1. And the details like username [which understandably some will prefer to be a private matter] are important on this investigation... how? I am once again bringing your older statement here for everyone's attention:
seems the exact opposite to me, you're violating the confidentiality of your customer by forcing him to reveal his contact info, and you're not only asking about the source of the fund.

2. Still not explaining about the counterproductive-ness of having OP to ask for his client to provide the info. As mentioned, if we suppose OP did involved in the crime, there's nothing stopping him to work with this client to fabricate that evidence you asked. So...?

3. Thus... innocent? Your words, and I quote, "Since the OP is not the sender of the funds, he has nothing to do with the funds sent to us."

4. Quite contradictive, is it not? "As we have already said, in this case, the OP has nothing to do with the funds sent to our addresses from a legal point of view. When accepting criminal funds to their own addresses, there are other legal consequences for users." So does he have nothing to do with the fund sent to your address or is he involved in it and thus have to face legal consequences?

5. Oh, wow! All of it? But I thought you send him a screenshot of analysis that shows the tainted money from darknet is just 2.2%? With 3.1% at best if we consider everything shady as "tainted"? Tsk... tsk... tsk... now now, which one of your employee published that analysis and which one of you is lying?

So how long you are going to wait and keep these funds frozen? Forever?

Why dont you act like banks and any other financial institution? If they do not want to process transfer for whatever reason that might be they will simply refund. It does not matter that the money have already been in their bank acc. Nothing will happen if they refund money to same account where it came from. This is just some crap you saying to keep OP funds.

Fixedfloat: who are the "partners" you mentioned? Who decides based on what criteria which Bitcoins are good or evil?
Bitcoin is fungible, attacking it's fungibility is attacking the fundamentals of Bitcoin.

LoyceV: read everything here.

In this situation it appears that you are maintaining a win-win situation for yourself. You have withheld someone's hard earned money by showing your power, if you think there is a problem with this fund then why not refund it to the same address instead of keeping this fund. You keep the funds in your wallet and ask the OP for one document after another, I don't think there is any need for these. I would say those who run this kind of business and harass customers should be avoided, everyone should refrain from using Fixedfloat, they make such a scene with customer's funds which harass customers and keep their funds withheld on various pretexts.

The law enforcement agencies excuse is now being used the most, would you please confirm which law enforcement agencies are actually complaining to you that this fund is involved in any criminal means.

Have a look at the terms of service, it goes to the extremely impracticable extent to state in Section 19 Disputes Resolution (19.1): All disputes and disagreements that might arise from these Terms shall be resolved by means of negotiations.

There is zero recourse available for any customer/client to seek a legal dispute. They have not stated which country they will allow jurisdiction in the event there is litigation and for those very same reasons they cannot confiscate $8000 from the OP under dubious and deliberately worded terms and conditions of using their platform.

No government agency is going after them or will go after them if they return the funds to the OP but they are portraying themselves as a law abiding entity yet they themselves are not even registered as a company/LTD/LLC in any jurisdiction therefore they are claiming they are in the Seychelles is an attempt at a smokescreen.

So how long you are going to wait and keep these funds frozen? Forever?

Why dont you act like banks and any other financial institution? If they do not want to process transfer for whatever reason that might be they will simply refund. It does not matter that the money have already been in their bank acc. Nothing will happen if they refund money to same account where it came from. This is just some crap you saying to keep OP funds.

Several things that you might want to explain further:

1. How does asking for OP [and his client's] telegram details fit into this investigation of the source of fund?

- Information from the messenger may be indirect evidence of honest receipt of funds and disclose some details of the source of funds.

2. Why do OP has to be [initially] the one asking his client to provide details and how is it not counterproductive toward an investigation of the legality of fund like what I pointed out here?

- In this case, the OP is not the sender of the funds for the order. According to our rules, the sender of funds must provide information about the source of funds.

3. How is what he provided from his side is not enough? He proves that he worked for it, got them as a payment. Unless proven otherwise, it's all legal from his side in a sense that he's not involved or have any idea in the said criminal activity.

- Since the OP is not the sender of the funds, he has nothing to do with the funds sent to us. If the user had received funds for any service, we would have requested details of the transaction.

4. How do you think OP will know that the fund is related to criminal activity instead of being a pure innocent here? Wouldn't considering him ineligible to prove the source of fund as he's not the sender rather contradict the assumption that he's being involved in the activity [which become the reason why you hold his fund, because he knows it's tainted, otherwise, he's clueless, innocent, and the fund should be released to him]?

