PayPal freezes account of 'near match' terror suspect

[Pebb]

Source: The Register

PayPal has frozen Brit Mohammed Hassan's account and banned him from using the service if he refuses to fax the company a raft of personal information.

The online payments service told him his name is "similar to or a match to" a name on the US government's anti-terror assets freezing list.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) is operated by the US Treasury and designed to prevent money laundering and funding of illegal organisations.

The SDN list is here (.pdf). It contains hundreds of names, including Osama Bin Laden and a Tunisian named Mohamed Hassan.

Register reader Mohammed received the following email last week:

Access to your PayPal account has been denied because your name is similar to or a match to an entry on the Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. We are required to further verify your identity. In order to regain access to your account, please provide the following documentation:

1. A copy of government-issued photograph identification (i.e. passport, driver's license).

2. A copy of a utility bill verifying your address

3. A copy of a document verifying your date and place of birth.

Please fax the information to +1 303-395-2802, Attention: Compliance. The documents may also be mailed to the following address:

PayPal, Attention: Compliance P.O. Box 45950 Omaha, NE 68145, United States

Please provide the requested information within the next 30 days. If this information is not received within the next 30 days, your PayPal account will be closed.

We contacted PayPal with a series of questions. They confirmed that in Mohammed Hassan's case, his account will be closed unless he faxes his passport to them - action he told us he is not willing to take on priniciple. Unlike banks, PayPal does not require identity verification to set up an account.

PayPal refused to provide any details of how many customers the bans are affecting, or whether the policy had led to any genuine terrorist assets being seized.

Mohammed works for the UK government, in a job which requires security clearance. He said: "I am not a terrorist or a criminal. How the hell can PayPal link me to that name on the SDN list, is it because my name is Arabic? Or is it because PayPal are just plain stupid?"

 

[red70mach1]

There are people with common first and last names, so they need to filter out and verify who is the real one in question to regular person next door.

 

[Dave A]

I'm sure there's a hell of a lot of Mohammed Hassan's around, that's pretty stupid imo.

 

[Mark T]

It's better to be safe than sorry. If he's innocent he has no need to worry.

 

[Dave A]

He's pretty much just been called a terrorrist by Pay Pal, if a member of he public was to call him that in the street because of his name he could press charges. If I had any of my internet accounts suspended because some terrorist somewhere had the same name as me, I'd be absolutely livid. If it was last year when my accoutns were more important I'd take them to court for damages no doubt about it.

How can you not be bothered that you could be classed as a terrorist because you have the same, or a similar name to someone else.

 

[OZZYGT]

But he would press charges against who? The person who called him a "terrorist"? Because PayPal can justify themselves by relying on the (SDN) list.

Ciao!

 

[Dave A]

No they can't justify it, it's like BT not giving anyone a telephone line if their name is similar to that of a terrorist. It's stupid.

As for suing, you'd sue PayPal.

 

[Poverty]

I agree with live for speed. If they are that concerned they should really be contacting the Met.

 

[Omnis]

Good thing Paypal isn't the government. Freedom shalt not die.

 

[dbartucci]

The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction.

It may be that PayPal must search their client database for matches and freeze accounts and forward the information. Anybody who uses a firm which has a base of operations in America can have their American assets frozen. Furthermore, the Patriot Act allows American law enforcement agencies to all records the American firm keeps on you. In this instance, PayPal is an American firm. So the fact the gentleman is a Brit who works for the goverment is irrelevant as it's only his American assets which have been frozen. And it seems the burden of proof is on him to prove he's not the person from the list, not the other way around.

PayPal can link him because while his name may be very common it unfortunately matches a name on the list. He can prove he's not the person on the list easily by providing information which shows he has a different DOB than the person on the list. I guess whether he wants to do it or not is his perogative.

Truly an unfortunate set of events for Mr. Hassan.


As for suing for damanges, I suppose the gentleman is free to travel to Omaha, Nebraska to file a suit. I'm curious what you think those damages are, though?

 

[Dave A]

Well if it happened to me last year I could have lost a lot of money, which I wouldn't have been able to transfer into my account. That's just one example, and I would have filed a law suit. It's screwed up that the onus is on you to prove your not a terrorist, regardless of if it's the law or not, that is really screwed up. Now if that account of Mr Hassans had been noted as being used for susicious reasons, then there is a reason to link Mr Hassan to terrorism, like if he's transeferring money to and from accounts in country that harbour terrorism ect. But all they've done is look at his name and call him a terrorist. I mean it's not like he should have been credit checked when he opened the account or anything is it.

 

[FoolKiller]

if a member of he public was to call him that in the street because of his name he could press charges.

