Comment by agilob
3 years ago
> Now they ask us to provide an explanation of the reference to “Alep”.
WiseTransfer blocked my transfer because they didn't like my full name that they got from Monzo (Mozno has partnership with Wise). They blocked my transfer, hold it hostage until I contacted them, spent a few days hanging on phone, emailed them etc... they wanted to know what my surname means. I made an international transfer to buy a conference ticket. I don't remember the precise dates, but I spent full days on phone, emailing dozens of people and took me 3-4 weeks to revert the transfer. They. wanted. to know. what. my. surname. means.
Edit: I filed a complaint to Monzo and Wise, and stopped using both.
Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here?
But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. Last time I looked Saddam Hussein was still on it, despite being dead for most of my life at this point. I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.
> Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here?
Is the implication here that the should walk away from being robbed of 170 quid? They're fighting for dignified treatment.
I know this is an example of another problem, but in the US it's easy to see someone actually being killed over attempting to rob someone of $200.
People have strong reactions to unjust treatment, especially when they believe they are dealing with a fair system. (I feel it's different when you know you just have to pay the bribe.)
At some point, taking the company to small claims court is easier.
>Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this?
Monzo couldn't reverse the transfer as the money wasn't in their hands. Wise Transfer customer support is just garbage. I spent 5 hours on a phone until > their side < ended my call during UK working hours. I called again and again, they never answered. I sent them emails, but each email I was getting was from another person who, like I said in another comment, didn't read previous email from Wise, so each time I had to explain the context and the whole situation. When I sent my response in a morning, they responded the next day afternoon.
> What was the amount of money here?
About £170 for the conference ticket.
>But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is.
I already paid for hotel and plane tickets without issues. Best to my knowledge I'm not involved in any terrorist organisation, unless you account working for EU banking infrastructure company as such.
OK, so it was more than the price of a ticket involved. I was thinking you went through all this over 170 quid
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> despite being dead for most of my life at this point
Hey man there's no need to remind me that I'm old.
> I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.
What's wrong with that?
The problem is, all you can virtually do is to block North Korean IP space [1], but you're still legally liable if North Korean users, say, use a foreign VPN service to interact with you.
International sanctions laws are pure and utter madness, with extremely high stakes if the government changes its course on selective enforcement, so everyone is "playing it safe" rather than "doing what makes sense and question outright bullshit".
[1] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/17/j/a-closer-look...
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I shadowban anyone with the surname 'Kim' on account creation just to be sure.
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How would you be able to tell? And what sensitive information could they access? It’s defacto public.
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> I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.
that's an order I would break; to do that goes against the principles of the internet.
I suppose I'm not getting hired any time soon.
yea, I'm not 'obedient' enough... I have principles like open internet, shared culture, freedom, and so on.
what's worse, I feel for Korean culture, split in half by AmeriRussian "interactions".
It's not an order, embargo laws exist in every modern country. Doing business in embargoed countries just means prison time and fines. I don't know if you realize this, but almost nobody in NK has internet...
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> I feel for Korean culture, split in half by AmeriRussian "interactions".
Germany reunified. Korea might have as well had it not been for North Korea's invasion of South Korea, and China's support of North Korea as a buffer zone.
And why no blame for Japan?
And what "internet principles" are you writing about? Everyone can access everything? This hasn't ever been the case. There have always been access controls.
The word you're looking for is naïve.
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North Korea has a LOT of sanctions against them, if you provide them services you could go to prison.
One for "falsehoods programmers believe about names".
s/programmers/product
It is unlikely an engineer decided to introduce a block list of names and this likely came from a product manager driven by compliance and risk mitigation. Problems are rarely the cause of the implementer and usually that is the side effect of layers of poor decision making in corporations. Poor because of the aggregation, not poor because of any one specific decision maker in the chain.
they wanted to know what my surname means
In a case like that, threaten to contact a lawyer because they are engaging in discrimination against you on the basis of (I assume) national origin. Unless your name is something like 'John International-Jewel-Theft,' they have no case.