- The availability of complete information about their own counterparties, as well as checking funds for a possible connection with a crime, is a direct responsibility of the services engaged in the exchange of funds. In this case, the OP explicitly said about providing money exchange services on an ongoing basis.
As we have already said, in this case, the OP has nothing to do with the funds sent to our addresses from a legal point of view. When accepting criminal funds to their own addresses, there are other legal consequences for users.

5. How much from that fund is marked as tainted? All of it?

- Yes, all the funds sent are related to criminal activity. We cannot disclose the details of the incident publicly, as the disclosure of such data may adversely affect the investigation

Okay, are OP's funds seized by a law enforcement agency?
Which law enforcement agency seizes funds frozen by you?
Where do you operate from?
Have you contacted a law enforcement agency regarding OP's funds? If yes, which one. If not, why haven't you?
What sort of information does OP have to send for you to be convinced to send them their money?

At the moment, the funds are frozen, and no operations are being carried out with them. If we receive a request from law enforcement agencies, they will see that these funds are located at a FixedFloat address. We have all the evidence base that confirms that the funds received by the sender are related to criminal activity. We value our reputation and do not want to be complicit in crimes, because of ignoring which our service may be blocked. We emphasize that we are very loyal to our users, but if we receive information confirming that the funds we received were clearly related to criminal activity, we are obliged to verify this information by requesting the source of the funds.

We work all over the world, based in the Seychelles.

If you will not send them to the OP, can you explain what you intend to do with the funds you have confiscated?

Funds from our hot addresses are automatically consolidated to our main addresses, as funds are sent from us only from our main addresses. Thus, law enforcement agencies see that the funds have been transferred to the addresses of our service. The funds remain frozen at our addresses, and when the frozen funds are seized by the authorities, they are also sent from our addresses.

I'd like to firstly congratulate you, your jumbled explanation on this page only actually managed to make me stare at my screen for I'm not sure how long, it' a long minutes, re-read the entire page and found myself stared at my screen again because I'm not sure what's the best way to approach your situation. I even finally slept on it. So, I think this is the best way to address you and your sea of explanation, and trust me, I've wrote a very-very long post, but then decided to wrote a very simplified version. It's there in my draft, if you'd like to read.

So, simplified, if someone can't prove he's not related and didn't know the user he trade with, his account will be banned. If he can't provide proof of transaction, his account will be banned. If he bought a stolen money and can't prove his innocence, his account will be banned. In short, anyone using your platform, although they're free from KYC, they have to know a full details of the people they're about to transact with prior to using ypur platform or they'll be banned? Not sure if that's convenient, or if the info you inquire can be categorized as a legal questions, and not a harrasment, or extortion.

And what's the parameter of innocence? If A and B are friend and A tried to launder the money he stole from C through B who's about to sell it to D, which then put the money on FixedFloat, and they discussed it through a disposable chat platform, or even meeting face to face, or by paper airplane a-la high school students, or whatever, and since you found that D didn't know anything and somewhat can prove that B is not related and "didn't know" that the money is stolen, they'll get out of it? This means you're the ultimate judge of which fund is frozen and which one isn't?

Next, I still can't understand this statement,


How?

If any, it'll tighten their wiggle room. By having their address published, anyone is one or two steps away from tracking of the user and the true nature of the fund. No body would want to deal with the address owner and we can say good bye to the ML and TF.

But you choose to withheld this piece of very useful information. Clueless users who came to your platform wouldn't know what's about to hit them. All they know was they're dealing with someone --who probably dealt with someone else before them-- and boom, he went bankrupt in a day because all of his lifesaving is confiscated. The terrorist? Well, they sat calmly in their fortress, they've successfully launder their money, thanks to the cluelessness of the cryptocommunity because one of them didn't know the address they had a transaction with is belong to Gru.

Now, let's address your claim of emails from authorities accross the countries, what's the nature of this request? For you to stop harassing and extorting their citizen? Or to cease and desist?

Talking about FATF, were Seychelles fully FATF compliant? Last I check, Seychelles still arranging their regulations to meet thr standard, and from the evaluation taken in 2020, they're just meet 12 of the 40 guidelines FATF issued. Not sure which from those 12 speciefies what and if your actions were included and justified by those 12 compliantce, or if being nosy --and self appointed judge-- like this make you a progidy or a vigilante or an extortionist.

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Beware of this point, it could backfire. We can only imagine what length a competitor would do to defame their fellow competition. For example, without having to submit a proof for bad review, a company called worstexchange could create hundreds of accounts to wrote bad review about his fellow competition, goodexchange. And without an admin who can moderate or decide the legitimacy of those fake reviews, your system would turn into a battlefield of reviews before ultimately collapsed.

