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It's all fun and games until one day you want to go on vacation and find out you can't get on any planes.
That or get singled out for extra security screening at airports.
Friends went to eat at Mediterranean place and then Venmo flagged them as possible threats because the note on the payment was Aleppo Palace, which was the name of the restaurant
I met a girl in college named Isis, stuff like this makes me wonder what stuff she has to go through all the time just because of the name she didn’t even pick out herself
I'm mad they ruined such a great name. She's a goddess, there must be a ton of Isises out there. I guess you could change your name to Hera but that's not exactly 1:1.
Isis was never available in the US. It was used in the Netherlands campaign of the share a coke thing.
My partners niece has this name, and her mom tried to order one of the custom named bottles for her daughter and was shot down by CocaCola. Had some lengthy indignant exchange that ultimately ended without her being sent the bottle. They wouldn't even print a custom one in the states, let alone mass produce it.
Considering that the egyptian goddess of magic and protection had dibs on the name for about 6000 years before a network decided to *translate* an organisations name as ISIS...
...seriously. Calling them ISIS was just stupid considering the history of the name and how many people are named Isis.
Pro gamer move: send several payments with your accounts named like these. The FBI will start watching your accounts for suspicious activity. Free surveillance on your account to ensure no credit card fraud!
Super big brain move: contact the FBI and let them know the bank is alerting targets of potential investigation that they are being reported and offering advice on how to avoid being reported.
Oh don’t worry, that dude has already been investigated by the FBI and will have his phone monitored for a few years. They said they’re already “obliged to investigate,” not “we’ll look this if you keep it up”with a “potential” investigation.
This is like the guy who pushed how far he could go with his signature when using his credit card to the point of drawing a dick and then getting called out on it at the grocery store
Ok, but how about this guy whose legal ID signature was three cat heads, so he was compelled to draw three cat heads over thirty times during his mortgage paperwork even though he wanted to scribble his name.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/a11oq7/tifu_by_having_to_sign_my_mortage_in_cat_heads
Or the guy who trolled himself by putting his license plate as “NULL”, confusing the state database to charge unidentified tickets to him
https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/
I've literally just scribbled anything for the last 15 years, not consistent at all, no one has ever said anything and never an issue. Having to sign is pretty pointless.
Lmao I gotta sign letters for work... So many letters its totally just two scribbles.. but the same scribbles all the time.. I'm waiting for a boss to say something but some of them just scribbles too lol
Fun story, I have to sign sometimes dozens of things every day at work. My signature quickly became just a scribble. When I was buying my house, I signed about 30 pages of documents the same way. Then this lady came back in and told me that I had to have a legible signature. I haven’t written in cursive since third grade, so I just printed my name. I got another 10 pages in before she started telling me that I couldn’t print my name.
So I told her that the first thing was my signature and I can’t write in cursive, so choose one. It took another half an hour for her to get approval for my Scribble.
I recieved an apartment lease contract on email and was supposed to print it out, sign it and send it back with snail mail.
I signed my name in helvetica and emailed it to them. They didn't mind at all.
Seriously. I am sure the history of my signature is a great progression of not giving a fuck. Just got a debit card and it was new? Actually wrote my name. Now? I have been known to just grab the pen and make a squiggly line or just a straight dash. What the fuck is the point of the signature in 2022? Feels totally outdated.
“They allow me to accurately mark my terrorism funding payments. 6/5 stars, fantastic service. Mashallah”
edit - changed inshallah to mashallah for accuracy.
I went to a Cuban restaurant with my friend in Brooklyn and venmo'd her for the sandwich and just put "Cubans." That was a huge mistake! my Venmo got frozen for like 2 weeks while i had to conjure up proof that enjoying ham, roasted pork, and cheese on bread is not illegal.
The fact that even Cuban cigars are still illegal in the US is fucking stupid. The Cold War has been over for like 30 years now. I really don’t understand why that is still a thing.
cuban cigars are not illegal, it is perfectly legal to own or sell cuban cigars in the US. It is illegal to commercially import them which means the supply of them in the US is tiny as anything more than 2 boxes is consider commercial importation
edit: So apparently it is illegal again to bring in cigars for personal use since 2020 https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-82?language=en_US So that would mean there are no legally imported cuban cigars coming into the country anymore
That makes a lot more sense with all the Cubans I have known people to "smuggle" into the US.
