My paypal account was recently temporarily suspended for selling a North Korean banknote. I've always been interested in buying and selling the paper money of controversial countries that have been in the news and never realized it might be illegal.
Now, I have banknotes from Syria, Iran and Libya I'd like to attempt to sell. I got all of these through third party dealers not located in the countries the banknotes are from (I think all of them were actually from the US).
The message paypal sent me contained the following:
Quote:
PayPal's Compliance Department has reviewed your account and identified
activity that may be in violation of United States regulations administered
by the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC).
Which led me to discover this page:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce...rograms.aspxUnfortunately I'm not a lawyer though and even the overviews on this page are not particularly clear to me if I'm allowed to sell the banknotes. For example, the one on syria:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce...ts/syria.pdfQuote:
Current Syria sanctions (1) block the property and interests in property of the Government of Syria pursuant to E.O.
13582, (2) block the property and interests in property of persons listed in an Annex to, or that are determined by the
Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the Secretary of State, to meet the criteria described in, E.O. 13338,
E.O. 13399, E.O. 13460, E.O. 13572, E.O. 13573, E.O. 13582, or E.O. 13606, (3) prohibit transactions or dealings
with foreign persons that are determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State,
to meet the criteria described in E.O. 13608, and (4) prohibit certain transactions with respect to Syria pursuant to
E.O. 13582.
Under E.O. 13582, all property and interests in property of the Government of Syria, which includes its agencies,
instrumentalities, and controlled entities, which are in the United States or within the possession or control of U.S.
persons, are blocked.
E.O. 13582 also prohibits the following:
• New investment in Syria by a U.S. person, wherever located;
• The direct or indirect exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply of any services to Syria from the United
States or by a U.S. person, wherever located;
• The importation into the United States of petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin;
• Any transaction or dealing by a U.S. person, wherever located, in or related to petroleum or petroleum
products of Syrian origin; and
• Any approval, financing, facilitation, or guarantee by a U.S. person, wherever located, of a transaction
by a foreign person where the transaction by that foreign person would be prohibited if performed by a
U.S. person or within the United States.
Does that mean I can sell the banknotes or not?
Anyone have experience with selling this stuff? I just like to sell cool things in the news, but if it means I need a lawyer to sell a piece of paper for $5 I guess I should just totally avoid having anything to do with it. But on the other hand these things do show up on
ebay relatively frequently. Any advice?
Posted 09/10/2013 12:54 pm
to CCF !
