Topic: Localbitcoins stole my bitcoins just because I'm Iranian (Read 595 times)

As per the latest update, they have Ban many countries from using localbitcoins and not only Iran. Here is the complete list of countries and if you belong to any one of them, you will not be able to use that site to buy/sell bitcoins.

Sad, in a vision of supposed "Decentralization" even this is being "Centralized". Every good thing must seemingly come to an end.

I agree with you you can work using VPN. If they do not allow you to trade because they are Iranian, then the only way to use a VPN is to not know where you are working. That's why try to set policies in the face of circumstance.

Unfortunately you have been caught in the web of policies of LocalBitcoin. If I were you, the moment they start with the policy should be the signal for you to just move to a desktop wallet and we won't be facing these scenarios. But now, I think the only option now is to just find a way to regularize your account to withdraw your balance. Also, because of the sanctions, LocalBitcoin might be hard in other to protect themselves and nothing else. This is something why I will always advocate for no war because the common man will always bear the brunt.

I always use a VPN.

They will need higher-level verifications as soon as you start trading bitcoins with Rials. That's when they find out someone's Iranian.

BTW I just found this new local website. Its fees seem lower than the others.

You can still use tier 0 with a VPN?

They have approved my address now. That's not the problem anymore. Their only problem is me being Iranian, and they won't let me do trades until I get out of my country.

Get proof of address from your DMV, send it to them and then report back to us.
These processes are always annoying, but I don't think they'll keep the coins you if you give them enough data.

I can withdraw my bitcoins but I cannot make any trades to other advertisements, or make my own advertisement. I can only use it as a wallet.
Tell them to stay away from it unless they're not inside Iran and don't plan to exchange them for Rials.

So are able to withdraw but not able to make an advertisement on localbitcoins. Are you able to deposit bitcoins there and make the buying/selling of bitcoins ? I want to tell this to my Iranian friend who was also worried about the localbitcoins policy towards the irani citizens.

welcome to bigotted west, it never was about liberty and human rights for the us government it always was just about usd imperialism

Localbitcoin is not from US,it is located at Finland.

Go to the DMV and get proof of residency from them.
Most countries have this so I assume yours does this.
Maybe you'll have to pay a bit, but you'll have a goverment issued certificate confirming your address.

Maybe localbitcoins is an custodial trading site based on US. I've read here before that Iranian citizens are prohibited to enter any exchanges that are based on US, basically American government implemented a law banning Iranian's, to me that's just insane.
People should be entitled to withdraw their money no matter nationality they belong.

I don't know what actually happened but I don't see any error when withdrawing my money. I just get an error when I try to place an advertisement for selling bitcoins.

I'm holding them for now, since I'm going to exchange them for Rials and Rial value is highly dependent on the political situations like the triggering of the dispute process by the EU.

Going to far to fast on this runs the risk of widespread adoption of alternative addressing methods.  Some of them already relatively well developed.  It's always tricky to make a relatively trivial engineering problem into an enduring and insurmountable problem.  Can sometimes be done, but it requires a decent foundation and some care.

They never would have found capable people to develop the internet in the first place if they got people who would not make certain 'mistakes' (e.g., making the thing relatively open and relatively free.)  Now it's time to erase those mistakes.  I don't doubt that they are working feverishly on it.

^Still you didn't said how you can be able to withdraw your bitcoins when your account is suspended?

WW3 trending made the prices of bitcoin to hikeup on Iranian exchanges so you actually sold it for huge price right? or just holding them!

I think maybe it had something to do with this topic, maybe they were concerned about their reputation. Because I had been sending them the same address document for the past week and they kept rejecting it. I didn't put any complaint on their Twitter or other sm. I also opened some tickets but they were answered after they proved my Tier 2 verification.
If someone had the same problem I would suggest them to first open a support ticket, and then if they did not respond they might want to try to tell their situation on some forum or somewhere that might endanger their reputation.

There are lots of Iranian websites trading bitcoins now, but normally they have higher fees and lower exchange rates. There's also HodlHodl which has discounts on their fees for Iranian citizens but it's not as popular yet. I don't know about Iranians living elsewhere but I think unless they want to trade their bitcoins to Rials they would be fine.