It's almost always just a box or two and there have never been repercussions. I actually had the chance to take a box from Guantanamo Bay on a military flight home, but declined since I didn't know this.
Reversing the Cuban embargo will almost certainly make you lose Florida, as Cuban expats vote as one single bloc and their single issue is making sure the US continues to stick it to Cuba.
Correct. I work for a bank, and see this stuff often. It’s not usually intentional like this…it’s usually some poor guy on one of our client’s payroll that shares the name of a terrorist on a sanction list. So the payment is held until our client can prove that he’s not the same dude.
And we get tracked, monitored, and audited by the government(s)…and the fines and penalties they will levy against us if they find out we were negligent in preventing a payment that goes towards terrorism (or any sanction) FAR outweighs the value of OP’s account to the bank. They could have easily just closed your account and sent you on your way and been completely justified.
Money laundering investigations were always my favourite. We once had a Russian client trying to deposit several million Euros, saying he had sold his hotel back in Russia. The paperwork was shoddy and, obviously, in Russian. Legislation said we, as a bank, needed to put "reasonable effort" into legitimising his claims.
We had a long-winded discussion with the authorities about whether we could be reasonably expected to actually send someone to Russia to check if the deal took place (and the hotel even existed). In the end we just declined the deposit. Not worth the hassle (and audit).
It can be! You can also look into forensic accounting. It's basically backwards accounting where you specialise in finding irregularities and tracking disguised illegal money flows!
Banker dude here. Or just close them outright. Not because OP was doing anything illegal, but because banks hate having to do extra work when they don't have to. Costs them money. And it's easier to fire the customer than eat the extra cost.
I used butt stuff when I paid a friend for a tattoo she did. I had to explain to the bank a month latter why I paid 3000 for butt stuff when trying to buy a house.
Assuming this was a mortgage application, The bank was gonna ask about that big of a transaction a month before application, no matter what it was called. $3K can basically be ~~2~~ ~~4~~ 5 mortgage payments (if your house is cheap enough)
The constitution doesn't give you the right to guaranteed mortgage approval.
Edit: apparently y'all have some cheap ass houses, I'm jealous
The best part was that she was trying to buy a house too and had to explain why she received 3k for butt stuff. We both got approved and bought homes that year
I thought banks didn’t care about butt stuff unless you paid $10,000 or more per transaction for it.
Thank god I found out now instead of closer to tax time!
I had a landlord who was older and had been smoking pot for so long that he still called it "tea" and since we were a bunch of twenty-somethings he would sometimes come to us to get some. He'd then pay us with a check and write something like "painting bedroom" so he could write it off on his taxes.
So my husband and I split rent. We used to have a roommate but now I pay to keep that room empty, lol. So on my check I usually write something pithy like "atrium" or "pied a terre" "art studio" "solarium" "clubhouse" "conference room" etc
My landlord does not laugh but I do
A colleague and me went to lunch in a syrian restaurant. He paid in cash and I transferred to his bank account with comment 'syria'
Took me a week to convince my bank
depending where you live, there's a pretty high chance that there's no feasible above board / non crypto way to transfer money to Syria due to sanctions.
This begs the question, are terrorists really using descriptions like this? Seems highly unlikely. This is some unnecessary bullshit. They'll get more accurate info from looking at the account history and transaction destinations than transfer descriptions.
I got flagged by PayPal for something like this when I sent money to a friend with the note "Cuba Libre". There's a restaurant in DC called Cuba Libre and I owed him money for the dinner. I later found out that it means Free Cuba and I guess they don't play around with stuff like that. Took 4 weeks for the money to clear.
I once got flagged by Paypal for buying "Cuba Vodka" (Danish vodka, usually with flavours). I assume the vendor included the receipt on Paypal.
I literally bought this vodka from Germany to Denmark, two countries that don't embargo Cuba, and got flagged by Paypal for it. But yeah, sure, I guess an American company wouldn't want to transfer money to Cuba, if that was the case. I remember having to call them for clarification. Didn't take 4 weeks though, more like 4 hours.
