PayPal fined $7.7M (£5M) for allowing illegal payments

[Master Disaster]

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32067151

PayPal has agreed to pay $7.7m (£5.1m) to the US government following claims it allowed payments that violated sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan.

The US Treasury Department said the payment firm had failed to adequately screen and prevent transactions.

They included a $7,000 transaction from someone listed by the US government as being involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

PayPal said it had improved the real-time scanning of payments.

In a statement, it said it had "voluntarily" reported to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) certain payments it had processed between 2009 and 2013.

Delays in scanning had allowed some prohibited payments to be processed, PayPal said.

"Since then, we've taken additional steps to support compliance with Ofac regulations with the introduction of real-time scanning of payments and improved processes," a PayPal representative told the BBC.

One of the cases involved Kursad Zafer Cire, who was named by the US State Department in 2009 as a person linked to programmes involving weapons of mass destruction.

Between October 2009 and April 2013, PayPal reportedly processed 136 transactions to or from an account registered in his name.

Other payments involved goods and services going to and from Cuba, Sudan and Iran.

In total, according to the Treasury Department, nearly 500 PayPal transactions, worth almost $44,000, had potentially violated sanctions that ban US companies from doing business with individuals or organisations on a blacklist.

Under the settlement, PayPal did not admit or deny it had violated the sanctions.

A 4 year delay in scanning? Not likely.

[NeverNotExhausted]

Just the US government being fuckheads again. Why we haven't just all ignored their shit and gone about in the whole advancing the human race thing I will never know. Probably because they will throw a good old fashioned american hissy fit and nuke whoever ignores them first and nobody wants to be first.

[Albatross]

Yea Paypal, only our government is allowed to levy and break sanctions when it needs to make money. Get it through your head.

 

Just the US government being fuckheads again. Why we haven't just all ignored their shit and gone about in the whole advancing the human race thing I will never know. Probably because they will throw a good old fashioned american hissy fit and nuke whoever ignores them first and nobody wants to be first.

 

And what, pray tell, do you mean by "and gone about in the whole advancing the human race thing"?

[Syntaxvgm]

7.7m

 

 

 

they'll be ok.

 

 

Still bullshit

[Dabombinable]

Land of the free? Yeah.....I'm calling BS on that with all of the stuff that's been going on in the US that is similar to this.

[mr moose]

Yea Paypal, only our government is allowed to levy and break sanctions when it needs to make money. Get it through your head.

 

 

And what, pray tell, do you mean by "and gone about in the whole advancing the human race thing"?

 

you know, converting the world to what ever the current extremist terrorist philosophy is.

[Dabombinable]

you know, converting the world to what ever the current extremist terrorist philosophy is.

The 'new world order' thing?

[mr moose]

The 'new world order' thing?

or old world.  I think it changes depending on who the terrorist is recruited by.

[NeverNotExhausted]

Yea Paypal, only our government is allowed to levy and break sanctions when it needs to make money. Get it through your head.

 

 

And what, pray tell, do you mean by "and gone about in the whole advancing the human race thing"?

 

I mean stopping the whole irrelevant and useless suing war that happens in america between companies about useless crap that nobody cares for. The hold back of internet infrastructure worldwide because countries are trying to follow the USA's broken system that profits nobody but ISP's and the people the ISP's pay off, the straight up broken way that the american political system works that companies around the world have now caught on to that involves bribing politicians and essentially paying for a person to win an election in order for them to do your bidding. The way that the government will shut down any and all companies that stand in the way of the agenda that the companies that control government pursue.

 

The fines against PayPal aren't logical because Paypal couldn't realistically track payments down to that level without gigantic costs and capabilities beyond what anybody could reasonably expect from anybody at all. The US government have basically imposed their will upon them while they can't do anything about it. Because 'oh no terrorists' and 'we better make an example out of these guys because reasons'

 

The whole american system is broken and corrupt to the point that anybody looking to make any real innovation that would benefit anybody at all would do so outside of the states out of fear of getting bent over by a corrupt ass government and fucked viciously up the ass.

 

Also Americans are for the most part fat as fuck, like a salad wouldn't hurt guys.

[That Norwegian Guy]

I don't see why everyone is condemning the US over this. PayPal is based in USA, and have to respect and uphold international trade sanctions imposed by the country they're based in.

 

The only thing worth criticising here is how low the fine is.

[euniqe]

snip.

 

 

whilst I agree with some of your core premise, you didn't have to over-generalise and sterotype. Australia, on average, has more fat people than america does to put it crudely, for example.

 

 

and seriously think about it for a second. 

 

Politicians will be politicians. 

 

The US just has the biggest microphone and thus we don't hear what goes on in other countries as much. Doesn't mean the US is technically better or worse than any other countries. 

[NeverNotExhausted]

whilst I agree with some of your core premise, you didn't have to over-generalise and sterotype. Australia, on average, has more fat people than america does to put it crudely, for example.

 

 

and seriously think about it for a second. 

 

Politicians will be politicians. 

 

The US just has the biggest microphone and thus we don't hear what goes on in other countries as much. Doesn't mean the US is technically better or worse than any other countries.

 

I may have stereotyped going into the fat people part of that comment, though I actually know or see very few overweight people in Aus and compared to my time in California it was quite alarming and very noticeable. I'm not sure where the stats come from but the overweight people in Aus must just not leave their houses all that often, because it's abit rarer than the stats suggest. I have no sympathy for overweight people unless they actually have a proper condition that inhibits their ability to keep in a healthy weight range.

 

"Poiticians will be politicians" is pretty accurate because they are literally politicians regardless of how they act (just for a bit of smart-assism on my part). But that's about as far as the truth goes. The influence of the US corrupts the rest of the world due to economic influence. "politicians will be politicians" isn't an excuse either. We need to move forward and the US is leading the world in the opposite direction. If the US wasn't such a big economic influence once they started the madness that they are currently pursuing then every single person on the planet would have blown this off as nonsense. The US is pursing every ideal that goes against humanities progress at this point. There isn't any point of sense that opposes that fact.

[Master Disaster]

I don't see why everyone is condemning the US over this. PayPal is based in USA, and have to respect and uphold international trade sanctions imposed by the country they're based in.

 

The only thing worth criticising here is how low the fine is.

 

I think they took into consideration the fact that PayPal noticed the mistake and notified the authorities of their own accord when issuing the fine.

[Thony]

The only terrorism that has ever existed came from a government .... whether its US or any other, doesnt matter, wrong people are in power Human nature sucks ass when it comes to big amounts of money....

[rockking1379]

so we can fine paypal for allowing illegal payments...but wall street crashes the global economy and nothing gets done about it??? because logic!