Has anyone successfully withdrawn USD or BTC from Mtgox since September 22?

[Jonathan Ryan Owens]

Is it possible that the increase in AML / Documentation requests is a stop gap that MtGox is using to shore up its accounts on a temporary basis?

Is it possible that MtGox is not telling the truth about Banking and Police requests, and that instead, they are temporarily insolvent?

It's starting to seem increasingly unlikely that so many accounts would be 'suspicious' to MtGox or any authorities.

Is MtGox another Mybitcoin, on it's last legs and they're just trying to keep up appearances so as to keep from causing a death blow to both themselves and Bitcoin in general?

Just a thought.

-Jonathan

[1715381549]

1715381549

[1715381549]

1715381549

[repentance]

Is it possible that the increase in AML / Documentation requests is a stop gap that MtGox is using to shore up its accounts on a temporary basis?

Is it possible that MtGox is not telling the truth about Banking and Police requests, and that instead, they are temporarily insolvent?

It's starting to seem increasingly unlikely that so many accounts would be 'suspicious' to MtGox or any authorities.

Is MtGox another Mybitcoin, on it's last legs and they're just trying to keep up appearances so as to keep from causing a death blow to both themselves and Bitcoin in general?

Just a thought.

-Jonathan

It's obviously possible, but it's just as likely that they don't fully understand how AML/CTF laws work outside of their own jurisdiction.  The type of business they operate is going to have a non-trivial amount of suspicious activity, and in many locations their financial institutions are legally bound both to report that activity and to investigate it.  Ongoing Customer Due Diligence provisions are often extremely broad and financial institutions take them seriously.

Technocash in Australia is a good example.  Their ToS clearly state that they may suspend or terminate accounts on the basis of suspicious activity, that they have the right to withdraw erroneously or fraudulently deposited funds, and that if they're requested or required to aid the authorities in an investigation of such accounts they may charge a "departmental assistance" fee equivalent to the hourly rate charged by liquidators which they can take from the account balance without notice to the account-holder.

Where Technocash is required or requested to assist any government department or authority in Australia or elsewhere then Technocash may charge the relevent BillFold account holder/s a departmental assistance fee as Technocash determins based upon comparable liquidator hourly charges and further Technocash is entitled to recoup all and every out of pocket expenses indirectly of directly related to the assistance provided. Full disclosure of the departmental assistance fee may be restricted in acordance with the confidentiality required by AML/CTF regime. In such an event Technocash may deduct the departmental assistance fee and out of pocket expenses directly from the appropriate BillFold account or accounts without the requirement to notify the account holder/s.

http://www.technocash.com/pages/terms.cfm

From 1 October, new verification and identification provisions came into force under Australia's AML/CTF legislation which require financial institutions to verify the identity of agents (ie, anyone who isn't the account-holder) depositing or withdrawing funds above the threshold amount.  That's probably going to cause more issues because financial institutions already flag transactions which appear to be aimed at avoiding the threshold.

This is all stuff which a locally based business should know about and be prepared to deal with, but which a relatively new business operating from off-shore and with no previous experience in financial services might be caught unawares by.

[Bimmerhead]

As you may be aware, a number of user accounts have been suspended as a result of recently implemented tightened security measures which have identified these accounts as showing suspicious activity. These measures have been brought into place at the insistence of a number of banking and policing entities after an increase in the incidence of fraud, phishing attacks and money laundering being carried out using bitcoins to mask illegal transactions.

That's odd, because I've bought virtually all my bitcoins through MtGox, and done most of my selling through MtGox.  And this is deemed 'suspicious' behaviour?

I will admit the recent behaviour of MtGox is suspicious.  I didn't realize that implicates their long-term customers.

Get your act together.  It has now been 2 weeks.  I expect more than form-letter reassurances after that amount of time. 

[Mt.Gox Support]

As you may be aware, a number of user accounts have been suspended as a result of recently implemented tightened security measures which have identified these accounts as showing suspicious activity. These measures have been brought into place at the insistence of a number of banking and policing entities after an increase in the incidence of fraud, phishing attacks and money laundering being carried out using bitcoins to mask illegal transactions.

Wait, let's try to understand this better. I hope you can answer the following questions:

Do you warn your costumers, before they join (+ an e-mail to all those who joined before such policy change), that they may be required to provide identification in order to use your services?

In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?

Are you giving the information you collect to third party entities? If yes, have you prevented the concerned costumers, telling which third parties are receiving their data? Have they previously agreed on that?

Thanks

We have posted an announcement as well as an explanation of the new security measures on https://mtgox.zendesk.com/home

All of the information gathered is safe. The documentation in question is held on a secure data store. Any submitted information will not be shared by any third party under any circumstance, except where Mt.Gox is legally obliged to do so at the instigation of a police investigation.