Heard you already got to withdraw your money. That's great! So how did the process went? Did they responded to one of your private messages or they responded to a complaint on their sm? Some people might also have the same problem in the future, it would be good if they already have an idea of what to do.

Also, what do you plan to do with your btc now given that you can't trade there and you probably wouldn't be keeping any in there again after what happened? Are Iranian citizens living elsewhere subject to the same restrictions?

Fortunately, yes.
Thanks for your concern.

Did you get your money back?

Iran banned bitcoin,but localbitcoin still offers service for them

So legality is not the reason why you got suspended.

---

About your country no one can comment because rules differ for every countries and their citizen must have to obey them or better leave that country.

Well... Iran's both better and worse than what you think about it.
It's not "dangerous" to live here but it's not comfortable too.
To get a feeling of how it is to live here I would suggest you see the Peter Santenello series on his travel to Iran.
But about leaving here, that's not easy too. Since our currency value has declined our money and savings are worth nothing outside our country and if we want to move out we would leave everything behind and start our lives from absolute zero, which in many cases would be even harder than living inside our country.
I'm planning to apply for an educational visa to some country and study there for a while and then maybe come back to Iran, but after that I would have the chance to leave the country whenever I want.

My understanding is the Iran government has blocked the majority of the internet and given the free speech nature of the forum, I would have assumed they would have banned this forum.

As I said, my only advice is to leave Iran. I understand the Iran government killed 1,000 protesters around a month ago and there are rumors they killed protesters who were protesting the Iran government shooting down the Commercial airliner. I would consider living in Iran to be very dangerous.

Because of being Iranian.
It's not the first time I get banned for my nationality! even the most regular services ban us. You cannot play any Origin games if you live in Iran, you cannot update your Nvidia graphics card or Intel chipset drivers, you cannot access GitHub, and many others that have become a normal thing for me.

If you don't believe me, you can check my feedback on my lbtc account here.



Dude I'm not in North Korea I'm in Iran lol
We've got internet although we'll need to use a VPN since half of the websites are banned by our government and the other half are banned by yours.

LBC doesn’t allow people located in Iran to trade on their platform. The US has sanctions against Iran. I don’t know the specific laws/rules governing the sanctions, but facilitating the transfer of money, including coin would probably be violating the sanctions. I wouldn’t be surprised if LBC had the US DOJ sign off on releasing the OPs coin out of an abundance of caution.

It is a very bad situation and the only advice I can offer is for the OP to leave Iran if he can. I am a little surprised he can even access the forum from Iran (it appears he is claiming to be in Iran).

You are using their wallet also for that you may have to accept their terms of service.
Suspended because of?

Normally it will happen if you have unresolved disputes on trade and if this is you also can't withdraw bitcoins as well.

Actually no. my account is suspended. I can only withdraw my money.

So I am wondering whether you are able to trade on their domain now since they have accepted your address verification or you are still banned and can only make withdrawals on the sites only.

First of all, this wasn't in the first instance. I had been arguing with them for around 2 months over this problem. Second, they cannot hold my money because of their KYC terms which shouldn't have applied to me in the first place according to their own rules since I never had more than 1500 euros annual transaction amount. They can only prevent me from using their platform for trading bitcoins.
Third, I already provided them the required documentation for my address verification, but they kept rejecting it for no reason.

Stop calling the sites are scam at first instances,good you got your bitcoins back.And the blame should be on your for not knowing their announcement which was way back longer and have enough time for people to withdraw if they did't like their KYC terms.

I've got some good news!

lbtc just accepted my address verification! 
I can withdraw all of my money now. I'm so excited! 

Thanks everyone for your support and ideas.

Yeah, I'm the same person.
That's a good idea, I will try that if they don't respond to my support tickets. Thanks for that.

Weren't you the same guy complaining about not being able to ship in the ICs needed for a project? Wow, this sucks big time. 