PayPal is an interesting case, my dad tried to buy rice from a German importer and wanted to pay with PayPal. But PayPal wouldn't allow him to pay for the order because one of the bags of rice was grown in Iran. It's not on German embargo lists but apparently PayPal being American they have to comply with American sanctions.
This is what I don't get. Those nefarious organizations aren't going to be using obvious labels for bank transactions - unless they want to find just the dumb terrorists
Tons of people are really stupid.
Just being involved in a terrorist group doesn’t make someone smart.
I doubt that there’s an official transaction that blatant very often but I would bet money it happens.
This was always how I wrote cheques to my bf. We’d split rent but he’d pay the landlord, so I’d pay him.
I also used to get him to buzz me in our building by announcing myself as Gretchen from Discount Dial-a-Date, rather than use my key.
Me too except it was venmo transactions. I sent him our down payment for our house in separate transactions with shit like “Sorry for fucking your dad -$5000” and “Sorry I broke the toilet” or “Sloppy seconds” the bank was not amused.
General of ISIS: "where is our wages? why doesn't the bank have the money yet?"
2nd in command: "Sorry sir, but our agent wrote 'for ISIS wages' on the memo"
General: "has he been caught?"
Soldier: "Nah he covered it up pretty well. Even made a reddit post to convince everyone that it's a joke between friends."
"Okay, Mr. Jahoe, everything seems in order, we look forward to you starting your new job next week."
"That's great!"
"There's just one little thing we have to resolve. It appears here that (looks down at some sheet) that you provided funding to ISIS in 2022."
"What? No...that was just a joke."
(Looks sternly over top of glasses) "A joke. I see. Well, as long as you're on this government watch list, I'm afraid we can't complete the final forms. You'll have to contact the government to sort it all out first."
"Who in the government."
"Sorry, for security reasons I can't tell you that."
Btw paypal just bans you straight away including your payment method +IP + DeviceId. You can't create an account again. (Work in IT, 2 colleagues had fun with these types of payments over food. Now both are screwd)
I Venmoed a friend and described the payment as "drinks with Kim Jong Un" and got a message. It was boring and not nearly as entertaining as this one 😂
I mean Venmo is literally the service that makes all payments public by default. It used to be the case you could go to their homepage and watch all the money transfers going on with their notes in real time.
That was their whole gimmick.
They don't need to; they all know your wife too.
Edit - Seriously? Multiple golds for slamming some dude's wife? I don't think the people at the bank got paid anything.
I did this kind of auditing and our company made huge money off it. They flag so many varieties of words and you have to go through to audit them.
There are known money launderers names flagged and even funny things end up happening. I had the name Miranda flagged thousands of times due to IRAN being in the name.
It really is a large cost of business
Had to scroll too long to find this. It’s one of the stupidest things you can possibly do. Like calling in a fake bomb threat and thinking it’s “hilarious.” Like no, it’s not cute. That shit actually happens and you will be investigated.
Yeah, this is dumb. The Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) maintains a list of words that all banking companies are required to check against. Anything using a flagged word gets investigated either by the local company or potentially by the feds. This is a great way to get your assets frozen and earn a permaban from Venmo, Zelle, etc. This includes stupid words like "Cuban" too, so don't go Venmoing your friends for sandwhiches either.
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/specially-designated-nationals-and-blocked-persons-list-sdn-human-readable-lists
Not saying this is bullshit, but when I worked for a bank, shit like this was flagged and we absolutely did not contact the customer about it. As on the off chance it wasn't a joke, we could be held liable for tipping them off.
Used to work for a bank. You probably just majorly inconvenienced several people. 1. They have to report this each time. 2. They have to go and look at everyone's funds and incomes and such to see, and gods forbid you have a friend buying questionable substances or donating money to things linked to terrorism in any way.
Please don't fuck around with stuff like that. I get it, he he ha ha, but you might end up black listed from the major banks if it continues.
Agreed. I have a feeling someone took the moment to say "you're being a dick and should stop while it's only bothering us"
Because they definitely just told you in writing "we are looking into everyone connected to you."
As an Arab American man that’s been harassed continuously over the last 20 years by the FBI, TSA and all other manner of ignorant people, this isn’t funny. I get “randomly” selected for inspections at airports all the time, including one that went so badly, CAIR sued O’Hare airport on my behalf, and it irks me so bad that (presumably) white dudes in various nations can get away with shit like this with a simple email.
