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by 650REDHAIR 1711 days ago
I'll donate to this project.
1 comments

Donating money to a project in Iran may be legally hairy for Americans. Check the situation before doing so. I am all for helping worthwhile projects financially, but international politics is a mess.
I've seen a case where somebody had their zelle or venmo account permanently removed for sending a small transfer to their friend with the description "for the cubans" - they were paying their buddy back for an order of sandwiches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_sandwich

Paypal actually did this to me for hiring an indonesian kid to sketch a t-shirt design for $50.

Before I clicked send, I verified that Paypal said they'd send the money without charging a fee. He received it, minus the fee they claimed they wouldn't charge. So, I tried to send another $10 to cover the difference and I got torpedoed into some black hole of no return.

Now I can't use paypal to buy anything without submitting a bunch of documentation, which is super weird considering I don't have to send anything like that to use their competitors' services, so it's never going to happen.

I assume it's some sort of regulation they're attempting to follow, but haven't thought through, but who knows? It's definitely costing them money, but maybe not enough to justify improving the UX.

That sounds more like urban legend than a true story. Neither Zelle nor Venmo (and it's a strike that you can't specify) have an obligation to cancel accounts based on comments.

If they did, half of the accounts in Venmo would be banned already - have you read the comments in the public feed? People know that feed exists, and use it to troll their friends all the time.

I've never seen a bank or credit card company put in any effort regarding cuban cigars. A few of the best shops are clearly illegal just because of the name alone. But they all accept visa and Mastercard

You don't even need to bother with h dark web and cryptocurrency. It will just flat out show up on your bill without issue.

I think they might have interpreted it as "please give this money to the Cubans". Which, AFAIK is (was?) illegal in the US.
And then we wonder if crypto has a real market.
ah, had a discussion with a friend about sending money with Iran in the comments. he said his poker buddies used to donate 10% of the winning for someone to help orphans in iran. in the paypal transfer he wrote "for the good work you do in iran". his account got banned and money never got returned. later his account was reinstated but money never was returned.