Accused Of Money Laundering By Officials.

We had a bank plus a Lawyer believing we were into money laundering.

Pretty full-on accusation by people that thought that they had us out cold.

Until we showed them all our tracking and the issue was stopped in its tracks as quick as.

In our eBay stores there is no tracking filled in by us for sold items except if someone asks for the tracking details. Just will not type all those numbers onto our sold lots.

We would of been done for money laundering if we had no tracking by the looks of it.

Another reason for putting tracking on your sold items.

How is selling stamps online money laundering exactly? That's pretty weird...

It is about the amount of money that has gone through our accounts.

We have repeat buyers from the same listing for lots from $200 to $500.

Our bank has pushed the issue of money laundering from the beginning of us changing info for the new eBay requirements.

Have been through a search on us by a lawyer. Had to register our trading names. Start 2 new business bank accounts. Whatever.....

After our bank get us to prove everything through a lawyer search on us and doing all the new account stuff and their last words to us was they believe we are money laundering. Not Happy.

Howard Marks used to hide some of his dirty money via stamp dealing - claiming to have aquired his latest stash of cash by happening on a rare stamp and selling it on. Of course there was no such stamp, and the 'buyer' was his accomplice. Gave Marks a paper trail though to explain where he got his money.

Ebay money laundering. If you only knew.

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-m...ebay-4145387

Good article. PayPal did a random audit on my account recently & put several incoming payments on hold. Was curious why, so called and had a nice chat with a helpful rep who told me some of the "red flags" their automated audit system looks for in an account (before she released the holds, since my account was good). May be of interest -
- Inconsistent or widely varying activity or amounts, particularly with a short track record
- Incomplete or inconsistent name/address info
- High level of disputes/refunds
- Big change in origin/currency of payment (e.g. suddenly receiving $$ from country X that never have before)

KGV thanks for starting such an interesting and relevant topic. I think your advise around maintaining excellent file stores and chain of custody documents are extremely on target. At some point, we all might use eBay to dispose of portions of our collection.

Randy- thanks very much for sharing that article. Had a few nuggest of new knowledge for me.

KGV, If this is true -- "their last words to us was they believe we are money laundering" - I'd say it's either time to go down to the bank and ask for a fairly high-level meeting with bank executives, bringing your business records (and maybe your lawyer) with you or leave that bank. If they are just going to casually call you a criminal, that's a pretty awful business relationship you've got there. In the U.S., that might led to legal action by the customer against the bank for libel or slander. Option #2 is to change banks and find someone less awful to deal with. I'd take my money elsewhere if someone accused me of being a criminal.

You say that "tracking" information saved you, but what exactly was that? Is this just customer's names and Ebay item numbers? Or is there more to it?

Great thread, and very interesting.

I see the topics of money laundering and Ebay together rather frequently lately. Problem in paradise?

Too bad nobody seems to be able to shut down the cartel accounts though.

Thank you all for the interest.

Hi DrewM




For 95% of our sales we get what we call here "signature on delivery" at a cost of au$2.95. So we get tagged into the system over the PO counter. At the same time the weight is included in this tagging on process for tracking numbers on the PO receipt. It proves delivery for eBay. It proves to all comers they are real buyers.

To start another bank is not my option. Am not going though all this again. But what I am going to do is get some discounts on my insurance etc from my bank. Am going to do this face to face and throw the lot at them and see what happens.

I have had enough and want the original bank person who has written on my file. I want that info and them. My file must look like a circus by now. If they have not cleaned it up.

There is still a couple of things that need to be said as well.

We had a bank account that could not be found in their system. Only when the numbers were typed into their system did the account showed up. They have chocked on this big time. The perfect money laundering account apparently.

In the last month if anyone was monitoring our accounts they would seen large amounts of money going to hydro shops. Yep lasted LED white grow lights, climate control reverse cycle air con, topped off with a number of flood trays and not to forget it is all for legal purposes. How out there is this as an issue?

If you had 100s of different customers your 'expert' must have thought he was on to the mother of all money laundering networks ...

Sounds to me more like he was a simple idiot.

I'm wondering if they thought perhaps you were running a "pot farm"? I'm in California, and there's a big problem with that here, despite the legalization that we've been going through. Here, people rent houses, sometimes even nice homes in nice suburbs, and have a completely indoor and quite under-the-radar operation.

Rather than trying to understand your business better, or believing what you said, they made a worst-case assumption. I don't know what the laws for both banking and marijuana growing and possession are in your area, but perhaps that's why they were discouraging you from maintaining a banking relationship with them.

All just pure speculation on my part, and in no way justifying their behavior.

Thank you for your reply.

The trouble that can happen from selling a lot of stamps at one time.....

Yes the amount of grow tents & these new LED grow lights that are selling to cannabis growers has got all players looking at hydro sales and money laundering full-on I believe. It is against the law to have anything to do with cannabis in Aus. Does not matter what you are selling if it is working, 1st thing they seem to think is cannabis grower.

Put myself into a bad place for incoming info by banning myself from going to a hydro shop on line or in person. That is my position on that subject. Do very much believe that the Police are going to pay me a visit soon. They can go for their lives. Once the brightness from these lights can be seen all will think we are growing cannabis.

After 5 years I finally went to 2 hydro shops a couple of months ago. One store had very red eyed sales people that could not care less. The other were straight looking people very friendly, good info.

Hydro stock is hard to come by because US has all the back orders for stock from the producer so no other can order. Its used up all production stock forward for the next 12 months already. The trouble trying to find what I wanted was unreal. And am getting all this grief in the process.

The hydro boss man told me US has a predicted hydro increase in sales by 1000% in 2021. Aus has a predicted sales increase of 400%. If they can get stock. The shop am buying from runs their own products but not all items needed.

But these hydro shops have the latest LED white grow lights. So that gives you no heat from lights issues plus LED's can be work with a dimmer to 25% of light strength. This was what I was reading about 18 months ago and worth a fortune back then. In last 12 months the LED grow lights technology has increased their light strength by near 100%.

Be careful selling a lot of anything.

Yup, there is a huge 25,000 square feet pot growing facility under construction in my small town in Western Massachusetts of 1,000 people. Can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a pot shop or facility.

Don't want to do that or they might think you were smoking some of that stuff.