Hi,
I would like to know which are the risks when I buy bitcoin with SEPA transfer. On the FAQ, Bisq says “There have been reports that some banks have closed client accounts when they sense Bitcoin activity.”
Someone can tell me which banks, in which country and for what ?
For example, if the seller gettin arrested for x reason, the authorities will check his bank account and they can check all the transfers included my bank account and my ID. So I’m asking is no-KYC exchange legal or not ? I’m in France I can open a new account only for BISQ, but can they do something worse ?
I mean something worse than just close my bank account and charge me ?
Hope I’ve been clear enough my english is not perfect, thanks.
It gets very tricky as each bank seems to behave differently. The best place to read about the questions you have probably is your bank contract. Other than that you can search this forum for people complaining about having their accounts closed or chargebacks and see how it can inform you.
Hey man, thanks a lot for your answer …
We should create a topic which speaks about all the problems with any banks.
Maybe it will spare us some surprises.
If I may add one non-obvious risk: lawyer fees after being prosecuted for fraud and acquitted. (And the time and effort spent fighting the accusation, but this is rather obvious.) I know for sure that you are obliged to have a lawyer and pay his fees, even if innocent, if you are prosecuted in Spain or Portugal, and almost surely Austria. On the other hand, in the UK, you are compensated “reasonable” fees (so if you paid an elite lawyer, you will probably not get the full compensation.) French law in this regard is reasonable, you are compensated unless you somehow caused the prosecution against yourself (if I remember correctly, and I tell this just by reading the French Criminal Procedure Law as translated to Spanish by Google Translate, some years ago…)
Still, I guess it is much more probable to be prosecuted when selling btc than when buying. I was charged 3 times when selling btc, and never ever when buying, and I did buy a lot at localbitcoins and bisq.
One final observation: You may be somehow protected by doing non-national SEPA transfers, say France -> Spain, not France -> France. I tell this because I received a fraudulent SEPA transfer of some 100 euros, the sender bank contacted my bank, my bank froze the funds, but I refused to return it. The sender bank even sent me a letter (paper, by post), threatening legal action against me. I waited around a year, then asked my bank to unfreeze the funds. Note that only the disputed funds were frozen, but the account was still usable. The sender bank probably did not bother because of language barrier, different laws etc. But sounds a bit reckless to me now…