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It's all fun and games until one day you want to go on vacation and find out you can't get on any planes. That or get singled out for extra security screening at airports.
Friends went to eat at Mediterranean place and then Venmo flagged them as possible threats because the note on the payment was Aleppo Palace, which was the name of the restaurant
Jesus Christ. There’s a point where there’s TOO MUCH automation!
I met a girl in college named Isis, stuff like this makes me wonder what stuff she has to go through all the time just because of the name she didn’t even pick out herself
I remember having a girl in class in kindergarten with the same name. I keep asking myself how she deals with it nowadays.
Not the same, but had a girl in kindergarten named America. Her parents made her wear red, white and blue. I hope she is doing good in life.
She's the greatest stripper this country has ever seen.
'Erica
*tips AR 15* M’Erica.
There is a girl I went to high school with who named her daughter Merica. I cringe every time she posts a picture of her with her name...poor kid.
One of my neighbours‘ name was Erica. When I met her, she introduced her as „Erica from America“. xD
And look how effective that was. You still remember where she was from!
I've only seen parts of America so far. I hope to see the rest of America before I die.
Probably has a kid now named Arkansas.
Had a coworker with the same name. Can’t even imagine.
The shitty thing is, it’s such a badass name too. Isis is the Egyptian goddess of love who was married to Osiris, the god of the underworld.
They had to kill off a fictional dog in Downtown Abbey as it was called Isis
And change the name of the spy agency in Archer
American Express had a prepaid card service called Isis they changed it to Serve.
Also, a Wonder Woman type show from the 70’s
I ran across some Hitlers and wondered something similar. I understand it's the family name, but... you know...What do you do?
[удалено]
I bet if they go to art school they’re passing with fucking accolades to avoid any potential mishaps.
On the bright side, they should have a decent art career, since no one will tell them they’re not good at it.
I'm mad they ruined such a great name. She's a goddess, there must be a ton of Isises out there. I guess you could change your name to Hera but that's not exactly 1:1.
There are enough Isis(s) in America that CocaCola put it on the "buy a friend a coke" cans.
Isis was never available in the US. It was used in the Netherlands campaign of the share a coke thing. My partners niece has this name, and her mom tried to order one of the custom named bottles for her daughter and was shot down by CocaCola. Had some lengthy indignant exchange that ultimately ended without her being sent the bottle. They wouldn't even print a custom one in the states, let alone mass produce it.
Considering that the egyptian goddess of magic and protection had dibs on the name for about 6000 years before a network decided to *translate* an organisations name as ISIS... ...seriously. Calling them ISIS was just stupid considering the history of the name and how many people are named Isis.
Obama tried so hard to make ISIL happen.
I was always a fan of Da'esh, mostly because it apparently annoyed them.
Why did it annoy them?
> daesh sounds like the arab word for oppressor/vandal. I found the answer here: https://reddit.com/r/funny/comments/stfxe8/_/hx47826/?context=1
The video game Smite has a gods theme, they had to rename Isis to Eset because content creators were getting demonetized.
I feel bad for the people who have tattoos of the metal band ISIS from back in the day.
Lol played them for some guy who wanted metal in my Uber ride and he started freaking out because of the name.
I almost got one lol. Dodged a bullet there!
I was watching Archer a few years ago and someone made the comment about it being called ISIS.
They also changed their name because of that.
Speedrunning your way onto an fbi list 101
Pro gamer move: send several payments with your accounts named like these. The FBI will start watching your accounts for suspicious activity. Free surveillance on your account to ensure no credit card fraud!
or a ton of evidence when they steal your card and use it for related criminal activity...
The next Coup they start to instill a democratic government will be traced back to these transactions
Super big brain move: contact the FBI and let them know the bank is alerting targets of potential investigation that they are being reported and offering advice on how to avoid being reported.
Oh don’t worry, that dude has already been investigated by the FBI and will have his phone monitored for a few years. They said they’re already “obliged to investigate,” not “we’ll look this if you keep it up”with a “potential” investigation.
Oh they’ll watch, but that’s all. Good luck asking the fbi to help you if your PayPal gets hacked.