So.  If I provide correspondence, all TXID's, confirm the address is mine and provide a screenshot of the seller's Bisq profile then I am good to go?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

You have been avoiding answers for days, this only makes it look worse.  How many times did we ask you the same thing and you only found ways to avoid the answer?  You are digging your own grave at this point.

List a few documents you may request.

As we answered earlier, in each specific case, the set of requested data may be different depending on the information provided from the client, but below we have listed some list of possible requests


In no case do we force you to follow this recommendation, but if you need to provide the source of origin of funds, it will help to resolve this issue faster.

What kind of data can I provide you to prove the coins I received were in fact from a legitimate and fair trade made on a software I deleted?
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Regards,
PrivacyG

That's not up to you to decide. When I pay cash in a shop, they don't ask me where I got the money. Exchanges in the Seychelles shouldn't ask for my personal administration either.

Any response to this?
I take it you don't want to answer it, which is fine, but I'll draw my own conclusion.

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This is another interesting thing: I don't think most law enforcement agencies are very willing to work with an anonymous company in the Seychelles. But apart from that, what makes you think any "local" law enforcement agency holds jurisdiction over international financial crime? Or even better: how do you even know you're really talking to law enforcement, if they're based in a country you know nothing about?

You mean as in morally obligated? As in you're not actually required by Sechyelles, but you want to be a law abiding citizen and friendly neighborhood err... exchange, so you choose to be nosy and ask for the sources? Or is it legally obligated by some international law? I can understand that maybe there's a global law that applied against AML-ATF that we are somehow didn't aware of its existence. But rest assured, you can just state the article number and we're back on track. The question, simplified, is: are you just being nosy or can you point us to the regulation that made you authorized to ask people to provide proof of source of fund.

It'll be quite a different story if by asking to provide, you were meaning to say that your clients just needed to state where it came from without actually providing the proof of transaction, written contract, etc. just like my illustration with the bank staff and my goldfish. For this, though, you'll then intersect with and have to answer LoyceV's question above. And if I may jump in and broaden the hypothetical scenario, the fund is actually came from harmful source and will actually be used for terrorism funding. Is simply saying someone got it from p2p board enough?

Can you please tell us what magical tools are you using that proves some coins are coming from hacks and stolen funds??

So is this customer limitless_777 also being refunded to other address or not?

Okay, hypothetical: let's say you've blocked my funds, and I tell you I got it from the Currency Exchange board. A simple, honest p2p trade. Is that enough for you to return my funds?

All the information about the source of the funds received.  Like what?  In an investigation, what kind of information is requested as proof of origin?  You are being too vague.

I will provide you a hypothetical scenario.  I send 0.5 BTC to your Exchange address.  My 0.5 BTC were obtained from Bisq, but I have long since uninstalled Bisq so I have no screenshots or recorded proof of origin.  The transaction before mine was a hit man payment.  You have evidence of this, I have no idea about it.  What exactly would Fixed Float request me to provide as proof of origin?

So if tomorrow all your customers deposit Coins from illegal sources they did not know about, you are perfectly fine with your company exchanging funds with criminal origin?

If LoyceV receives Bitcoin from a criminal origin, proves to be innocent and forwards the amount to me.  Exchanging funds with criminal history on Fixed Float is now fine?

Why not publish it?  I want to know who on the Blockchain is a known confirmed criminal with strong evidence so I can avoid them.  How else do you want me to have Bitcoin earned from legitimate origins if I do not even know who are the illegitimates first of all?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

But, I'm also aware and understand that different country applies different rules. Maybe IRS staff may asked what the tax staff in my country aren't allowed to. So, since you're stating that you're based in Sechyelles, could you point us to the regulation article specifically mentioning this matter? I'm sure we're one google away to verify that if you can help with the article number.

The companies who earn money from selling their taint-detection-services of course! They're also the ones who have all financial interests in promoting the crazy idea that taint even exists, because without it, they'd be out of business.

This sounds awfully arbitrary. Can you start by publishing your "blocklist", so customers can check if their addresses are on it before sending their funds to your exchange?

So all it takes to seize my funds is someone who victimizes and declares my address is owned by a criminal?

If I get my funds seized and I do not want to submit proof of origin of my funds.  What happens with the funds, do I get a refund?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

after you block suspicious funds, what do you do with them?
Do you keep it for yourself, return it to the same address where it came from or something else?

We cannot make a refund to the same address because the address is compromised. We are starting the refund procedure for the victim.


why can't I find any information about your company on your website?
Are you a legally registered exchanger or just use the possible loophole that limitless_777 mentioned here?

Are you actively working with Blockchain Analysis companies to analyze each and every transaction coming through your wallets?  How do you they work so quickly to give a final answer within a matter of minutes as to whether or not a transaction is related to crime?

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Regards,
PrivacyG