Being an American in Syria can be hard, but not the way you’re thinking (part 3)
In this series I’ve been talking about how my home government is making life for me in Syria a lot more difficult and costly than it needs to be. First of all, they only allow the Washington, DC-based Embassy of Syria to issue visas to American citizens. Because I was living in the UK, this meant I had to express FedEx my passport at great cost and inconvenience — and as bad luck would have it, I missed a flight to Sweden because my passport was still en route on a delivery truck somewhere in far west London. And if that wasn’t enough, the Syrian Embassy charged a whopping US$131 for the service — more than 10x the price levied to other nationalities! Secondly, after arriving in Syria, the US Embassy here in Damascus continued to bleed time and money out of me, first, by compelling American citizens to use a convoluted online reservation system just for the right to enter the building, and, second, by charging US$50 for any and all routine notarial services — all while citizens of other countries just walk up to their embassies’ windows and get the forms done for free!
This post focuses again on the issue of money. In short: US law passed shortly after 9/11 — almost 10 years ago — has led to the freezing of my PayPal account and has prevented me from having ready access to all the savings I left over in my UK bank account before coming here to Syria. How can this be??
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, commonly known as the Patriot Act, was signed into law by President Bush to “deter and punish terrorist acts in the US and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes.” (Before going on, can I just ask how many suits did it take to come up with THAT acronym? Well, according to Wikipedia, only one — and he was a 23-yr-old junior staffer.) I suppose living life falls under the Patriot Act’s “other purposes” — how else can I explain the following difficulties…
The PayPal saga
I thought I’d do a friend a favor and make a PayPal payment on their behalf, for the simple reason that neither of them had an existing PayPal account and it was very easy and efficient for them to transfer the money to me using online banking and then for me, in turn, to pay the PayPal payee. The amount and purpose of the payment is irrelevant — the point is that I logged into PayPal, made the payment, got a receipt of successful payment, and had all the successful confirmations emailed to me.
Then the problems started. First, I got an alert from PayPal that my account had been “limited” due to suspicious activity and that I’d need to log in to my account, change my password, and change my security questions before they would remove the limitation. The limitation meant that, among other things, I cannot pay or receive payments via PayPal. Unsurprisingly, I got an email a few days later saying that my recent payment, the one I described above, was refused because of the limitation. Great.
I began the process of removing the limitation by trying to change my PayPal password as they had asked, but then they hit me with a surprise requirement: they had to send a security confirmation code to my UK mobile phone before I could change my password online. The problem with that was my UK SIM card doesn’t work here in Syria, not even roaming.
So I called PayPal using Skype and explained the situation. They had all the details in front of them and said they could un-limit my account right there over the phone. All I had to do was answer a couple questions about recent activity, etc. All seemed okay and she was about to un-limit my account — but she asked whether or not I was still in the UK. I told her Syria and she looked it up on her list — woops! Syria is not an approved PayPal country!!! This means that as long as I’m located in Syria, the limitation on my account cannot be lifted. She suggested I wait until I’m located in an approved country, then call them back and they can un-limit my account then. I asked a few more questions about these approved countries, what it meant, which countries are approved, and so on. Turns out the closest country, Lebanon, is not approved. Jordan, however, is approved. I asked if I can just cross the border into Jordan, call PayPal from an internet cafe, and have the account un-limited. She said, “Yes, that would be fine.” Unbelievable.
The real kicker is that the payment I attempted above, the one that was refused and credited back into my PayPal account, is now stuck within PayPal! At the first sign of trouble, I figured I’d transfer that credited money back out of PayPal and into my UK bank account, then just close my PayPay account because it’s not really of any use to me anymore. But no! As long as my PayPal account is limited, I can’t even transfer that money out of PayPal and back to my bank. Are you kidding me?? So, effectively, PayPal took this money from me and won’t let me take it back.
The Barclays saga
The next part of the story is more serious and even more ridiculous than the first. Some time ago I wrote a post about the costs of things in Damascus, including my monthly 18,000 SYP tuition and 19,500 SYP rent. And a mentioned how ATM withdrawals with non-Syrian bank cards are limited to 10,000 SYP per transaction. So at the beginning of each month I must make a whole bunch of 10,000 SYP withdrawals to cover tuition, rent, and living expenses. Of course, Barclays charges me fee per overseas withdrawal, meaning each month I’m bled of at least 50 GBP. This adds up. This is bad.
