A Question for US Bankers

Factual Questions
1

Just to be clear, I 'm not asking for legal advice, only an informal opinion on how things work.

I live in Canada, about 45 minutes drive to a small US town.
A friend of mine who lives in the UAE asked me to buy him some recently released products made by Apple, which is not available in Canada until the end of May, and send it to him. (They are not available in the UAE either)

So I went to my closest US bank and opened an account in my name.
The idea was that my friend would transfer me in the neccessary funds into my US account, I would drive over to the US, withdraw the money, buy what he needed, and send it over via Fed_Ex. (About $12,000 worth of product)

If I have him wire the money into my CND account, then you lose the % by converting it to US.

So me being the prudent, honest and upfront kind of fellow I am, I called the bank manager at the US bank today, explained what my intent was, and as soon as I mentioned the money was coming from the UAE, she became unfriendly, unco-operative, and on the verge of rude.

She told me the transfer would “most likely” be declined, my account would be frozen, and I would be placed under investigation. I can’t stress how abrupt she was with me.

She basically stated that because my account is new, this type of ‘nonsense’ in unacceptable.

So I’m wondering:

  1. Am I doing anything wrong?
  2. Is it possible I have myself a rogue banker who might be mistaken?
  3. is there anyway for me to do this favor for my friend, or am I going to get locked and sent to Cuba for year while I try to explain myself.

I’m just a regular guy trying to do a favor for a friend, there’s no sneaky shennanigans going on, so why did the banker make me feel like a 3-time loser?

Any advice is appreciated.
Gus

2

Sending money from the UAE to the US shouldn’t be particularly suspicious. However, large international transfers into newly opened accounts are always suspicious.

Why don’t you just have him wire you the money? Western Union offers international wire transfers to their own offices as well as banks. Failing that, he can draw a banker’s draft (what they call cashier’s checks outside the US) at his own bank and send it to you via the mailing method of his choice.

ETA: I am not a banker.

3

I’m trying to think of a way to do this, but I keep running into walls, too - you go there and just use your VISA card (with our dollars so close to parity you wouldn’t take too big a hit on the conversion), but your VISA might decline the transaction because it’s too big and in a strange place. I don’t know if you can pre-clear that with VISA.

4

I’m in the US and I have always called them cashier’s checks FWIW.

5

Some thoughts, some not related to your OP, some tangentially related:
I’m kind of surprised you were able to open up a US bank account with presumably no SSN and apparently very little hassle.

You are probably dealing with a small-town mentality that hears “arab” and thinks “al-qaeda”

You may want to check export regulations for high-tech goods - you may or may not be violating these laws by shipping certain types of technological goods to certain countries (I don’t know all I know is they exist)

A 12k money transfer from the middle east to the US isn’t exactly the most innocuous of financial transactions.

6

Other way round - I mean they call them cashiers’ checks here. They’re bankers’ drafts in the UK and UAE, and possibly in Canada too.

7

Generally, you can. I had a couple of, shall we say, difficult, experiences with Visa as a result of my first visit to Australia. For subsequent visits, I learned that if I gave a heads-up to Visa, and told them the Australian banks I’d be dealing with (by name) ahead of time, and the dates I’d be there, I had no problem. Just call their customer service line, and they will make a note on your account.

Rumor also brings up a good point about export regulations. Read the fine print on the goods carefully–some high-tech goods are only for sale in (say) the US and Canada, and it doesn’t have to do with voltage requirements. It has to do with intellectual property rights, and exporting the goods outside of those countries can open the exporter to a lot of legal penalties.

Oh, and in Canada, we’d call a cashier’s check a “certified cheque.”

8

I’m doing something similar – buying a bunch of Apple products and sending them overseas to someone. Now I don’t personally know the nephew of the deposed grand vizier of Cameroon (suburban Nigeria), but…

what? Why are you all looking at me that way?

9

You might want to read yesterday’s Consumerist article where Apple banned someone for life for doing just that.

10

ok, time for extraneous, uncalled for education!
cashier’s check/bank draft = a negotiable instrument that is chargeable to the bank’s own account

certified check = a negotiable instrument that is chargeable to your own account, but one where the bank has placed a hold on the funds in your account so as to guarantee payment of that check.

11

The first bank I went to would not allow me to open an account for the very reason you stated. The bank manager cited the Patriot Act and said it was illegal for someone without a SSN to hold an account.

On my way home to Canada, I stopped at another bank and tried there, this time “Success”.

The 2nd bank manager did tell me upfront “If you’re planning on using this account for some Paypal/Ebay bullshit, you might as well not even bother beause we will shut you down”.

Of course I reassured her I wasn’t, and then she allowed me to open the account.
Did I say her? It might have been a “him” too, I can’t remember now, ah rats, I can never keep a secret.

I wonder if I get my friend just to wire over a small amount at first (just to test the waters), if this might not be a better idea?
If the bank doesn’t accept the wire, then they don’t accept it, but hopefully they don’t ‘accept’ it first, then freeze my account. That would be a greasy thing to do.

This is all Osama’s fault, the frikkin ahole had to go and ruin it for everybody.

12

The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law by George W Bush in 2001. Our current President had nothing to do with it.

13

Just FYI, BofA gave me a very hard time when trying to send a wire from Nevada to the UAE.

I had had an account in Nevada for about 15 years and had moved to the UAE. While back visiting Nevada, I asked to send a wire to myself in the UAE. I showed them my UAE driver’s license and UAE residency visa in my US passport and in the end I gave up and just took the amount (5 or 6K IIRC) in cash and carried it to Dubai with me.

I don’t know if they are like that on all international wires. USBank has never been a problem in sending wires to Europe.

14

I believe Gus_Handsome was referring to Osama bin-Laden, not Barack Obama.

15

I imagine they see “money going to Middle East” and think, “terrorism”. In theory it ought to be easier to send it the other way.

16

Insert joke about the difference between Obama and Osama being a little bs.

17

Why are you going to the trouble of opening a US bank account and wiring money from UAE, for Apple products?

That seems a bit over the top, just for a few points on the exchange rate. Have your friend send you the money via PayPal to your own account CDN account. Go to the US Apple store buy the products and ship them to him.

Why the need for the extra layers of complexity? As I said before the miniscule variation on exchange rates can’t be bothering your friend…he’s so eager to get these amazing Apple products he’s having a friend ship them half way around the world.

18

Thank you Northern Piper, that’s exactly what I meant. :slight_smile:

If I ever make mention of the president, I always refer to him as President Obama.
Call me old fashioned.

19

That wasn’t for a one-time buy for someone else. That was for violating their “2 per customer” rule on iPads by purchasing two per day for export.

Incidentally, the first paragraph of that story ends with “Porkay.” What does that mean? Is that some bastardization of “pourquoi,” or a similar word in a language I’m unfamiliar with?

20

Porkay? = ?por que? = Why? in Spanish. I presume it’s a corruption in this case.

ETA: or this guy, maybe.