My bank ING DIRECT discovered that a customer who bought bitcoin from me last month, paid me money with a stolen account. That account's bank, ANZ in this case, demands it. My bank will empty my bank account to pay for it.
Phone call I received: "because the money is stolen, you have never been entitled to this money. This is happens. Your account will be empty in a couple of days and there is nothing I can do for you."
Since the transaction happened on localbitcoins, with purchase and delivery of goods provable, it seems to me that I am punished for someone else's fault. I already contacted localbitcoin to suspend the buyer's account. I also contacted ANZ bank's efraud team by email.
What to do? And if I call the bank to ask for paper trail, what document do I ask for that can authorize them to empty my account?
The event happens in Australia, but I think in general the western law system work the same?
Sorry to hear you had this trouble. I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are right. According to the Western Law System, the money did not belong to the customer, so he had no right to send it to you. The bank is required to send the money back to its rightful owner.
Something similar can happen when you buy a used car. If the person who sold you the car is a crook and the car was stolen, it will be returned to its rightful owner by the police. The onus is then on you to try to get compensation from the crook who sold it to you.
Is it different in China?
When doing a deal with anyone, always try to verify their ID and residential address so you know who they are in case things go wrong. That is also why platforms such as Ebay, Airbnb etc are so useful: the platform will help you and maybe compensate you in cases of fraud like this and the platform should know the identity of all its users.
P.S. I very much enjoyed your commentry on the Bitcoin market. I hope you'll post again about this.
