In fact, a few of my indie developer friends have gotten their monthly App Store payments held up by Apple while Apple investigates so-called "unusual activity" (which turned out to be nothing).
I'm not really sure how that's relevant here, we're discussing hypothetical regulation that scarface74 is proposing.
>In fact, a few of my indie developer friends have gotten their monthly App Store payments held up by Apple while Apple investigates so-called "unusual activity" (which turned out to be nothing).
This is likely unavoidable as Apple is subject to a number of AML regulations.
Never in my life has my bank withheld a payment. And I've never had a job paycheck held back because of "suspicious activity".
> Amex puts people in “financial review” and locks your account
Amex doesn't pay you; you pay Amex.
I'm talking about companies refusing to pay what they already owe you. App Store payments to developers are for app sales that are already long completed, and Apple has already taken the money from App Store customers.
Either your bank is particularly lenient or your transactions are particularly boring. Most paychecks definitely fall into the "particularly boring" category.
OTOH App store transactions are a relatively big money laundering risk, you are receiving payments from large amounts of different people.
To a longtime indie developer???
We're not talking about huge sums of money here. One month's income for a little indie App Store developer. More or less (probably less) the amount of a software engineer's monthly paycheck.
And what's Apple's "evidence" for money laundering in these cases anyway? It always turns out to be nothing, and payments are eventually restored, but the developer is deprived of cash flow for a month or several with no explanation ever.
Anyway, for developer accounts that Apple terminates (again without explanation), I believe that Apple simply confiscates the money and never pays what it owes to the developer.
>And what's Apple's "evidence" for money laundering in these cases anyway? It always turns out to be nothing, and payments are eventually restored
Unfortunately, they're by law not allowed to discuss these things.
>Anyway, for developer accounts that Apple terminates (again without explanation), I believe that Apple simply confiscates the money and never pays what it owes to the developer.
Unlikely.
If the bank thinks you are laundering money, there are going to be investigation.
I once unknowingly deposited a fake money order in my checking account. I was naive and I fell for the old “we need to pay for three months rent with this money order and can you refund the difference”.
Before I even called the bank once it dawned on me that it was probably fraudulent, the bank had already put a hold on my account.
If Apple think you are working in a company that is under sanctions, they are going to verify that you aren’t.
What do you mean exactly by "deposit"? These are automatic deposits from Apple or from an employer.
A ton of people make >$120K a year and receive >$10K in payments per month. It's not unusual at all.
> I once unknowingly deposited a fake money order in my checking account.
How is this relevant? There are no fake money orders here.
> If Apple think you are working in a company that is under sanctions
Again, how is this relevant to longtime indie devs?
Whether it’s unusual is subject to a Risk Assessment. NACHA happily sells Risk Assessment Workbooks to your bank’s Compliance Department [1].
[1]: https://www.nacha.org/products/ach-risk-assessment-workbook