Mt Gox thinks it's the Fed. Freezes acc based on "tainted" coins. (unlocked now)

[DeathAndTaxes]

Dear Mt.Gox,

why do you allow unverified people to trade money for BTC, if you're trying to help the cops with "tainted" coins? I think there are a lot of "tainted" coins....

There are not many tainted coins. Except during big events such as the Linode hack, we rarely see any tainted coin hit us at all.

please define term "tainted coin" exactly!
i would love to have a way to check any deposit beforehand.

It is a secret list.   You will find out when your account is frozen.

What could possibly go wrong with unelected third parties using secret internal list to seize the property of others without oversight or accountability? 

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[N12]

Guys, I don’t understand all the fuss about this.

Everybody should know by now what MtGox’s policy is on this. If you are not okay with verifying your account if such a thing happens, you should simply use another exchange.

You know, free market and all. Noone is forcing you to use MtGox.

[Polvos]

I hope every customer in the Bitcoin forums see that you have a hidden dark list and that you are using it to seize coins at your will.

- Where can we check that tainted list? --> no answer
- How many % tainted coins makes your account useless? --> no answer
- Where can we download an easy software to check our addresses in order to grant use your exchanger in a secure way --> no answer
- What can a user do if finds some tainted coins in his wallet? --> no answer

You are only spreading fear and moving away new users from you and from our currency.

[jwzguy]

Guys, I don’t understand all the fuss about this.

Everybody should know by now what MtGox’s policy is on this. If you are not okay with verifying your account if such a thing happens, you should simply use another exchange.

You know, free market and all. Noone is forcing you to use MtGox.

That's the point of this thread. Everyone does -not- know this. But your conclusion is absolutely correct.

[556j]

Here's another interesting fact I forgot to bring up that shows what a joke this whole situation is.

The same day I deposited BTC into gox that got my account locked, I deposited the same amount from the same wallet from the same payments/customers to my unverified bitcoinica account. That deposit went through with no problems.

[chmod755]

The same day I deposited BTC into gox that got my account locked, I deposited the same amount from the same wallet from the same payments/customers to my unverified bitcoinica account. That deposit went through with no problems.

Maybe bitcoinica didn't use the same coins   

btw.: Have fun getting zhoutonged!

Everybody should know by now what MtGox’s policy is on this. If you are not okay with verifying your account if such a thing happens, you should simply use another exchange.

+1 - but I think people are ignoring the ToS like EULAs....

[MagicalTux]

please define term "tainted coin" exactly!
i would love to have a way to check any deposit beforehand.

"Tainted" means we have received a request for investigation from the Japanese law enforcement (either the CyberPolice, or an international investigation backed by a court). In some cases we may cooperate with other law enforcement around the world on a case by case basis. As of today there is only one active case, and in the past 12 months, we have marked some bitcoins on only 3 occasions.

Anyway, laws in most countries means that any exchange operating legally is required to act upon knowledge of stolen properties, and prevent to the best of their ability resell of such (failure to do so causes the exchange to be considered accomplice and can cause the people running it to face various charges depending on the context). That doesn't mean that just anyone can come and see us asking to get bitcoins marked. We need some proof and law enforcement to be involved.

Because a Bitcoin exchange deals with both the Bitcoin world and the current financial (legacy?) world, we have to comply with rules from both sides. This means we are fated to be hated by both bankers around the world for supporting something that aims at replacing them, and bitcoin supporters for complying with outdated regulations. Our goal is to find the right balance between both worlds and create a kind of bridge to allow for easier adoption of bitcoin (if it was totally impossible to exchange bitcoin against fiat, we'd have some issues finding Bitcoin users).

[flower1024]

please define term "tainted coin" exactly!
i would love to have a way to check any deposit beforehand.

"Tainted" means we have received a request for investigation from the Japanese law enforcement (either the CyberPolice, or an international investigation backed by a court). In some cases we may cooperate with other law enforcement around the world on a case by case basis. As of today there is only one active case, and in the past 12 months, we have marked some bitcoins on only 3 occasions.

+1

does this mean that you lock an account as soon as his address has touched a fraudluent address?
at any depth?

does this mean that my coins are returned to the real owner? all? how much of them?.

i am fine that you dont decide this yourself and that you follow the law. but i'd suggest you state your position on your site. including the way you determine a "to-be-locked"-addresses and what happens to the coins itself.

thanks for your answer

[MagicalTux]

+1

does this mean that you lock an account as soon as his address has touched a fraudluent address?
at any depth?

does this mean that my coins are returned to the real owner? all? how much of them?.

i am fine that you dont decide this yourself and that you follow the law. but i'd suggest you state your position on your site. including the way you determine a "to-be-locked"-addresses and what happens to the coins itself.

thanks for your answer

We do not lock an account because of tainted coins, however we may require an ID. We may lock an account only if we have evidence the account owner is actually behind the theft, or if law enforcement have reached that conclusion and gets a court to order us to lock the account.

