[TomSwirly]

I went to school with someone named Jane Smith whose father was named John.

In my life, I've known two Mike Wilsons, and when I knew one of them, there was also a cabinet minister called Mike Wilson (in Canada).

Summary: if your company blocks someone based on their name only, your company is a bunch of incompetent losers.

[smcl]

If it's in finance then unfortunately this is really just how it works in the US. If a bank has the slightest inkling that you're someone on a sanctions list (or that you have a connection to some "bad" country like Venezuela, Iran or Cuba) they'll drop you like a stone.

So yeah I agree it sucks, but the issue is not that every company which complies with OFAC is an incompetent loser. It's that the USA has declared a few countries as enemies and has some tough laws to enforce this both domestically and within its sphere of influence (foreign transactions with a "US nexus"[0] fall under OFAC). If I recall there's no upper bound on the fines for contravening OFAC and there's no leniency for accidentally breaking it even though you demonstrably tried to identify people, or were tricked. So these companies are incentivized to err on the side of extreme caution.

[0] - this is a fun one, iirc this can mean obvious things like "a company has a subsidiary or office in the USA", or "a transaction was conducted in USD" or even "an American citizen was in the room when the transaction was performed".

[Spooky23]

Because some among us don’t like the idea of a rational identity system, that’s what we got in the US.

Many things are more difficult for “John Smith” because of this sort of bullshit.

[nullc]

or it's complying with a US law or executive branch administrative policy that was set by a bunch of incompetent losers.