[ZoladkowaGorzka]

Sounds like it's time to move to another exchange

This is impossible.  You can't move!  mtgox has the most volume and you will thus be stuck with enduring mtgox wraith foreverz.  Very few (if any) users are willing to make use of any other exchange primarily because of the lack of volume at other exchanges*, thus, even with exchanges with 0% transaction fee and much better security, stability, reliability, you're stuck with continuing to provide additional revenue to mtgox simply because you have to!  Everyone's doing it!</sarcasm>

because of the lack of volume at other exchanges*

It's simply caused by MT.Gox which doubles transaction volumes on different markets.
I don't know how it works exactly but IMHO it doesn't matter if you use USD/EUR/PLN/RUB on Mt.Gox - these offers are somehow symultanic

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Wait, let's try to understand this better. I hope you can answer the following questions:

Do you warn your costumers, before they join (+ an e-mail to all those who joined before such policy change), that they may be required to provide identification in order to use your services?

In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?

Are you giving the information you collect to third party entities? If yes, have you prevented the concerned costumers, telling which third parties are receiving their data? Have they previously agreed on that?

Thanks

We have posted an announcement as well as an explanation of the new security measures on https://mtgox.zendesk.com/home

All of the information gathered is safe. The documentation in question is held on a secure data store. Any submitted information will not be shared by any third party under any circumstance, except where Mt.Gox is legally obliged to do so at the instigation of a police investigation.

You haven't answered the most important question: "In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?"

[Mt.Gox Support]

Wait, let's try to understand this better. I hope you can answer the following questions:

Do you warn your costumers, before they join (+ an e-mail to all those who joined before such policy change), that they may be required to provide identification in order to use your services?

In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?

Are you giving the information you collect to third party entities? If yes, have you prevented the concerned costumers, telling which third parties are receiving their data? Have they previously agreed on that?

Thanks

We have posted an announcement as well as an explanation of the new security measures on https://mtgox.zendesk.com/home

All of the information gathered is safe. The documentation in question is held on a secure data store. Any submitted information will not be shared by any third party under any circumstance, except where Mt.Gox is legally obliged to do so at the instigation of a police investigation.

You haven't answered the most important question: "In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?"

This is a new security measure to ensure that all users accessing Mt.Gox are indeed the rightful owners. Without providing their identifications, we can not judge whether the correct owner or a hacker is trying to gain access. In order to protect the user's funds on Mt.Gox, we can not unfreeze their accounts.

[bitdragon]

How long does the process take once documents have been submitted to increase the limit?
How many weeks?
thanks

[Mt.Gox Support]

How long does the process take once documents have been submitted to increase the limit?
How many weeks?
thanks

It will depend on whether you have submitted all of the necessary documents, and the current number of all submitted requests. We will try our best to process AML requests as fast as possible.

[payb.tc]

How long does the process take once documents have been submitted to increase the limit?
How many weeks?
thanks

how many months?

i've see many positive answers to this question:

Have you been able to withdraw USD or BTC from your MtGox account?

but absolutely no answers to this question:

Have you been able to get it unfrozen, if it was frozen at this time?

anyone out there actually had their account unfrozen successfully, which was pending review?

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

This is a new security measure to ensure that all users accessing Mt.Gox are indeed the rightful owners. Without providing their identifications, we can not judge whether the correct owner or a hacker is trying to gain access. In order to protect the user's funds on Mt.Gox, we can not unfreeze their accounts.

I wanted to hear from you what I suspected. You're stealing people.

The proof of ownership is done with login and password. If a user loses his password to a hacker, he loses his account. Unless he had agreed upon different schemes of identification, of course.
How would you use IDs to identify somebody who creates an account like my account on this forum, by the way? I obviously don't have a passport with "EhVedadoOAnonimato" written on it.

This is outrageous, and yet, I see no revolt around here... what's going on?? I think I'll start a topic about this absurd, it deserves. (EDIT: topic here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=46889.0 )

[TiagoTiago]

What happen with people that have not provided documents prior to the suspicious activities?

[payb.tc]

What happen with people that have not provided documents prior to the suspicious activities?

they submit docs and wait and wait and wait.

[Mt.Gox Support]

As you may be aware, a number of user accounts have been suspended as a result of recently implemented tightened security measures which have identified these accounts as showing suspicious activity. These measures have been brought into place at the insistence of a number of banking and policing entities after an increase in the incidence of fraud, phishing attacks and money laundering being carried out using bitcoins to mask illegal transactions.

Wait, let's try to understand this better. I hope you can answer the following questions:

Do you warn your costumers, before they join (+ an e-mail to all those who joined before such policy change), that they may be required to provide identification in order to use your services?

In case not everyone has agreed upon this rule of "you may need provide IDs", what will you do to somebody's frozen account if the owner rightfully denies to provide you his IDs?

Are you giving the information you collect to third party entities? If yes, have you prevented the concerned costumers, telling which third parties are receiving their data? Have they previously agreed on that?

Thanks

Hello EhVedadoOAnonimato,

If users do not want to submit their personal identifications and documentations to unfreeze their accounts, they may do so. Please be aware that we will eventually return all funds to the users whose accounts are frozen, but the date of revival is still undetermined.

Once gathered, the documentation in question is held on a secure data store. Any submitted information will not be shared by any third party under any circumstance, except where Mt.Gox is legally obliged to do so at the instigation of a police investigation.