The coins may be returned to the real owner only if we actually caught and locked an account. If you are not the thief and act without knowledge that the coins you have are stolen, then you are "not wrong" (the place where you got the coins from is, and we may ask you where you transferred those coins from so the law enforcement can continue their investigation).
So far we have only been able to lock coins once (in 3 cases), and only a part. We cannot decide to return the coins to the original owner, a court has to decide this for us.

I'll see so we publish whatever we can publish on this next week.

[flower1024]

+1

does this mean that you lock an account as soon as his address has touched a fraudluent address?
at any depth?

does this mean that my coins are returned to the real owner? all? how much of them?.

i am fine that you dont decide this yourself and that you follow the law. but i'd suggest you state your position on your site. including the way you determine a "to-be-locked"-addresses and what happens to the coins itself.

thanks for your answer

We do not lock an account because of tainted coins, however we may require an ID. We may lock an account only if we have evidence the account owner is actually behind the theft, or if law enforcement have reached that conclusion and gets a court to order us to lock the account.

The coins may be returned to the real owner only if we actually caught and locked an account. If you are not the thief and act without knowledge that the coins you have are stolen, then you are "not wrong" (the place where you got the coins from is, and we may ask you where you transferred those coins from so the law enforcement can continue their investigation).
So far we have only been able to lock coins once (in 3 cases), and only a part. We cannot decide to return the coins to the original owner, a court has to decide this for us.

I'll see so we publish whatever we can publish on this next week.

thank you very much for this explanation

[556j]

We do not lock an account because of tainted coins, however we may require an ID.

That is locking an account because of tainted coins though. You call it "pending review" I guess? But the end result is the same for me, I can't get my money. I didn't trust you with my information so I followed the rules for unverified and still cannot access funds. There was no LE request or proof I was related to the theft. You say "suspicious behavior" which we all know is rubbish, point to the ToS, and use confusing wording to make it seem like I'm under investigation here. It's just unethical and dishonest business practice in my opinion.

[dirtycat]

We do not lock an account because of tainted coins, however we may require an ID.

That is locking an account because of tainted coins though. You call it "pending review" I guess? But the end result is the same for me, I can't get my money. I didn't trust you with my information so I followed the rules for unverified and still cannot access funds. There was no LE request or proof I was related to the theft. You say "suspicious behavior" which we all know is rubbish, point to the ToS, and use confusing wording to make it seem like I'm under investigation here. It's just unethical and dishonest business practice in my opinion.

+1 we need to take our business elsewhere!  this exchange is way too big already and needs to be listening to what its customers want not the other way around.

[intersango]

Nefario made some comments recently where he went beyond his ability and responsibility to answer such sensitive matters on behalf of Intersango. Account freezes have never happened without an investigation and have been extremely rare. They have only happened when someone flagrantly attempted to steal from us or others using our site in an illegal manner.

Incident 1)
A user was advertising a service telling would be customers of his to send funds to Intersango referencing his personal reference code. Users would make a fraudulent bank payment to our bank. His practices were easily seen to be beyond suspicious. (Having many different people, with many different bank accounts deposit to the same Intersango account is already against our policy).

Incident 2)
A person contacted us stating that his personal bank account was hacked into and a SEPA transfer was sent to our business. He was able to state the exact amount of the transfer and the name of the transfer. These details alone prove that he has privileged information as to the transfer and isn't someone just yelling "tainted coins".

[MagicalTux]

That is locking an account because of tainted coins though. You call it "pending review" I guess? But the end result is the same for me, I can't get my money. I didn't trust you with my information so I followed the rules for unverified and still cannot access funds. There was no LE request or proof I was related to the theft. You say "suspicious behavior" which we all know is rubbish, point to the ToS, and use confusing wording to make it seem like I'm under investigation here. It's just unethical and dishonest business practice in my opinion.

If you need more details you can contact the support. If you do not want to have to give your ID to anyone, you should limit yourself to Bitcoin and never touch USD/EUR/etc, as those kind of money also come with all kinds of regulations, which we are required to follow. We do not have any "rule for unverified", and while usage of our service usually do not require verification (as long as we stay within normal parameters), anything unusual may trigger a ID verification requirement.

