[mikeyouse]

You're not wrong - but try to Venmo somebody funds for a "Cuban Sandwich" or an "Iranian restaurant" and see what happens though.

[booleandilemma]

I recently used paypal to send a dollar to a coworker with the description of “tardigrade”, after reading a story on HN about how they were blocking transactions containing that string.

Sure enough, the transaction was blocked, my account was disabled, and I had to send paypal an email saying that I wasn’t an arms dealer.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450828

[dilyevsky]

Dunno why this is being downvoted - i once jokingly added a note mentioning “meth” paying someone for dinner (in reference to our conversation at said dinner) and google suspended my account temporarily and cancelled the transaction

[_2d30]

I just did the Cuban Sandwich one without a problem. What should I be expecting?

[srtjstjsj]

USA had (has?) sanctions banning trading with Cuba.

[_2d30]

I know. I'm just not sure why the OP is so confident that me putting "Cuban Sandwich" in the memo is going to get me flagged. Still good so far.

[macintux]

I did that with PayPal a couple of years ago and the transaction was flagged for review.

[leereeves]

Not long ago there was a similar discussion here because

> PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450828

And one of the top comments said:

> PayPal gets a list of banned strings from the Office of Foreign Asset controls. If any match those strings it's flagged for a review.

[na85]

Are those phrases some kind of slang for drugs or fraud or something? Or is it just because they contain the words "Cuba" and "Iran"?

[detaro]

Just because of the country names.

[29athrowaway]

Persian food is kind of a synonym