I'm glad that BitInstant is able to anonymously process Dwolla payments, but I was wondering if anyone knew how they get away with circumventing Dwolla's STRICT policy regarding identity requirements.
For example I recently applied for a merchant account at Dwolla and was sent these instructions regarding their requirements:
Dear Dwolla Customer:
Thank you for signing up for a merchant account with Dwolla. We
greatly appreciate your interest in our product.
However, due to the nature of your business; we require documentation
on how you validate your customers. Specifically, your product is
generally age restricted by Federal, State or Local law.
Could you please provide documents of your policies, processes and
procedures to collect and verify your customers’ identities?
Specifically, the following data elements are to be collected and
verified for each customer:
First and Last Name
Present Residential Address
Date of Birth
Social Security Number
State issued identification or passport
What service or internal process allows you to validate items 1-4?
(e.g. TransUnion or VeriSign)
What service or internal process allows you to validate item 5? (e.g.
Lexis Nexis/ Idology)
Regretfully, your account will not be fully active until we obtain,
and approve these documents.
Kind regards,
Dwolla Compliance
As a test, I just bought $20 in bitcoins using Dwolla to Bitcoin Address and there was no verification requirements whatsoever.
If anyone can help me understand why this is the case I will show my appreciation with a little bitcoin confetti! Cheers!
We don't, dwolla require our customers to verify