Now, you're talking about "suspicious behavior", which can usually be clarified by contacting the support. In those case, we may need to be able to show your ID to law enforcement or (in case of EUR/USD/etc) see the funds taken back by the bank/financial partner/law enforcement, so we cannot allow deposited funds to be withdrawn, at least until we can confirm your ID.

[MPOE-PR]

Nefario made some comments recently where he went beyond his ability and responsibility to answer such sensitive matters on behalf of Intersango. Account freezes have never happened without an investigation and have been extremely rare. They have only happened when someone flagrantly attempted to steal from us or others using our site in an illegal manner.

Good to know. Is the two item list exhaustive?

[muyuu]

Nefario made some comments recently where he went beyond his ability and responsibility to answer such sensitive matters on behalf of Intersango. Account freezes have never happened without an investigation and have been extremely rare. They have only happened when someone flagrantly attempted to steal from us or others using our site in an illegal manner.

Incident 1)
A user was advertising a service telling would be customers of his to send funds to Intersango referencing his personal reference code. Users would make a fraudulent bank payment to our bank. His practices were easily seen to be beyond suspicious. (Having many different people, with many different bank accounts deposit to the same Intersango account is already against our policy).

Incident 2)
A person contacted us stating that his personal bank account was hacked into and a SEPA transfer was sent to our business. He was able to state the exact amount of the transfer and the name of the transfer. These details alone prove that he has privileged information as to the transfer and isn't someone just yelling "tainted coins".

Sounds good to me and I'm not easy to please.

About 2), did you just send the money back (- cost) to the account of origin? looks like a simple solution.

Cheers.

[grue]

Guys, I don’t understand all the fuss about this.

Everybody should know by now what MtGox’s policy is on this. If you are not okay with verifying your account if such a thing happens, you should simply use another exchange.

You know, free market and all. Noone is forcing you to use MtGox.

[trentzb]

I intended to use Gox tomorrow (Monday 03/26) to exchange some USD for some BTC. Now I am concerned and likely won't use Gox with this recent news unless Mark or Staff can answer how they are blocking accounts...

Gox: Are you blocking incoming BTC (into Gox) at the border and not during trades? I mean, if I execute a trade with someone who has some "taint" do I then become tainted?

I am a Level 0 (non-AML) and intended tomorrow to move a few hundred dollars of USD into Gox (< $400), buy coins and transfer BTC out, do I pose a risk of having my account kiked if I accept a "tainted" coin via a trade? How in the hell would I know if a coin is "tainted" during a trade?

If there is the _SLIGHTEST_ chance that my account could be blocked for such activity, I would cease to use Gox. The second to last time I used Gox and tried to do a BTC withdrawal of just 200 BTC they had a "hiccup" in their system, gave me what appeared to be a valid TX ID but never pushed it onto the network. 36 hours later I found it was their hiccup, not mine...via Mark. Fortunately myself and the recipient of the coins were understanding and brushed it away.

I think it would behoove you (Gox) to explain this a little better so those of us who want nothing to do with "tainted" coins can choose how to conduct ourselves.

Thanks!

[guruvan]

IMO, if you deposit USD, and receive coins from Mt.Gox, those coins can't be anything but "good" - you didn't deposit tainted coins.

My account is not verified, and I have moved monies in and out of Mt.Gox several times just fine. I have one outstanding small w/d that was lost in process. I am assured this will be cleared up.

[muyuu]

I intended to use Gox tomorrow (Monday 03/26) to exchange some USD for some BTC. Now I am concerned and likely won't use Gox with this recent news unless Mark or Staff can answer how they are blocking accounts...

Gox: Are you blocking incoming BTC (into Gox) at the border and not during trades? I mean, if I execute a trade with someone who has some "taint" do I then become tainted?

I am a Level 0 (non-AML) and intended tomorrow to move a few hundred dollars of USD into Gox (< $400), buy coins and transfer BTC out, do I pose a risk of having my account kiked if I accept a "tainted" coin via a trade? How in the hell would I know if a coin is "tainted" during a trade?

If there is the _SLIGHTEST_ chance that my account could be blocked for such activity, I would cease to use Gox. The second to last time I used Gox and tried to do a BTC withdrawal of just 200 BTC they had a "hiccup" in their system, gave me what appeared to be a valid TX ID but never pushed it onto the network. 36 hours later I found it was their hiccup, not mine...via Mark. Fortunately myself and the recipient of the coins were understanding and brushed it away.

I think it would behoove you (Gox) to explain this a little better so those of us who want nothing to do with "tainted" coins can choose how to conduct ourselves.

Thanks!

Read this http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/r8s4x/mt_gox_selling_tainted_coins_then_locking/c43x4yh