LR was around for quite some years - the US indictments quite recent.
Clearly amateurs when compared to HSBC, Barclays or Wachovia Bank...
This is my biggest concern. Liberty Reserve had been around for a long time before I even joined up. The only reason I used it was not because of anonymity - that was just a bonus feature. It was nice having an account number which didn't reveal much than an email which somebody could use against me if they had ill intentions - but it was the no chargeback feature which appealed to me most. With PayPal I was subject to so many fraudulent payments from crooks and thieves, and even with supposed seller protection I lost quiet a bit to thieves. I have no problem with my information being shared with the right people and for the right reason.
The reports state that Liberty Reserve submitted fake documents and lied - so why was this not caught out by the person overseeing the verification? Surely the verification team should be held responsible for their negligence too? Reports also state that this was because they were operating with no license, so why had it taken this long to have something done about it?
Users of Liberty Reserve were also led to believe that the company was complying with AML policy. Even though I was never asked for much information, I believed that should I reach a certain threshold, I would be asked for verification which was fine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130424142948/https://www.libertyreserve.com/en/home/amlpolicyEven if the system was used by mainly criminals because of it's ease of access and anonymity, it had legitimate uses too. It's just a shame that the owners knew of the problem and did nothing about it. Openly admitting that your company is used by criminals and that pretty much nothing is going to be done about it is ignorance. Not everyone uses LR with bad intentions, I know companies will suffer greatly because of this and it's a shame that the legit users are now just seen as necessary collateral damage.