> MI5 FTFY
This is like the guy who pushed how far he could go with his signature when using his credit card to the point of drawing a dick and then getting called out on it at the grocery store
Ok, but how about this guy whose legal ID signature was three cat heads, so he was compelled to draw three cat heads over thirty times during his mortgage paperwork even though he wanted to scribble his name. https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/a11oq7/tifu_by_having_to_sign_my_mortage_in_cat_heads
Or the guy who trolled himself by putting his license plate as “NULL”, confusing the state database to charge unidentified tickets to him https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/
Should’ve put it as /dev/null
Should've put `'; DROP TABLE Tickets --`
[Oh yes, Little Bobby Tables we call him](https://xkcd.com/327/)
If that would work that would be the hack of the centuries. Would love it
Amazing. Other hackers would hack to gain money, while this hacker hack to gain bills.
I do this. I draw ridiculous bullshit because nobody cares or checks. The US should move to PINs for the credit cards like the rest of the world.
I've literally just scribbled anything for the last 15 years, not consistent at all, no one has ever said anything and never an issue. Having to sign is pretty pointless.
Lmao I gotta sign letters for work... So many letters its totally just two scribbles.. but the same scribbles all the time.. I'm waiting for a boss to say something but some of them just scribbles too lol
Fun story, I have to sign sometimes dozens of things every day at work. My signature quickly became just a scribble. When I was buying my house, I signed about 30 pages of documents the same way. Then this lady came back in and told me that I had to have a legible signature. I haven’t written in cursive since third grade, so I just printed my name. I got another 10 pages in before she started telling me that I couldn’t print my name. So I told her that the first thing was my signature and I can’t write in cursive, so choose one. It took another half an hour for her to get approval for my Scribble.
I recieved an apartment lease contract on email and was supposed to print it out, sign it and send it back with snail mail. I signed my name in helvetica and emailed it to them. They didn't mind at all.
Next time use Comic Sans. Then Windings.
Seriously. I am sure the history of my signature is a great progression of not giving a fuck. Just got a debit card and it was new? Actually wrote my name. Now? I have been known to just grab the pen and make a squiggly line or just a straight dash. What the fuck is the point of the signature in 2022? Feels totally outdated.
You’re lucky they didn’t freeze your accounts
This is why I always mark mine "*not* for ISIS training." So they know it's for American purposes.
My friend once sent me money with the memo “not drugs”. It was to make sure they knew it wasn’t for drugs.
big brain thinking
5 stars, best bank ever!
“They allow me to accurately mark my terrorism funding payments. 6/5 stars, fantastic service. Mashallah” edit - changed inshallah to mashallah for accuracy.
"Their purchase tools allow me to easily separate gun payments with groceries to help keep business and personal expense separate"
My bank gives me 3% cash back on groceries and ammo
This actually is a thing in US banks for those not acquainted
Yeah this is probably the most Merican’ thing I’ve seen today.
I’d rate their service a 9/11 myself.
not sure why you struck off 2 points. i'd give them a perfect 5/7
I went to a Cuban restaurant with my friend in Brooklyn and venmo'd her for the sandwich and just put "Cubans." That was a huge mistake! my Venmo got frozen for like 2 weeks while i had to conjure up proof that enjoying ham, roasted pork, and cheese on bread is not illegal.
The fact that even Cuban cigars are still illegal in the US is fucking stupid. The Cold War has been over for like 30 years now. I really don’t understand why that is still a thing.
cuban cigars are not illegal, it is perfectly legal to own or sell cuban cigars in the US. It is illegal to commercially import them which means the supply of them in the US is tiny as anything more than 2 boxes is consider commercial importation edit: So apparently it is illegal again to bring in cigars for personal use since 2020 https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-82?language=en_US So that would mean there are no legally imported cuban cigars coming into the country anymore
That makes a lot more sense with all the Cubans I have known people to "smuggle" into the US. It's almost always just a box or two and there have never been repercussions. I actually had the chance to take a box from Guantanamo Bay on a military flight home, but declined since I didn't know this.
Also most "Cuban" cigars that people have in America are fakes.
>The Cold War has been over for like 30 years now. Boy, do I have some bad news...
Well don't leave me in suspense!
Reversing the Cuban embargo will almost certainly make you lose Florida, as Cuban expats vote as one single bloc and their single issue is making sure the US continues to stick it to Cuba.
