Unbanned to use localbitcoins.

[coupable]

My country was in the list of recent banned countries to use localbitcoins. Like other countries in the list, this has a crucial impact on local traders in my country; some of them are avtive traders with a long trade history.

Today i have received this email from localbitcoins:

LocalBitcoins has now launched the process for activating the account of residents from the countries listed below:

Afghanistan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ethiopia
Guyana
Iraq
Laos
Sri Lanka
Pakistan
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Uganda
Vanuatu
Yemen
To continue using LocalBitcoins, please make sure that your account is verified to the correct Tier and fill up the additional verification form . For more information, read our blog post.

Happy Trading!

Best Regards,

LocalBitcoins.com

Email sent from: no-reply@localbitcoins.com
I lost access to my account in LBC, as i don't remember where i stored the login info. This why i share this here.
Does there any official announcement about this?
Edit: link to the blog post where the update was announced: https://localbitcoins.com/blog/verification-available-to-residents-of-pakistani-iraq-ia/

[milewilda]

You sure that it came from official email of localbitcoins? Its odd that they dont have any announcement towards it, if you do try to look at on all of their media channels

and also im bit suspicious about that further verification thing. 

[coupable]

You sure that it came from official email of localbitcoins? Its odd that they dont have any announcement towards it

This why i choosed to post about this here
I have received the email from this address: no-reply@localbitcoins.com

[BitMaxz]

Does there any official announcement about this?

They actually have a post from their blog telling that "Additional verification is now available to residents of Pakistan and Iraq"

You can find their blog post from here below
- https://localbitcoins.com/blog/verification-available-to-residents-of-pakistani-iraq-ia/

[logfiles]

Unless i missed something but it doesn't seem like the traders in countries listed were even ever banned, so this new development is not in anyway some sort of "unban". In fact what Localbitcoins just decided to do is to add in an extra set of verification questions on top of KYC with a range of questions asking one about their source of income, how much they earn blah blah blah.

Since the first enforcement of KYC. I have never bother to you my account again.

[joniboini]

They do have some drama about it https://cointelegraph.com/news/localbitcoins-quietly-suspends-accounts-in-multiple-regions-without-notice.

This is probably the follow-up of that private due diligence activity.

[squatz1]

Unless i missed something but it doesn't seem like the traders in countries listed were even ever banned, so this new development is not in anyway some sort of "unban". In fact what Localbitcoins just decided to do is to add in an extra set of verification questions on top of KYC with a range of questions asking one about their source of income, how much they earn blah blah blah.

Since the first enforcement of KYC. I have never bother to you my account again.

A lot of companies do this, you don't explictetly BAN a country. But you make the KYC so hard that it is virtually impossible for them to use your service -- or only allow a small minority of the most vetted users from that country onto your service. This effectively bans most users from the site (from that particular country)

But on a serious note - Just contact support and wait it out, that's all ya can do. They can clarify any positions regarding countries, accounts info, etc.

[hugeblack]

It would be stupid for someone to re-verify their account after his account has been banned from that site. Perhaps it would be better to search for new alternatives, as it is no longer safe to use that account for large trades.
Why did they allow users to withdraw their money after deleting accounts? Do they keep data about deleted accounts?

As long as the email goes back to no-reply@localbitcoins.com, you can consider that the email is legal and you can ask the support team about it.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

It would be stupid for someone to re-verify their account after his account has been banned from that site. Perhaps it would be better to search for new alternatives, as it is no longer safe to use that account for large trades.

It's more like an indirect "fuck off, we don't want you to use our platform but if you really want to lick our Ass, here is a shit ton of stupid question you have to answer"

Why did they allow users to withdraw their money after deleting accounts? Do they keep data about deleted accounts?

Of course they do, they don't care if you choose to delete the account, they will still keep the data anyway.

[coupable]

It would be stupid for someone to re-verify their account after his account has been banned from that site. Perhaps it would be better to search for new alternatives, as it is no longer safe to use that account for large trades.

Looking for alternatives isn't the best option for users from banned countries. It had always be the right move after lbc started asking users to verify their identities since few years ago. One of the best alternatives is localcrypto [old localethereum] which is a decentralised peer to peer marketplace that offers the possibility to migrate reputation from lbc or paxful. But this option should not be available anymore for deleted lbc accounts and even for unbanned countries which will be asked to verify their identities before to use any option in the platform or even to see available trades.

[hugeblack]

Looking for alternatives isn't the best option for users from banned countries. It had always be the right move after lbc started asking users to verify their identities since few years ago. One of the best alternatives is localcrypto [old localethereum] which is a decentralised peer to peer marketplace that offers the possibility to migrate reputation from lbc or paxful. But this option should not be available anymore for deleted lbc accounts and even for unbanned countries which will be asked to verify their identities before to use any option in the platform or even to see available trades.

I do not think that this matter is difficult because you will not start from scratch, but will benefit from the cumulative experiences from LBC and will continue to maintain your reputation if you can prove that you are the one who manages that account so the chances that you will sell will remain better than beginners.

The problem remains is the presence of sufficient supply and demand, which can be solved by using many alternatives and advertising in Twitter, Facebook, Youtube,...etc, especially as many will begin searching for alternative methods.
Returning to that site is considered a mistake because you did not learn from the past mistakes.

[coupable]

Looking for alternatives isn't the best option for users from banned countries. It had always be the right move after lbc started asking users to verify their identities since few years ago. One of the best alternatives is localcrypto [old localethereum] which is a decentralised peer to peer marketplace that offers the possibility to migrate reputation from lbc or paxful. But this option should not be available anymore for deleted lbc accounts and even for unbanned countries which will be asked to verify their identities before to use any option in the platform or even to see available trades.

I do not think that this matter is difficult because you will not start from scratch, but will benefit from the cumulative experiences from LBC and will continue to maintain your reputation if you can prove that you are the one who manages that account so the chances that you will sell will remain better than beginners.

I agree with your point in general. The problem with lbc is that banned users will not be able to use their reputation made during years in lbc for two reasons:
1\ Lbc deleted some accounts [but still hold a copy] .
2\ With users from unbanned countries who can't verify their lbc accounts won't also be able to migrate the reputation because lbc services won't be shown till completing verification.
I don't think it's that easy to prove the ownership of lbc account if lost access to it or if the account is deleted.
For daily active traders, it's easy to start from scratch building reputation by time. But think about those who lacks activity and often using lbc. Personally, i used lbc many times during my first years in crypto, to find a buyer or a vendor in my local, hadn't too much feedbacks but i had a respectful experience which i used it to prove honesty in other peer to peer trades.