Topic: Intersango Bullshit - page 2. (Read 6552 times)

I think I can understand intersango's motives here.  Firstly there's the valid entrapment argument.  Secondly, they could be charged with knowingly aiding and abetting an illegal act if somehow OP was busted for buying drugs - I'm not saying OP *was* buying drugs, but *if* he was, and LE followed the trail, they might find that intersango knowingly allowed a client to use their services for transferring funds to a known drug trading website.

If bitcoin is ever to be widely accepted as a mainstream currency, it would be better that the critical nodes (exchanges, online wallets etc) stay above the law.  Intersango closing OP's account will present absolutely no problems to OP if he wants to continue trading on SR (apart from the immediate problem of getting his money back).  It's like Intersango is wearing a halo and saying "See, officer, we stopped *that* bad guy, aren't we nice and oh-so-legal." while really everybody knows it's bullshit and there's nothing anyone can do to stop people trading on SR.

I think the implications are more "irritating" than "disturbing".  OP shouldn't have mentioned SR.  I wouldn't be surprised if the guys at Intersango rolled their eyes and thought "Damn, why did you mention *that*, now WTF do we do".  They're playing ball in two courts at once and OP crossed the line.

edit: I think OP should change the title of this thread (if possible). Calling something a scam just because it steps on your toes is an overreaction, and, in this case, has portrayed OP in a much worse light that he was trying for with intersango.

Obviously the OP shouldn't have discussed the silk road with intersango, but even so, intersango have no right to freeze the account when the silk road is not in itself illegal. It is not a crime to access the silk road. It is not a crime to send bitcoins to the silk road. As has been pointed out already, the silk road is a marketplace for both legal and illegal products.  Intersango are going well beyond their legal duty in freezing this account - with disturbing implications.

The way it should be and the way it is are different things.

It's not the mission of an exchange to proactively try to detect potential illegal usage of Bitcoin.
Entrapment concerns are irrelevant, if I go to my bank, withdraw cash and tell them that I'm going to use it for shady purposes they won't freeze my account.
They *might* report me to the police, but they wouldn't be entitled to freeze my account.

The only actual requirement financial institutions have is to report suspected money laundering, and suspected tax evasion in some places.

Either way, I'm sure that this story isn't as simple as it looks.

Interesting thread.

The situation once more shows why we need bitcoin: for freedom.
We aren't even free to send our btc to an address now 

Then we have the intersango guys who of course says the thread is defamatory...

There are a good few items which are 100% legal in the UK on the SR.. And it's not like that at all it's more like asking a bank how long til I can withdraw some of my funds in cash at a branch which happens to be in an area notorious for the sale of illegal items. In fact I think I even asked how long would it take for bitcoins to get to the SR not even mentioning anything about sending MY bitcoins to the site which supposedly makes up at least 1/4 of the bitcoin economy. But the 42 word provision 5 isn't exactly clear as to what "may" involve illegal activity and what doesnt so how can they enforce it?

But this is not the point IF I was going outside their T&C by using the SR then they shouldn't have allowed me to deposit in the first place just as they didn't allow me to withdraw at the time. By their terms and conditions my account should have been closed off and not not displaying incorrect messages when I try to withdraw whilst letting me deposit as much money as I like. They didn't even tell me that I couldn't withdraw because of me going against one of their provisions. In fact when I asked about the error messages they couldn't even give me a proper answer and I only found out when I repetitively asked after I couldn't log in.

Know-your-customer laws require that money transfer agencies (that might wish to deal with Americans) respond to suggestions of illegal activity.  He might have thought that you were a fed trying to entrap him, because most anyone who would really ask how long it would take to transfer wouldn't mention a well known black market.  Transfers in bitcoin take roughly the same amount of time regardless of the intended recipient.

That was incredibly stupid.

I would have thought it was obvious that it's not an exchange's place to police trade. I am sure they were not responding to a court order.

SR sales are legal in many places and for some of the items on the site the sales are definitely legal in the US.

If they're locking accounts because someone might use the bitcoins for something illegal in the future, might as well lock every person's account. 

Well I don't know, like I said, IANAL

Better safe than sorry.

Seriously? "Remotely illegal" ? 