And? Did you tell them? Your surname may be the same word as something else that gives cause for concern.
Correct answer: "My surname, Smith, is a string of characters that identifies people in my family. It designates a person or set of people."
A set of people you say? Sorry, our policy does not allow x-smiths to use this service.
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When you replace “Smith” with “ISIS” or “Bin Laden” that’s likely not enough of an explanation for them to lift the freeze.
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My surname doesn't have any modern meaning, it's a middle age Slavic surname. It's pretty unique and only a few 100s people in the world have it. It's so wild to me that it got flagged by some kind of a list.
Surnames often don't mean anything. If mine means anything I don't know it. It's just a name.
> Surnames often don't mean anything.
That depends on where you're from. Often in the English-speaking world, they do.
To take the another commenter's example, "Smith" comes from a word meaning, roughly, "craftsperson", as in "blacksmith". The ancestor that the surname comes from was likely either a blacksmith, or some other type of crafter whose profession can be described as "smithing".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith
Likewise, the surname "Wright" comes from a word with a similar meaning, as in "playwright", "wheelwright" or "cartwright".
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Name dictionaries are common, I suggest you look into one and you'll be surprised.
This is likely cultural, but for almost everyone I know, their surnames mean something. Usually, like mine, it's the name of an occupation. Often, it's another surname with "son" added onto the end, meaning "son of x".
Most first names mean something as well.
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Too bad if you don't know what your surname means.
Or your surname is something like Al Qaeda (which is just "the base") or is "Ira" or any other combination of letters that could trigger very dumb 'watchlist' code.
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OP and the article OP's situations are relatively easy in that the company actually told them what triggered the ban, and that presumably an explanation is all that's needed. I don't understand making a big deal about it. Tell them you don't know what your surname means and that "ALEP" is just an acronym that means "A Less Evil Product" and be on your way. Why does everything have to be a fight?
Sure, when the company says "We're banning you and not telling you why. Hahahaha!" it's infuriating, and probably worth even more than an angry Twitter rant. But "Can you explain what this specific thing means?" is not worth the rant IMO. Just explain and go on living your life.
I think this is giving the companies involved a lot of credit. I'm assuming if it took multiple days to resolve it then they didn't find "it's a name, it has no meaning" as an acceptable answer. The companies have no real incentive to be reasonable.
> I made an international transfer to pay for
I’ve been using crypto and stablecoins for this for nearly 7 years now. Basically it skips international transfer scrutiny and for both the sender and the recipient we are using local banking on each side.
The exposure time is like 5 minutes, which mitigates every theoretical issue with the confidence of a stablecoin, or even the volatility of any particular crypto.
So what would have been an international transfer is converted to a scrutiny-free domestic transfer, which goes way faster too.
And as usual a crypto plug into any thread.
A comment I saw yesterday that seems oddly relevant.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35320208
"HN is weirdly inconsistent about digital currencies. Generally pro encryption, net neutrality, open-source software, VPNs, etc. But mention "Bitcoin," and suddenly half the commenters lose their shit about the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse. Then they go back to commiserating with another Ask HN startup founder whose PayPal account was frozen."
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mention a valid use case = "plugging crypto"
never mention any = "there are no valid use cases for crypto"
And this is a fairly common one. For example it's how GrapheneOS pays their developers, because TradFi (especially cross-border) is too capricious.
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To be fair here, they are handy if the bank wakes up one day and decides you are a wrong 'un for no good reason.
Or if you are transacting with someone with a funny sounding name, or who lives in a developing country (especially in MENA).
You can conduct your business without worrying about intermediary risk.
Hell, I've had bizarre issues in the past trying to make transfers between some large American banks and a number of European banks, the transactions just get "stuck" for a couple weeks, then get refunded, because somewhere in the middle something goes tits up.
I forgot to mention that also of the above applies at unlimited amounts
Instead of arbitrarily low amounts
It solves the friction for the person I replied to, and anyone that wants to avoid that particular kind of friction