Really? <Looks loving out the window at US soil while quoting the first amendment in my head>

If I had any of my internet accounts suspended because some terrorist somewhere had the same name as me, I'd be absolutely livid. If it was last year when my accoutns were more important I'd take them to court for damages no doubt about it.

How can you not be bothered that you could be classed as a terrorist because you have the same, or a similar name to someone else.

I agree here that before things get frozen there should be some checking other than just name comparisons. Islamic names tend to have a lot in common and then if anyone named something like John Smith were on that list it would create all kinds of trouble. Name checking should only send up a red flag to lead to further investigation before freezing accounts and risking crippling a man financially as well as causing a stigma that might permanently hurt his professional career.

 

[Dave A]

So your telling me that in the US you can walk upto an middle eastern looking guy infront of the police and call them a terrorist and you'd be fine. I doubt you could get away with that somehow. You could get done for racism or verbal abuse here and I don't see why you shouldn't.

 

[FoolKiller]

So your telling me that in the US you can walk upto an middle eastern looking guy infront of the police and call them a terrorist and you'd be fine. I doubt you could get away with that somehow. You could get done for racism or verbal abuse here and I don't see why you shouldn't.

Racism is not illegal in the states, neither is making a racist comment. You will probably lose some friends and maybe even your job, but the only legal action that can be taken against you is civil if the individual chooses to sue you for emotional damages. The police officer would merely be a witness.

If you have a position of power (business owner/manager) and blatantly use racism in your hiring/firing practices that is illegal (although danoff will surely argue the Constitutionality of that, Famine and myself would probably support him).

How do you think we still have groups such as the KKK in the states? Freedom of speech is allowed as long as you do not incite violence. I don't know if you get Comedy Central or have any channels that carry Mind of Mencia (Chappelle's Show was a good example too), but he makes plenty of racially charged comments and uses plenty of derogatory terms all on basic cable at 10:00 PM. Maybe watch a few stand-up comics on Comedy Central or even BET. We can say pretty much what we want.

 

[OZZYGT]

What he said ^ 👍




Ciao!

 

[Dave A]

Therre is a difference between me for example saying "I hate xxx race/religion" ect, and me randomly calling someone a terrorist. That by definition is a false accusation which goes beyond racism.

 

[OZZYGT]

But you know, if I walk by a guy who looks like hes part of Al-Quaeda, I'd look at him suspiciously, and even if he notices, I wouldn't mind because he's chosen to dress like that even thought he is in America and not in Irak. And they know about it, they know that if they wear that turbant in their head and the long bear and whatever for their religion, they are going to get dirty looks from some people, and for that, they shouldn't feel offended. All these terrorist that are atacking us and are planning more attempts against America, are exactly like that.

Now, I wouldn't ignore them If they try to talk to me, but they do get dirty looks, and that's who it is...whether they want it or not.



Ciao!

 

[FoolKiller]

Therre is a difference between me for example saying "I hate xxx race/religion" ect, and me randomly calling someone a terrorist. That by definition is a false accusation which goes beyond racism.

There is also a difference between calling someone that verbally in front of a police officer and my grabbing the officer telling him to arrest the man for being a terrorist. One is a racial stereotype and the other is filing a false police report based on racial profiling. I would at a minimum be warned by the officer not to make a false accusation again and at most be arrested and fined, with a possible 6 month jail term.

In the case of the Paypal situation I agree with you, it is like actually punishing the man for being a terrorist without enough evidence to confirm this.

 

[OZZYGT]

But what do you think they should've done? Subject to the guy's possible relation with terrorism? Big companies are not playing aroud with reputation which = Money





Ciao!

 

[Dave A]

They shuold have ran a check to see if anything has ever come up in the past that would be suspect.

 

[OZZYGT]

Well you know what? They didn't freeze the account immediateley, they sent him an e-mail asking for standard stuff like address confirmation, Id issued by the goverment and stuff like that...it's not that hard to do. And if he opts for not sending anything, then I think PayPal can justify the deletion of his account....Obviously If he doesn't send any type of personal info, then there will be more suspicion of who he is.


Ciao!

 

[FoolKiller]

Well you know what? They didn't freeze the account immediateley, they sent him an e-mail asking for standard stuff like address confirmation, Id issued by the goverment and stuff like that...it's not that hard to do. And if he opts for not sending anything, then I think PayPal can justify the deletion of his account....Obviously If he doesn't send any type of personal info, then there will be more suspicion of who he is.


Ciao!

I can understand his hesitance considering that privacy policies tend to tell you they will never ask you for this type of information. Somewhere along the lines privacy policy and security have crossed paths. I would probably demand that Paypal identify themselves before I even considered giving up this information.

Situations like this could easily lead to someone being able to steal the identity of an innocent Islamic citizen.