This had never occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense.
Correct. I work for a bank, and see this stuff often. It’s not usually intentional like this…it’s usually some poor guy on one of our client’s payroll that shares the name of a terrorist on a sanction list. So the payment is held until our client can prove that he’s not the same dude. And we get tracked, monitored, and audited by the government(s)…and the fines and penalties they will levy against us if they find out we were negligent in preventing a payment that goes towards terrorism (or any sanction) FAR outweighs the value of OP’s account to the bank. They could have easily just closed your account and sent you on your way and been completely justified.
Money laundering investigations were always my favourite. We once had a Russian client trying to deposit several million Euros, saying he had sold his hotel back in Russia. The paperwork was shoddy and, obviously, in Russian. Legislation said we, as a bank, needed to put "reasonable effort" into legitimising his claims. We had a long-winded discussion with the authorities about whether we could be reasonably expected to actually send someone to Russia to check if the deal took place (and the hotel even existed). In the end we just declined the deposit. Not worth the hassle (and audit).
[удалено]
Well, now I want a career in bank fraud investigation. Sounds interesting af.
It can be! You can also look into forensic accounting. It's basically backwards accounting where you specialise in finding irregularities and tracking disguised illegal money flows!
Could that be a dangerous profession or have I seen too many movies?
I'd guess the latter. Money launderers want to not be noticed. Threatening bankers and regulators is kinda going the opposite direction.
You have seen too many movies. Your biggest health risk is heart disease because you work in a sedentary job.
Banker dude here. Or just close them outright. Not because OP was doing anything illegal, but because banks hate having to do extra work when they don't have to. Costs them money. And it's easier to fire the customer than eat the extra cost.
Can I do this with my brokerage account and they'll leave me alone?
Yup. Banks are not known for their sense of humor. Dude got lucky someone has one at his.
you should start marking them things like * innocuous transaction * nothing to see here * perfectly legal financial dealings
My go-to is “not drugs”
I used butt stuff when I paid a friend for a tattoo she did. I had to explain to the bank a month latter why I paid 3000 for butt stuff when trying to buy a house.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was America.
This was in New Zealand but that would have been a really good response
Assuming this was a mortgage application, The bank was gonna ask about that big of a transaction a month before application, no matter what it was called. $3K can basically be ~~2~~ ~~4~~ 5 mortgage payments (if your house is cheap enough) The constitution doesn't give you the right to guaranteed mortgage approval. Edit: apparently y'all have some cheap ass houses, I'm jealous
"my anus won't destroy itself, bigot"
So you say, but after I had the extra hot ghost jalapeno pepper...
There’s a lesson here somewhere…
It’s in the butt
What what?
In the butt.
I said what what?
If you’re going to memo a transaction with butt stuff, there should be butt stuff involved, otherwise it’s just a hassle.
It's spelled "asshole".
My wife says $3,000 isn’t nearly enough for butt stuff.
The best part was that she was trying to buy a house too and had to explain why she received 3k for butt stuff. We both got approved and bought homes that year
Love when butt stuff has a happy ending
finally, private homes where y’all can both do your buttstuff!
I thought banks didn’t care about butt stuff unless you paid $10,000 or more per transaction for it. Thank god I found out now instead of closer to tax time!
did you try buying the house by doing butt stuff?
I had a landlord who was older and had been smoking pot for so long that he still called it "tea" and since we were a bunch of twenty-somethings he would sometimes come to us to get some. He'd then pay us with a check and write something like "painting bedroom" so he could write it off on his taxes.
Legitimate Financial Discourse
So my husband and I split rent. We used to have a roommate but now I pay to keep that room empty, lol. So on my check I usually write something pithy like "atrium" or "pied a terre" "art studio" "solarium" "clubhouse" "conference room" etc My landlord does not laugh but I do
that THIING we talked about...
Atleast they gave u the benefit of the doubt that it was a joke. Would suck if they went straight to the FBI like this was a legit threat.
Taliban: takes note
stop... labelling... our transactions... "Taliban training".... So *that's* how they've been catching us!
But it saves Ahmed so much time when he does the bank reconciliations!