Firstly laws are many, and complicated, laying out exactly what is not allowed according to every law under the sun Intersango operates under isn't really possible.

Secondly, you asked them about how long it will take to get your bitcoins to SilkRoad?

Not  the smartest thing in the world to do.

Thats like going to a bank and asking them how long to transfer funds to your dealers account (not that I'm calling Intersango a bank, but you know what I mean).

I'm not exactly sure if SilkRoad is illegal or not (probably is in the US, again I don't know IANAL), but I am sure that if it wasn't running on Tor then it would be shut down pronto, and all the information on it would be used to arrest as many people as possible.

Sending bitcoins to SR itself isn't illegal, but the only things you can buy there, generally are illegal, so it seems not only did you violate the TOS, but you went and told them you did.

Word of advice (to all) don't tell your exchange you're sending bitcoins to SilkRoad, or anything even remotely illegal, it's a bad idea.

Well the supposed evidence is from when I asked your guy on Skype how long would it take for funds to be received at the Silk Road if sent. Is this enough evidence that I've been using your service for illegal purposes? Your meagre 42 word provision certainly doesn't exactly draw a line as to what "may" constitute to a contravention of the law and what may not.

However when you first put your restrictions on my account (which you never notified me of until I constantly asked your guy on skype later on who stonewalled me straight after) I made a deposit on my account which of course went through no problem as originally I tried to make a small withdrawal but because I was assuming that I was getting the error because I had too little funds I decided to make this deposit (your support didn't even answer me when I asked). Once I traded my deposit to bitcoins, not knowing that my account was in fact restricted from making any withdrawals I tried to withdraw my bitcoins and got the same "invalid bitcoin address" on each of my different addresses. A few days later I can't log in and you have my funds locked up. Your skype guy stone walls me and I get no true response from the guy on the tickets who earlier couldn't tell me why I couldn't withdraw my bitcoins.

If this is not part of a little scam then this is surely not evidence of the "best" support being maintained. After all your support was so poor I decided to make a forum account here where I've had a better response than from your support team.

But does this not sound like a scam to you? IF my account was closed because I was using your site to send bitcoins to the notorious Silk Road to be used for illegal purposes then why was I allowed to deposit to the account whilst these restrictions were in place? Yet completely restricted from withdrawing anything before and after the deposit? Why couldn't you originally shut my account instead of having these odd effects in place? Why when I asked about these effects I couldn't get an answer? Why couldn't you even tell me about my account being sealed off and/or why I couldn't send bitcoins?

Why am I having to resort to posting on a forum as your support team are providing anything but the "best" support?

OP, did you start a new forum account just to post this? 

I agree. I will stay away from intersango now that this person with 2 posts has called them scammers

Unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful :/

I'm not familiar with your particular situation, I'm sure our support will reply within a reasonable time frame.

The title of course is unappreciated and defamatory. We operated as a free service for the greater part of a year. We developed open source exchange software. We wrote the first full reimplementation of bitcoin entirely at our own expense (an 8 month project) and while we aren't operating at a loss anymore, we are not operating at much of a profit either. Still we maintain the best security and support.

While I'm not familiar with your situation - perhaps you could tell us the particulars - I know that accounts will only be restricted if there is very direct proof of illegal activity or a direct admission of intent to do something illegal.  Of course we are not an illegal operation; we are not and will not be complicit in any illegal activity.

It's unfortunate that there will of course be some people that attempt to use our services in ways which violate UK law. I'm not saying this is the case with you, however our policy at Intersango is to act only in the event of real proof of a crime or intent to commit a crime. We would never take action without proof and I know my partner who deals with this would not waiver from these principles.

We take great steps to ensure that our users' funds are safe, never discriminated against and that accounts are not restricted unless we are certain people have operated outside of our terms and conditions.

If you wish to waive your rights under our privacy policy my partner can respond publicly in this thread.

I'd like to hear from Intersango on this.

*monitoring*

Me too. I don't have anything in there now but I could in the future.

I thought they were spotless ... till now.

You've not been scammed, Intersango have a process for dealing with issues that come up, some of them are fast to resolve some are not.

Just give them some more time, I'm sure it will get resolved.