US Dept of the Treasury and Aged Puerh Tea
I was wondering if anyone has had the same unusual problem I had last night with an order. I ordered a small variety of aged and semi aged raw puerh teas from Yunnan Sourcing last night and paid with PayPal Credit. Instead of my payment going through a 72 hour hold was put on the payment and the order. When I called and spoke to someone from PayPal today I was informed that one of the items I ordered had been flagged by the US Dept of the Treasury and was holding up my payment. Now I know there is nothing the Dept of the Treasury actually cares about sold on Yunnan Sourcing, but has anyone else had this problem with PayPal?
Realistically : nothing will happen, it’s just something that’ll pass with time.
Jokingly: If you didn’t buy enough tea for the entire state of New York to drink Puerh daily… there may not be a need to look at what experiments you might be doing with all those fermented frisbees
Scott thinks it got flagged because one of the items was labeled Certified Organic. Stupid reason for PayPal to piss me off.
Is YS’s paypal account associated with Chinese accounts? An unintended effect of the Patriot Act is that all sorts of international transfers get held up for investigation. Even on harmless and insignificant transactions. Apparently, a lot of wiring companies are taking a big hit because of this. So, maybe even PayPal isn’t completely immune.
As for the organic issue, that would be something that the USDA or FDA would get involved in. Food items can be put on hold for weeks while being inspected, and confirming that they are what they say they are. But this is a hold on money rather than product, so I wouldn’t think “organic” is the issue.
“PayPal, the electronic payments firm, agreed to pay $7.7 million to settle charges by the U.S. Treasury Department that it violated numerous sanctions programs against countries that include Iran, Cuba and Sudan, Treasury said on Wednesday.
PayPal, owned by EBay Inc (EBAY.O), did not adequately screen its transactions for U.S. sanctions targets for several years through 2013, resulting in 486 apparent violations of U.S. law, Treasury said in a statement. (1.usa.gov/19lyHIK)
PayPal also dismissed alerts and processed about $7,000 worth of payments for Kursud Zafer Cire, a Turkish national on the sanctions blacklist tied to proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, according to the statement.
U.S. companies are not allowed to do business with people on the list, who are considered enemies of the United States. But PayPal agents dismissed six alerts that flagged Cire as a potential match to the blacklist.
Treasury said the apparent violations of the sanctions related to weapons of mass destruction “constitute an egregious case.”
Treasury said PayPal implemented better screening procedures in April 2013, hired new management in its compliance division, and cooperated with the investigation.
EBay is planning to split off PayPal from its marketplace division later this year.
(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler)
More From Reuters"
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-ebay-idUSKBN0ML28620150325
In other news, the Treasury Department now takes PayPal. :D
The payment has finally cleared. But the very fact that I was told it was a problem with the Department of the Treasury is dis-concerting. The Department of the Treasury should have more important matters than tea from China on their minds. I expected some BS from PayPal when I called them. Being told that it was an issue with the Treasury Department was strange. They are supposed to be worrying about counterfeiters, not tea shipments.
Allan i had the same problem yesterday. my order from YS was on hold for almost 24hrs. its cleared now. I didnt call them to find what was the problem.
Allan: You buy so much tea that perhaps they suspect you of money laundering? Or maybe they are now worried about counterfeit tea?
I suspect only the Chinese government takes an interest in fake tea. For them I think it is a problem. If it was fake sneakers the US Government might take an interest, or some other US make faked by the Chinese. Chinese faking other Chinese products I don’t think the Treasury Dept cares about.
Using “tea purchases” as a cover to funnel money in support of cyber terrorism? Tisk tisk
Maybe it’s the fact it’s a certified organic product coming from outside the US? Who knows. That’s the first I’ve heard of that kind of issue.
I had the same problem as well! ordered on friday and didn’t ship out til monday because of the 72 hour hold.
This is a new problem with PayPal I think. I have put in something like forty or fifty orders from China via PayPal and never had a hold placed on a purchase before. They said the problem was with Yunnan Sourcing but absolutely refused to tell me what it was, just that one of my items had been flagged by the US Dept of the Treasury.
I think YS had very high traffic activity due to Sheng sale ( they didn’t offer it for some time) that’s why PayPal was concerned
I wonder if it’s a tax issue…funds received in the US and transferred to a US account and tea sent from China…
If there were any tax issues I would tend to think that there would be sales tax issues and that is a matter for the state not the Federal Government. China has most favored nation trading status and get special rules as far as taxes go anyway. I think you can buy twice as much from China before you incur taxes.
I wouldn’t speculate on income taxes paid by Yunnan Sourcing. They have a US operation so they probably have to pay some. But they are a Chinese company so it’s got to be complicated. It’s not income on my part so their is no income tax issue there. I am spending money not receiving it. Plus, if it were a tax issue they wouldn’t have said that only one item was flagged. That would be all of them.
Well it wouldn’t be an agricultural issue if it was the Treasury Department, although the fact they said it was one item is strange. Perhaps they were just reading from a script? Again I’ll say no more on the tax issue as I don’t know the specifics, but I can’t think of any other reason the Treasury Department would be involved.
Obviously it’s nothing to do with you, since two other American buyers have also experienced holds…
If it’s a Chinese PayPal account tied to a US account (PayPal here in Hong Kong will let me withdraw to a US checking account in USD, but I don’t know about accounts in Mainland China), perhaps they’re just curious as to why there is so much US money going to China and back? If I was running a business in China using PayPal, sending funds to a US checking account would make more sense than getting hit with a 3.5% conversion charge to RMB. I pay 3.5% on USD—>HKD regularly, which I hate.
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