Poloniex is NOT regulated. They are like BTC-e. So, their terms are null.
can you explain what that means to a layman? they wave around their MSB # from FINCEN like it means something. they are based in the U.S. and registered with FINCEN, so i had sort of assumed that customers were better off than with BTC-e, for example.
is that not the case? are they at risk of seizure?
FinCEN number it's just federal registration number. It is NOT a license. FinEN registration does NOT provide you licensing rights to operate as a money transmitter in the States.
Any exchanger who want to operates in USA(this includes Kraken, Poloniex, Bitfinex and many others) MUST register as MSB in ALL the States where they want to make business and then to register with FINCEN
But these exchangers(including Poloniex because you asked about them) are throwing dust in the eyes of the naive people. They register on FINCEN website(it's very simple do that; you can do it yourself by using any name you want) and they are saying that they are MSB.
If you take a look on FINCEN website(at bottom), you will notice that there is an alert toward to this thing :
"Information contained on this site has been provided by the MSB registrant. FinCEN does not verify information submitted by the MSB. Information provided on this site reflects only what was provided directly to FinCEN"https://www.fincen.gov/msb-registrant-searchMany exchangers are lying and misleading. In fact, they have no license, so they are considered as unlicensed money transmitting business.
Conclusion: YES, there is a high risk of seizure in this case.