The logical solution was to open a Syrian bank account, transfer a chunk of money over into it, topping up as needed, and use a local cash card at ATMs. Sure there would be a one-time fee for the overseas transfer from Barclays, but it would be a whole lot cheaper and much more convenient than making a ton of withdrawals at once each month. Extra costs aside, it’s just embarrassing stuffing wads and wads of 10,000 SYP notes into an envelope at the ATM while a queue of local people grows behind you.
The first step of this process, to open a Syrian bank account, was easy. I did it the first week I was here and it took only 30 minutes. I was given all the instructions to action the transfer of funds into the account, so I promptly (in Middle Eastern terms, this means within the next week) headed to a cafe to Skype-call Barclays in the UK. Of course, I didn’t reach anyone in the UK, but rather a call center in India. Virtually all phone calls to Barclays land in an Indian call center, and it’s only after multiple menus, security confirmations and transfers that you’re given to a British representative who can actually do a job. Finally having reached the international telephone banking department, the task was simple and straight forward. A couple days later I verified that my funds had left my bank account presumably on their way to Syria. And so began the drama….
One week passed, then two, three, four. My Syrian balance remained at zero. I kept chasing my Syrian bank accounts rep who, very patiently (bless her), reassured me and began her own investigation into what went wrong. She turned up nothing, though, and yet I had no communication from Barclays stating anything had gone wrong. So I called Barclays again, navigated their phone menus, got hung up on, was given a wrong number, requested a call-back but never got it, was given vague answers, got hung up on again, blah blah blah blah blah. Eventually, after raising my voice and getting very snappy, I managed to get some information out of them.
“The transfer failed due to compliance reasons.”
What does that mean?
“The payment has been declined by the screening department.”
Why?
“The Sanctions Committee doesn’t give a reason.”
I blew up. This was my money, they were holding it indefinitely without reason — at least, no reason they would tell me — and had failed to tell me anything about anything. The bank had not attempted to contact me using my email address or Syrian mobile phone number, both of which they had on file and could have deduced were the best ways to contact me — if I hadn’t already stated it outright (which I had). They didn’t even try calling the phone number tied to my permanent address, which they also had on file. It took me navigating their call center maze and outright YELLING at people before I managed to put together a clear picture of what happened.
And here’s what happened. A few days after I actioned the transfer, the bank apparently sent a letter via normal post to my permanent address in the United States. The letter stated that, due to the current global regulatory and risk environment, Barclays does not perform transactions with Sudan, Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Syria. If I really needed this transfer to happen, I should contact the bank and make my case. Had I known this, I might have called sooner than 4 weeks had passed! I finally got in touch with a helpful (British) representative via email and, believe it or not, by telephone. That’s right, someone from the bank actually figured out how to call an international phone number! The woman asked a few questions regarding the nature and purpose of the transaction and advised me to re-attempt it. And that’s where I stand today.
Sure, this can be read as just another story of organizational inefficiency and incompetence; any large company can be guilty of this at times. What really got me worked up was the very reason why the transaction failed in the first place. It turns out that because Barclays has a branch in New York City, the bank falls under the jurisdiction of US laws and regulations, including the Patriot Act and the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Just four months ago, in August of 2010, Barclays paid a $298 million legal settlement to a US Federal Court in order avoid prosecution on charges that it violated US economic sanctions by doing secret business with parties in Iran, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Burma. (Read about it all over the web.) Indeed, many foreign banks have been targeted by the US Department of Justice and by US state courts for allegedly flouting OFAC regulations. Here’s a list of recent major fines and penalties against both US and non-US banks for violating US policy.
It has been further reported that Barclays has since put in place policies and procedures designed to minimize the risk of the recurrence of violations of OFAC regulations. Hence the screening procedure, sanctions department, increased scrutiny, etc. that undoubted had an effect on my attempted transaction. Maybe some day I’ll get my money and be able to live like normal.