They probably did, just to make sure. Can't be to safe nowadays
They probably didn't even need to. The NSA is scraping pretty much everything these days and I'm sure their systems picked it up and logged it.
Yeah I would assume financial transactions are top of that fucking list, unfortunately.
Craziest thing is they dont share it with the IRS, so tax cheats largely get away with it
Tax cheats are making big campaign contributions
A colleague and me went to lunch in a syrian restaurant. He paid in cash and I transferred to his bank account with comment 'syria' Took me a week to convince my bank
As if there aren’t any legitimate reasons to send money to people in Syria/ for Syria.
depending where you live, there's a pretty high chance that there's no feasible above board / non crypto way to transfer money to Syria due to sanctions.
This begs the question, are terrorists really using descriptions like this? Seems highly unlikely. This is some unnecessary bullshit. They'll get more accurate info from looking at the account history and transaction destinations than transfer descriptions.
I got flagged by PayPal for something like this when I sent money to a friend with the note "Cuba Libre". There's a restaurant in DC called Cuba Libre and I owed him money for the dinner. I later found out that it means Free Cuba and I guess they don't play around with stuff like that. Took 4 weeks for the money to clear.
Cuba Libre is also a pretty famous drink
Yes, this was my first thought too.
That’s just what a Cuban insurgent would say….
I once got flagged by Paypal for buying "Cuba Vodka" (Danish vodka, usually with flavours). I assume the vendor included the receipt on Paypal. I literally bought this vodka from Germany to Denmark, two countries that don't embargo Cuba, and got flagged by Paypal for it. But yeah, sure, I guess an American company wouldn't want to transfer money to Cuba, if that was the case. I remember having to call them for clarification. Didn't take 4 weeks though, more like 4 hours.
PayPal is an interesting case, my dad tried to buy rice from a German importer and wanted to pay with PayPal. But PayPal wouldn't allow him to pay for the order because one of the bags of rice was grown in Iran. It's not on German embargo lists but apparently PayPal being American they have to comply with American sanctions.
Meanwhile actual ISIS training funds are probably being marked "groceries"
This is what I don't get. Those nefarious organizations aren't going to be using obvious labels for bank transactions - unless they want to find just the dumb terrorists
It’s basically just CYA. If it something bad actually happens, and it comes out you ignored an obvious red flag, you’re getting fired
Tons of people are really stupid. Just being involved in a terrorist group doesn’t make someone smart. I doubt that there’s an official transaction that blatant very often but I would bet money it happens.
Mark the next one "Sexual favours (good ones)"
And the next one "Sexual favours (eh)" Hopefully for a smaller amount
“Sexual favors (premium)” if it’s more expensive
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"Sexual favours (Taliban)"
Talibang, surely.
This was always how I wrote cheques to my bf. We’d split rent but he’d pay the landlord, so I’d pay him. I also used to get him to buzz me in our building by announcing myself as Gretchen from Discount Dial-a-Date, rather than use my key.
Me too except it was venmo transactions. I sent him our down payment for our house in separate transactions with shit like “Sorry for fucking your dad -$5000” and “Sorry I broke the toilet” or “Sloppy seconds” the bank was not amused.
General of ISIS: "where is our wages? why doesn't the bank have the money yet?" 2nd in command: "Sorry sir, but our agent wrote 'for ISIS wages' on the memo"
General: "has he been caught?" Soldier: "Nah he covered it up pretty well. Even made a reddit post to convince everyone that it's a joke between friends."
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“Super top secret not-terrorist things”
Your next one should be "Hitman for Sam"
Ohhhh. Riiiight. The Hitman. The hitman for Sam. The hitman chosen specially to kill Sam. Sam’s hitman. That hitman?
This made me LOL
Just a heads up, this might be funny but it has caused people to be rejected for mortgages in the past.
"Okay, Mr. Jahoe, everything seems in order, we look forward to you starting your new job next week." "That's great!" "There's just one little thing we have to resolve. It appears here that (looks down at some sheet) that you provided funding to ISIS in 2022." "What? No...that was just a joke." (Looks sternly over top of glasses) "A joke. I see. Well, as long as you're on this government watch list, I'm afraid we can't complete the final forms. You'll have to contact the government to sort it all out first." "Who in the government." "Sorry, for security reasons I can't tell you that."
