[Resolved] Caution about OKPay [Turns out they're probably fine]

[Nova!]

**Update**
The information contained below is for historical purposes only.  I'm leaving it basically intact so that anyone else who comes across this thread (who themselves probably had the same misgivings I did), can review it later and come to their own conclusions.  I'm not endorsing them, but my stance has changed to the point that I feel as comfortable with them as I would about anyone else i.e. Dwolla or PayPal.
**End Update**

To the best of my knowledge they have not taken anything of value from anyone, however they are asking for AML documents and their onus for the request is that it is required for compliance with the BVI Financial Services Commission AML initiatives. In fact a search of the BVI database of registered entities turns up no record of either OKPay or their supposed parent company UWC Financial Services Ltd.  I was also unable to find either company in the BVI register of companies.
You can check this for yourself at http://www.bvifsc.vg/en-gb/regulatedentities.aspx

In fact the only trace I could find of either company is a company that says it used to be UWC Financial Services Ltd and is now calling itself Mayzus.  They aren't registered either.

Considering the amount of paperwork they are asking for before you are allowed to withdraw a cent I find it appalling that they don't provide any sort of legitimate information about themselves.  Not an operating license number, an ombudsman or anything.  There is no customer service contact information and their customer support seems to be all but non-responsive.

They don't even link to the FSC site or explain specifically what regulation is triggering the request for all this information.  I would think if you're requesting passports, bank statements and utility bills that you should have a legal obligation to do so and at least be able to cite the law requiring it.

So be careful, not properly registering as a Money Service Business, Money Transmitter, Bank or Financial institution is why these exchanges including MtGox keep getting shut down and seized by the authorities.  It's not like there is some huge conspiracy against them, it's just laziness on the part of the owners.

Therefore use extreme caution, OK Pay looks like it could drop off the map and no one would be able to find them.

Thanks for listening!

[Nova!]

I'm updating this to say that I was actually able to locate a customer service phone number for OK Pay on their website.
+44 20 8123 2193
I wasn't able to call it due to a temporary international number restriction on my personal line and since this isn't job related I can't use my business line.
The number appears to be in the UK somewhere, I'm pretty sure the BVI is part of the UK so the number may in fact be legit.
If anyone wants to try calling it and letting me know they were able to speak to someone I will gladly retract that part of my previous comment.

[Nova!]

Dang it, I so wanted them to be legit.  They would probably be perfectly fine if they had legal authority to operate.

For anyone else who has deposited funds with OK Pay, I heard back from the Financial Services Comission and OKPay does not appear to have authority to operate, not does any of it's parent companies.
This means even if it's working for you right now, you are very, very likely to lose money in the near future as they are shut down by regulators.

Dear Sir,

We refer to your email queries below. We will make some preliminary enquiries and revert back to you in due course. Additionally, please forward any supporting documentary evidence for our review. Thank you


Kind regards

Dwayne A. Thomas
Enforcement Officer
Legal & Enforcement Division
Financial Services Commission
Pasea Estate, PO Box 418
Road Town
Tortola VG1110
British Virgin Islands

 

Tel:   (284) 852-4065
         (284) 494-4190

Fax:   (284) 494-5016

Email: thomasd@bvifsc.vg
Web:  www.bvifsc.vg

[Coinbuck @ BTCLot]

So be careful, not properly registering as a Money Service Business, Money Transmitter, Bank or Financial institution is why these exchanges including MtGox keep getting shut down and seized by the authorities.  It's not like there is some huge conspiracy against them, it's just laziness on the part of the owners.

Mt.Gox wasn't shut down/seized by authorities. Pure FUD.

Their Dwolla account was locked. Dwolla account locked != shutdown/seized.

[Nova!]

So be careful, not properly registering as a Money Service Business, Money Transmitter, Bank or Financial institution is why these exchanges including MtGox keep getting shut down and seized by the authorities.  It's not like there is some huge conspiracy against them, it's just laziness on the part of the owners.

Mt.Gox wasn't shut down/seized by authorities. Pure FUD.