I don't have any solutions I can suggest and there's really not much you can do against them. If I were you I'd probably go follow Spendulus' suggestion of trying to make formal communications and hope someone picks it up and then try work out a solution from that. I don't know if social media are blocked there but if you can carpet bomb their Twitter with you complaint they might actually try to contact you since that's going to agitate customers.

Not your keys, not your coins.

I mean if lbtc was USA based I wouldn't trust them for sure. But I trusted them because they're based in Finland, while the EU is still a part of the JCPOA.
It seems like I was wrong...
You can't trust anybody if you don't have leverage.

No reason but who is going to punish them for that? Tell me who?

They do it, because they can get away with it. They do it, because they can.

Why do you think USA killed the Iranian general?

Because they can.

That's exactly what I'm saying.
There's no reason for them to hold my money because I could not verify my address. Not to mention that according to their own rules and terms there's no need for accounts with less than 1500 euro income per year to verify their address. I have already verified my passport and identity.
They're just making an excuse to steal my money knowing that I would not be able to stand against them because of the sanctions.

I mean even if they did KYC and everything and you kept your money on the exchange, you still should be able to get your money back. No reason for them to 'steal your money' just because of this.

I'd compare this to online gambling sites 'banning Americans' (I put it in quotes because EVERYONE uses a VPN) when someone wins a large sum of money and they want verification the American (when submitting their american stuff) is stripped of their winnings but is returned their original funds that were placed on the site. You can't just run off with peoples money -- well at least not in the regular world, the wild west of crypto is a bit interesting.

This might be why. They might be using credit agencies databases to verify your KYC info. See if you can ask your parents for help to use their bank/address info to fulfill KYC obligations if you can. With the new round of sanctions against Iran they probably are crossing all of the Ts and dotting all of the Is as far as regulations.

(A) have patience
(B) Repeat (A) over and over

Your btc have not been stolen. Not at this point.

I suggest you start by establishing some person at the company that can deal with you as an individual. That is most important, not to be a slave to the current functioning of a crude AI robot.

I live with my parents and none of the utility bills are registered to my name. I only have my bank account which they don't seem to accept for some reason :/

Why don’t you send them something else as address verification? O.O

You guessed wrong...



They are still operating because the US let them. With a snap of a finger, they are gone.

I only thought they would keep me from trading on their platform, as they also claimed. I never thought they would hold my funds.


p.s. there are lots of Iranian businesses with .com domains  :D

Localbitcoins started KYC'ing people long time ago. If you knew it and still decided to take the risks, you had it coming. Any business with a .com domain name has a secret partner: The U.S.

Unlucky for you, Iran is the country they decided to bomb next.

So lately localbitcoins started to ban Iranian users from trading bitcoins on their website.

In the beginning, they claimed that we will be able to withdraw our funds at any time, and recently they started their new verification process which requires accounts with more than 1000 € annual transactions to verify their ID and provide their address.

Even though my account annual transaction amount had never been more than 1500 €, they are asking me for Tier 2 verification which includes address verification that I already provided them. They are now claiming that my address verification which was a credit card statement is "not valid", And all of that was only supposed to prevent me from making trades on their platform, not to prevent me from withdrawing my Bitcoins.

Now when I tried to withdraw my 0.063 bitcoins which is worth more than 100M Rials, equal to around 10 months of a teacher's salary in my country due to the recent fall of our currency value because of sanctions, I realized that they have banned me from making outgoing transactions! They have literally stolen my Bitcoins by justifying that I'm residing in a country in which localbitcoins is not available!

While we are already suffering from sanctions and economic pressures & instabilities which directly target the people, the worst thing that can happen is getting our money stolen.

Note that I'm a 21-year-old Electronics Engineering student and an ordinary citizen trying his best to have some source of income to be independent. It took me and my brother around 8 months to make that money (half of that is my brother's, and I'm ashamed of telling him what happened).
Already facing economic pressures I also have problems finding electronic parts for even my hobby projects and I have to pay 2-3 times the real price of each part I need. Just imagine your life without Amazon, eBay, aliexpress, etc., and also no international credit cards like Mastercard and Visacard.


If you have any idea about how I can take our money back I'd be glad to hear that.