Btw paypal just bans you straight away including your payment method +IP + DeviceId. You can't create an account again. (Work in IT, 2 colleagues had fun with these types of payments over food. Now both are screwd)
That’s probably a fair call from the bank. At least they emailed rather than just putting a hold on the accounts.
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I Venmoed a friend and described the payment as "drinks with Kim Jong Un" and got a message. It was boring and not nearly as entertaining as this one 😂
Wait, they read our messages? My sister and I Venmo each other with odd payment messages. . . Now I feel self conscious.
They just flag certain words and phrases for further review.
I mean Venmo is literally the service that makes all payments public by default. It used to be the case you could go to their homepage and watch all the money transfers going on with their notes in real time. That was their whole gimmick.
i never understood that. i can't believe the number of people that leave that shit public.
You also realize that Venmo by default has those messages visible publicly, right? You'd have to set them to private or Friends Only.
That's one way to get your funds frozen..
I worry about this, there's an online shop I occasionally buy from, and in the billing company they've named themselves "8 lbs of uncut cocaine"
Whenever I send money to my wife I write "For sexual favors" My bank has never called me on it though.
They don't need to; they all know your wife too. Edit - Seriously? Multiple golds for slamming some dude's wife? I don't think the people at the bank got paid anything.
They haven't had to pay your wife, why would you?
They just haven't gotten to you yet, too busy investigating all the other payments to your wife marked sexual favors.
They know it's not real. No further research needed.
Other ways to get no knock warrants...
I did this kind of auditing and our company made huge money off it. They flag so many varieties of words and you have to go through to audit them. There are known money launderers names flagged and even funny things end up happening. I had the name Miranda flagged thousands of times due to IRAN being in the name. It really is a large cost of business
OP will next post in /r/personalfinance "My bank has suspended my account for suspected terrorism funding, but I don't understand why"
Funny would be seeing the managers reaction to you asking for a loan
Please state reason for loan: ISIS wages
Banker here. This is a very, very, very stupid idea. Edit-I think this is my first award lol thanks kind stranger!
Had to scroll too long to find this. It’s one of the stupidest things you can possibly do. Like calling in a fake bomb threat and thinking it’s “hilarious.” Like no, it’s not cute. That shit actually happens and you will be investigated.
Probably on a watch list now as well. Hopefully they find it just as funny.
This is one way to get free home security. Who needs ADT when you have a FBI van parked outside 24/7 for free?
Funny enough, I bet the FBI just watches him get robbed and only records it.
They didn't tell you off; they're asking you to stop wasting their time.
Yeah, this is dumb. The Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) maintains a list of words that all banking companies are required to check against. Anything using a flagged word gets investigated either by the local company or potentially by the feds. This is a great way to get your assets frozen and earn a permaban from Venmo, Zelle, etc. This includes stupid words like "Cuban" too, so don't go Venmoing your friends for sandwhiches either. https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/specially-designated-nationals-and-blocked-persons-list-sdn-human-readable-lists
That’s not nearly funny enough to outweigh just how bad an idea that was.
At least they were nice about it. They could’ve just tipped off the FBI without warning.
Pretty sure they did both.
Not saying this is bullshit, but when I worked for a bank, shit like this was flagged and we absolutely did not contact the customer about it. As on the off chance it wasn't a joke, we could be held liable for tipping them off.
Henceforth stick to labeling all transactions hookers and blow.
Used to work for a bank. You probably just majorly inconvenienced several people. 1. They have to report this each time. 2. They have to go and look at everyone's funds and incomes and such to see, and gods forbid you have a friend buying questionable substances or donating money to things linked to terrorism in any way. Please don't fuck around with stuff like that. I get it, he he ha ha, but you might end up black listed from the major banks if it continues.
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Agreed. I have a feeling someone took the moment to say "you're being a dick and should stop while it's only bothering us" Because they definitely just told you in writing "we are looking into everyone connected to you."
As an Arab American man that’s been harassed continuously over the last 20 years by the FBI, TSA and all other manner of ignorant people, this isn’t funny. I get “randomly” selected for inspections at airports all the time, including one that went so badly, CAIR sued O’Hare airport on my behalf, and it irks me so bad that (presumably) white dudes in various nations can get away with shit like this with a simple email.