Their Dwolla account was locked. Dwolla account locked != shutdown/seized.

It's not FUD.  If you read the full text of the warrant, their wells fargo bank account was seized as well as their dwolla account.  It was seized because they failed to register as an MSB with the US Treasury department and then they declared under penalty of perjury that they WERE NOT engaging in international transfers of money.
This bank account was owned buy Muttim Siggilum and opened by the founder of MtGox.  It was the final destination for US funds from Dwolla.

MtGox at this time has no authority to operate within in the USA.  This would not be a big deal except that their owners are in fact in the USA, the japanese entity is according to my understanding just a shell.

I can sort of understand how they might in fact declare it, after all MS was not itself engaging in international transfers of money.
Their problem is that the US Treasury department disagrees with that assertion.  MtGox vouchers are proof that they were engaging in money xfr and not just functioning as an exchanger.  Unfortunately, now they will be spending the next several years sorting it out.

This thread isn't about MtGox though.  It's about OKPay.

Don't read me wrong here I actually like OKPay. 
They provide an extremely valuable service and appear to have been around for awhile. 
However considering the amount of documentation they require to validate an account, and considering the fact that you cannot make any sort of spend, xfr or withdrawl without providing documents in sufficient quantity and quality to pull off complete identity theft and considering that those documents and the way they are asking for them is not sufficient to comply with any Know Your Customer anti-money laundering initiatives that I am aware of.  I think it is prudent for anyone, especially new customers, to perform their own due diligence prior to depositing any funds.

Even if they are an awesome company with a stellar reputation, the fact is they do not appear to be registered with the entity they claim to be regulated by.  That is a serious red flag.  The other serious red flag is that they stubbornly refuse to provide any sort of information that could actually be used to perform due diligence on them.
So again, everything may in fact be fine, but be careful.

[Matthew N. Wright]

I love it. Headline "APPEARS TO BE A SCAM", first sentence "To the best of my knowledge they have not taken anything of value from anyone". Good job wasting people's time OP.

[Nova!]

I love it. Headline "APPEARS TO BE A SCAM", first sentence "To the best of my knowledge they have not taken anything of value from anyone". Good job wasting people's time OP.

I think it's accurate.  What would you suggest I re-title it to?  They do not appear to be licensed to operate in any jurisdiction including the one they claim to be operating in.  They are requesting information in a format that makes complete identity theft trivial and in fact the file types and the resolution of the scan they are demanding is exactly what you see on silk road in the new identities section.  Also the documents requested are a match for the types of documents commonly sold there including format and resolution.

I am not accusing them of doing this.  I worry that they may be though and hence the word "appears" is in the subject. 
Nevertheless I see real problems and I feel the need to sound the alarm that "hey this company does not appear to be operating legitimately".

Truth be told I would love to just be absolutely and completely wrong about all of this.  I am willing to replace the thread with a complete mea culpa and change my sig to say nothing but OKPay ads for a year if I can be proven wrong.

I'll say it again, I genuinely like OKPay and I want them to be legitimate. 
However I can find nothing to indicate that they are and a lot of evidence that they are not.

Has anyone had any experience positive or negative with them?

[Matthew N. Wright]

I refuse to disuss anything withyou until you change the thread title. Until then, comments from me will only popularize your slander. "OKPAY is doing something I don't understand" would be more accurate.

[Deprived]

I'm updating this to say that I was actually able to locate a customer service phone number for OK Pay on their website.
+44 20 8123 2193
I wasn't able to call it due to a temporary international number restriction on my personal line and since this isn't job related I can't use my business line.
The number appears to be in the UK somewhere, I'm pretty sure the BVI is part of the UK so the number may in fact be legit.
If anyone wants to try calling it and letting me know they were able to speak to someone I will gladly retract that part of my previous comment.

That number is somewhere in London - not in the BVI.  All numbers beginning 020 are in London.

