My personal experience with Paypal Xoom- wiring money for trophies

Deleted member 43267 said:

I moved to a smaller town in a different State, and no longer can walk into my credit union for wires. Decided to try Xoom. Not a great website, and if you have to exit it to look something up you end up having to redo everything. Signed up, authorized payment, and that evening I got a call from customer service. It started as identity verification, but then the person asked me what I was paying for (this question was not on the website). I told her "taxidermy." She did not understand what that was, so I told her I was paying for shipment of animal trophies taken on safari. She got upset, and asked me if the animals had been killed yet. She clearly thought that I was buying live animals, having someone kill them, and then ship them to me. I did my best to explain that I had hunted four species of antelope legally, the shipment was legal and consistent with CITES and would be inspected by customs and the USFWS. Her response was that this had to go to her supervisor, and she hung up. The next day I got a notice of cancellation from Xoom stating that my transaction had violated their user agreement. Fired up the user agreement and learned that animal trophies are not prohibited. I did get an email that allowed me to appeal the decision. I was diplomatic in the appeal, but pointed out that since I had done nothing apparent to violate their agreement they would need to explain exactly why they were cancelling my transaction. It has been two days with no response. Of course, all day I have been carpet bombed with ads telling me how great Xoom is, and that I should use it all the time for ALL my wire transfers. Their business model bites because the website is hard to use, there is no line to put an invoice or description, and they should have a box to check that you declare that you are not engaged in illegal activity. Punk ass bitches.

Jeff

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fourfive8 said:

Primarily Xoom (a division of PayPal) is designed as an inexpensive and fast/convenient way to transfer money or send relatively small amounts of cash directly to people around the world. It competes directly with the much older and more well known Western Union and costs quite a bit less.

Unfortunately this type thing as was experienced with the OP's simple Xoom transfer, has been going on for some time, has many forms and may be an outgrowth of the Patriot Act and other federal administrative powers given to financial institutions allowing them to act with some sort of authority as "junior G Men" in the fight against illegal Drug and Terrorist money transfer and laundering. One of those unintended consequences is the arbitrary use of that power by organizations or individuals which is probably what happened with the Xoom rep "red flagging" that transaction. Naturally, many banks and individuals now think they are some kind of a special agent with power. Lovely! Most banks will send a form to the Feds if they suspect an illicit or illegal money transfer or cash transaction. I found out the threshold for submitting the "suspicious" money/cash transfer form to the Feds is not standardized and can be any amount of cash/money transaction the bank or institution THINKS suspicious. I know a local bank that deems a cash transaction of more than $3000 to be suspicious thus triggering that notification form to the Feds. Most banks use something closer to $9000 to $10000 as the threshold. Really insidious, disturbing stuff!!!

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