I thought this Slashdot
piece was a joke at first.
But apparently, it's quite real.
Western Union is blocking transactions of individuals with Arabic names.
From the Yahoo story.
In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending $120 to a friend at home last month because the recipient's name was Mohammed.
"Western Union told me that if I send money to Sahir Mohammed, the money will be blocked because of his name,"
...
"Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?" Khan asked.
Well, I guess his name is Mohammad. I mean, it's not like a real common name or anything right?
Wrong. It's the most common name in the world.
Muhammad is probably the most common given name, with variations including the W African Mamadu and the Turkic Mehmet.
Surely, this is just some bullshit company policy, or some kind of mistake.
Dubai-based representatives from Western Union Financial Services, an American company based in Colorado, and Minnesota-based MoneyGram International said their clerks are simply following U.S.
Treasury Department guidelines that scrutinize cash flows for terrorist links. Most of the flagged transactions are delayed a few hours. Some are blocked entirely.
...
The list of names, available on the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Web site, contains hundreds of Mohammeds.
Un-effing-believable.
On an interesting side not, apparently this list is public and available for use by companies. Here the main problem is that Western Union does "partial matching" on the names.
Western Union routinely delays or blocks transfers between customers whose names even partially match names on the Treasury list. The money is usually released once suspects show identity documents that prove they are not on the list, the executive said.
"suspects"? OMG.
This will not only piss off the islamic world further, but it will encourage and popularize alternative or underground methods, which, btw, is what the "suspects" do now.