If they're requesting personal ID and are in the UK's jurisdiction then they need to have a policy for it (how it's handled, what it's collected for, what use will be made of it etc) and a company compliance officer responsible for ensuring that the policy is followed.

[Nova!]

I refuse to disuss anything withyou until you change the thread title. Until then, comments from me will only popularize your slander. "OKPAY is doing something I don't understand" would be more accurate.

Renamed to a decidedly less aggressive title.  Also it's not slander, it's a statement of factual information.  They are verifiably not operating within the BVI or if they are, they are doing so without bothering to register with the Financial Services Commission.

Still I'm totally willing to change my stance on this.  In fact I really do want to change my stance on it.  So if anyone has information that indicates I am wrong, please feel free to put it here.

[S-Fattah]

I think an author of this topic is not right, OKPAY is a legal company, I work with them.
All the documents to prove their legality are in open access on their site here https://www.okpay.com/en/company/documents.html
I work with Bitcoin, top-up my OKPAY account via bank transfer.
I had an accident when they asked me to provide additional documents in addition to verification, I was worried but I upload necessary docs and continued to work.
Sorry for my poor english.

[Nova!]

I think an author of this topic is not right, OKPAY is a legal company, I work with them.
All the documents to prove their legality are in open access on their site here https://www.okpay.com/ru/company/documents.html
I work with Bitcoin, top-up my OKPAY account via bank transfer.
I had an accident when they asked me to provide additional documents in addition to verification, I was worried but I upload necessary docs and continued to work.
Sorry for my poor english.

Thank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for.
According to this information, they are a Russian (I think) company holding a ltd BVI company.

The links to the advice from BVI FSC for the prevention of money laundering are dead, but they were likely valid at one time.
The link to their registration information is also dead, but it contains enough information that I believe at one point in time it must have pointed at a resource on the server there.

I still can't find any information about them in terms of being a registered entity, but at this point I'm willing to admit that odds are that they are probably legit and it's a problem on the government's side preventing the look up of their information and not anything that's within the control of OKPay.

I feel much more comfortable turning over my details now.  Thank you.

I will change the topic name to reflect what I've found.

[Matthew N. Wright]

I also sent a message to "OKPAY" to respond to this thread (since the title is now that of inquiry instead of slander). I think it is always healthy to have evidence here on the forums of a money service business' legitimacy. Can't hurt anything.

[OKPAY]

OKPAY Inc. is a BVI registered Company. Legal documents can be found online on our website: https://www.okpay.com/company/documents.html
According additional verification documents request these are the requirements of our Financial Services provider - Mayzus FS Company.

Mayzus Financial Services is registered in the United Kingdom as an independent organization under the number 06721866. Registration number 12492642. Legality and security with Mayzus Financial Services are guaranteed by several international documents such as the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the license of Financial Conduct Authority of Great Britain (FCA), and by its membership in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).
http://www.mayzusfs.com/about/our-company

[Nova!]

OKPAY Inc. is a BVI registered Company. Legal documents can be found online on our website: https://www.okpay.com/company/documents.html
According additional verification documents request these are the requirements of our Financial Services provider - Mayzus FS Company.

Mayzus Financial Services is registered in the United Kingdom as an independent organization under the number 06721866. Registration number 12492642. Legality and security with Mayzus Financial Services are guaranteed by several international documents such as the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the license of Financial Conduct Authority of Great Britain (FCA), and by its membership in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).
http://www.mayzusfs.com/about/our-company

Thank you that is very helpful.  Understand it had more to do with the specificity of the documents requested.  150dpi scan of ID & Utility bill, these are exactly what people sell on sites like Silk Road for stolen identity documents and so of course this raised alarm bells with me.  I am very glad you came here to clear the air and feel much more confident.
In the future you should be aware that at least in the USA, most utility companies have switched to paperless billing.  A scan cannot be provided because there is no more paper bill.  At least in my case the only option I have is to print the thing and scan it which seems a bit redundant, but I guess I can do it if OKPay presents itself as a compelling option.  (With liberty reserve getting popped it has now become a compelling option in my mind).