered it because it being discussed in an open forum was a WTF moment and you asking to cancel the wire transfers and remove your money by another means made your behaviour look even more suspicious.

While Japan supposedly criminalises "tipping off" under its AML/CFT provisions, Mark did post this openly.  Whether it would count as "tipping off" is up for debate I guess as he refers to "law enforcement" rather than JAFIC specifically or the filing of a STR (you'd think nations would standardise the terminology for these reports).


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78244.msg872685#msg872685

I'm not defending Goat.  What happened was exactly the kind of activity which should trigger further investigation, but just because organisations are not supposed to make customers aware of reports to AML regulators and/or financial intelligence units doesn't mean it never happens.

There may be a legal limitation on their ability to delete it any time soon.  They'd need to run that by their lawyers, but it may be several years before that information can be legally destroyed (it looks like it might be 5 years in NZ).

They did publish their financials in January.  It's a bit of a pain to work out because they list some items in Yen, some in BTC and some in USD but they listed their monthly operational costs as JYen 5,000,000 (USD 62,900).  They listed their monthly server costs including back ups as USD 5,000.

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120201.html

Why not spend some of that money which you would have used to buy Bitcoinica (*cough*) on a lawyer to file for injunctive relief?  After all, you claim that they owe you ~$140,000 and you claim not to trust them - with all of your accurate records it shouldn't be a problem for you to get a court order preventing the from moving "your" funds until your claim can be properly heard.  It would be more productive than getting into a pissing match on a message board and mean that you don't have to trust Bitcoinica at all.