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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

> Every company that deals with payments does that. Banks,

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.

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>Never in my life has my bank withheld a payment. And I've never had a job paycheck held back because of "suspicious activity".

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.

> OTOH App store transactions are a relatively big money laundering risk

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.

This is unfortunately it goes. Nothing Apple specific.

>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.

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.

I can guarantee you that if you start depositing large payments over $10K that your bank is going to report it - it’s required by the law.

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.

> I can guarantee you that if you start depositing large payments over $10K that your bank is going to report it - it’s required by the law.

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?

> A ton of people make >$120K a year and receive >$10K in payments per month. It's not unusual at all.

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

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