tl;dr: I was charged with operating a money transmittal business without a licence for my trading activity on localbitcoins.com. (profile) Did you received or sent FIAT from or to outside of the USA through bank transaction, cash or any other means ?
All of my localbitcoins.com transactions were cash in person trades at a local coffee shop.
I remove myself from localbitcoins completely,
I advertise there but that's the extent of it. The way it is setup now makes it too easy for criminals and undercovers .
The simple act of advertising on localbitcoins means you
might be considered to be running a business.
If you are running a business then it can/will be considered a money transmittal business and you can be arrested, throw in jail, have your property (computers, Bitcoins, cash, gold, silver, etc.) seized, and face up to a five year prison sentence - that is what happened to me.
It is not the act of
using localbitcoins to do your trading that they use to seize your property, it is the
advertising on the internet and the doing "business" with the general public that allows them to come in and seize your property.
Looking at your LBC profile feedback, it looks like you were doing more than just advertising on LBC. And comments like the one below could stand out to law enforcement and make them take notice.
July 9, 2014, 12:36 a.m.
+ BurtW was a Pro, and help this noob out with his first Local Bitcoin transaction. I almost giving up on Local Bitcoins, as I never heard back from one person after a day, and another person couldn't remember if I was buying or selling bitcoins right before I was going to meet them. Then the person cancelled on me and offered no help. But
BurtW was a diamond in the ruff and was able to buy $4.5k worth of bitcoins from me, which isn't chump change. He responded fast and I never worried about the deal. I will be using BurtW every month to sell tens of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoins. If he can handle that, then he can handle any order.