 

[Dave A]

Well you know what? They didn't freeze the account immediateley, they sent him an e-mail asking for standard stuff like address confirmation, Id issued by the goverment and stuff like that...it's not that hard to do. And if he opts for not sending anything, then I think PayPal can justify the deletion of his account....Obviously If he doesn't send any type of personal info, then there will be more suspicion of who he is.


Ciao!

No, the e-mail he got told him that they'd already denied him acess to his account, I quote "Access to your PayPal account has been denied because your name is similar to or a match to an entry on the Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. We are required to further verify your identity. In order to regain access to your account, please provide the following documentation:". They didn't say send us proof of ID or we'll freeze your account. And even if they did I wouldn't be so quick to send it to them for the very reason Foolkiller mentioned.

 

[OZZYGT]

Whether they have freezed the account or not, the matter should have been resolved by HIM sending what they were requesting, not by being a bitch abut it.....I mean, I understand he got upset, but PayPal didn't do that just to bust his balls, they did it for security reason and he has to undersatnd that.

I betcha he's looking for a lawsuit right now....


Ciao!

 

[Dave A]

And he has every right to be looking for a lawsuit imo. Like I said, if they were concerned about his name matching somone elses, they could have done a check easy enough, they should also have looked at his account/s, and seen if he was using them in any ways that could be deemed suspicious. The way PayPal have deal with this is very poor and thshouldn't be allowed to treat people in this way.

 

[OZZYGT]

OK you know what, you're right, they should've done a check-up prior taking any actions, all I'm saying is that, If I was the one who was being accused, I would have confirmed the bank immediately about my situation and proven that I'm just a regular citizen and NOT a terrorist, it may sound funny, but I think it's the safest procedure to follow. Now, in this case, the guy's response on this was not only ignorant and stupid, but it could've been taken as even more suspicious...And I Think that If he sues PayPal, then the outcome would not be favorable for the defendant but for the plaintiff




Ciao!

 

[dbartucci]

I promise you he has no case. He hasn't lost anything, his assets are frozen. They could be unfrozen if he sends a photocopy of his dl to PayPal. Nor have they slandered, libeled or insulted his name. In order to do that they would have had to do that in front of reasonable people causing his reputation to be damaged. Fact of the matter is, the only reason anyone knows about this is because Hassan himself went to the press, not PayPal.

PayPal has the right to restrict or close the accounts of anyone who fails to provide identification when requested. And PayPal must request and divuldge certain information about certain transactions. None of us can say what Hassan was using his PayPal account for. It could be he was an investor in the PayPal Money Market Fund.

Like I said before, it's unfortunate and he can chose to not send the information. But you can't agree to abide by the terms of a service and use that service then refuse to comply with those terms later and expect to use the service.

 

[Dave A]

They labelled him as a terrorist unless he proves he isn't that alone is enough, but also it's not that he hasn't lost anything already in his account but it's depending on how much he needs that account for different purposes he could still be losing out. You can sue for that.

 

[dbartucci]

They haven't labelled him a terrorist. All they've said is that they must seize the assets of a Mohammed Hassan with the following information: x, y, z. Please send us something to confirm you are not this person, whose name you share. IMO the alternative is EVERYONE who uses PayPal must submit all that info. I think most people would be very leery to submit that much info on a site and it wouldn't be as popular as it is, and might not even be viable.

Furthermore:

In general. In addition to the rights laid out in section 7.2 of the User Agreement, PayPal, at its sole discretion, also reserves the right to limit access to sending money or making withdrawals from an account for any one of the events listed below.

x. Refusal to cooperate in an investigation or provide confirmation of identity when requested;


The gentleman is refusing to confirm his identity and PayPal has the sole right to close or limit his account. I'm afraid he doesn't have a leg to stand on, he necessarily agreed to these terms by registering an account and using the service.

 

[OZZYGT]

I promise you he has no case. He hasn't lost anything, his assets are frozen. They could be unfrozen if he sends a photocopy of his dl to PayPal. Nor have they slandered, libeled or insulted his name. In order to do that they would have had to do that in front of reasonable people causing his reputation to be damaged. Fact of the matter is, the only reason anyone knows about this is because Hassan himself went to the press, not PayPal.

PayPal has the right to restrict or close the accounts of anyone who fails to provide identification when requested. And PayPal must request and divuldge certain information about certain transactions. None of us can say what Hassan was using his PayPal account for. It could be he was an investor in the PayPal Money Market Fund.

Like I said before, it's unfortunate and he can chose to not send the information. But you can't agree to abide by the terms of a service and use that service then refuse to comply with those terms later and expect to use the service.

I totally agree my countryman , that's what i tried to said.




Ciao!