Know Your Customers (KYC)
Since our goal is having the most secure platform with the lowest fees, we
have to take extra measures to overcome fraud. The higher the fraud,
the higher the losses, and those losses eventually trickle to
customers through higher prices. Prices are always lower when fraud is
inexistent.
Why Knowing Our Customers?
We believe knowing our customers is the tenet for overcoming fraud. Of
course, knowing our customers is not sufficient in itself; however, it is an
important pillar for fraud prevention. Fraudsters repeatedly change
their IDs and use numerous accounts with small transaction volumes, making
them less likely to arouse suspicion. Once the scam is discovered they
"disappear". Worse, those fraudsters come back and repeat their scam
over and over again. In real life, one can recognize a face, or at
least have an idea who the crook may be, but on the Web, the
fraudster has no face and can be anywhere. Scammers love anonymity,
and anonymity attracts them in drove.
Just to put you more in context, let us take an example of armed robbery.
Do you think the robber would accept a personal check instead of cash, or
perhaps asking for a wire transfer to his personal bank account?
Unless he is a dumb criminal, the answer is NO. This elaborate
introduction is to address the issue of
phishing, the fastest growing form of consumer theft and the greatest
threat to online commerce. A fraudster will consider phishing only if
he can anonymously open an account at the same institution
as yours. For instance, if a fraudster wants to steal your iGolder
password, then he must have his own iGolder account, otherwise your
iGolder password is useless to him. Once the con artist has your
password, he can make a transfer from your account to his account.
Anonymity and execution speed is indispensable for a successful phishing
operation. The fraudster must have a mechanism to cash out or spend
the funds before being discovered, typically using a debit card or
purchasing something from a merchant, thus leaving the losses to someone
else, either you, the debit card provider, the merchant, or iGolder.
Now imagine if a fraudster managed to steal your iGolder password and emptied
your account. Would you continue
using iGolder? Probably not! Even in the case iGolder bears the entire
loss and gives your gold back, you would still have difficulties to trust
the soundness of our platform. The morale of the story is that iGolder's
reputation is at stakes each time there is fraudulent activity.
What does phishing have to do with knowing our customers? Well, phishing
requires anonymity, and knowing our customers gives us a fighting chance to
overcome fraud. By knowing our customers, we also reduce spam.
In the end, spammers want to get wealthy, and having an anonymous payment
system is essential for their con business to thrive. We have plans to
offer secure email services such as POP3 and SMTP to our members who may not
trust their ISP concerning privacy; however, we do not want spammers to use our mailing
services. We also want to offer free chat so our members can
communicate with total privacy and anonymity amongst
themselves. Without a good KYC policy, a clever delinquent will
eventually find a way of spamming others under a dummy account.
Receiving unwanted emails may be annoying, however it is nothing compared to
phishing attacks. Identity theft occurs when spam contains phishing
messages threatening account closure unless the member discloses personal
information such as name, email and password.
Knowing our customers is also a cornerstone for reducing unethical behavior
and protecting ourselves in case of litigation. We have plans to offer
services such as free classifieds and a virtual market place similar to eBay,
and do not want people to use our services to scam others. What good
is a customer complaint if the seller is completely unknown? Also, we
have no plans to spend our time in court defending ourselves for the
actions of our members. Fraud is the biggest threat to destroy
everything we want to build.
The Free Market Solution
We believe the free market is the best solution to determine the necessary
amount of personal information to collect from customers. Everyone
wants total privacy, and perhaps, complete anonymity. However, the
reality is people embracing the KYC usually enjoy the highest level of
security with lowest fees, while the anonymous camp is constantly struggling
with scammers, causing frustration and routine account termination without
warning to innocent victims. In the end, the anonymous payment system
is more expensive, has fewer customers and offers limited business
opportunities to its customers. For instance, knowing our customers is
essential for our independent exchangers to make business deals with banks
offering credit card processing and debit cards to our members. Also,
people do not want to associate themselves with businesses known to harbor
fraudsters, so it becomes more and more difficult for the anonymous people
to make deals with other businesses. Eventually economic reality
imposes itself, either requiring more discipline to address the problem of
fraud, or being swept into the dustbin of history. We have no intention of falling into the dustbin of history like many others did.
Verified Members
For the reasons described above, we require the following personal information to become a Verified Member:
- Picture ID such as a scan of your passport or driver's license.
- Proof of address with a scan of a utility bill or bank statement.
If your name does not show on the statement, then you must explain and
prove your relationship with the utility bill or bank
statement. We prefer honesty to rigidity.
- A real telephone number from a known utility company in your
country. If you do not have one, then you must explain why you do not have
such a telephone number, and provide a genuine phone number from someone who knows
you personally.
iGolder reserves the right to call you to verify the validity of your
phone number, and also to ask you to send an original of your utility bill.
We promise to return your utility bill to you by regular mail. Since such
verification procedures are time consuming and expensive, we will only
apply them when we feel it is necessary.
If we ask for your utility bill, then we will also take this opportunity
to validate your address at no cost and offer you a debit card at discount
while returning your original utility bill. It is easy to save on
postage by bundling a debit card from a sponsor exchanger, and include a
sheet of paper containing your 6-digit PIN number to validate your address.
Address Verification
To verify your address, we send a sheet containing a 6-digit PIN number to the mailing
address of your account. Once you receive your PIN, you login to your iGolder account and enter
the 6-digit PIN number you just received. If the PIN you entered matches the one
we sent you, we conclude you have received our mail and
therefore your mailing address is valid.
iGolder respects your privacy.
We keep your name and address private and confidential - we will use your name and address to
only send you a
6-digit PIN when you decide to upgrade your account to become a Verified
Member. We will never share or query a third party database for validating your name and/or address.
Address Verification Rewards
iGolder offers you numerous benefits to become a Verified Member because
because we believe you represent a lower risk of fraud. It is amazing
how much fraud can be eliminated just by knowing the identity and the
residential address of our members. We bly believe people are less
likely to be dishonest or commit fraud if they know they may be caught.
Here are the benefits for becoming a Verified Member by entering your 6-digit PIN:
- You may send unlimited quantity of gold.
- Your transaction fees are instantly reduced by half to 1.0%.
- As you make more transactions, your transaction fees are
further reduced.
- After a few years of trading with iGolder, your transaction fees will eventually be reduced to 0.1%.
- The Minimum Safetransit Time for receiving payments is reduced, therefore clearing payments faster.
- All repeated payments you receive from others will clear instantly.
- Your public profile displays "Verified Member" which increases the credibility of your membership.
Anonymous Members
Individuals may open an account without uploading their picture ID or proof of address. The anonymous account remains limited to send a maximum
of
100 gr of gold
per year.
iGolder displays the following message to any anonymous member attempting to spend over the limit:
Also, anonymous accounts have much higher fees and are under acute surveillance. If we suspect
structuring to circumvent our KYC
policy, we reserve the right to freeze the entire account without warning until the required documents have been
submitted and approved.
Identified Members
After uploading your picture ID and scan of utility bill, your
account will remains in the "Identified" status until
your address has been validated with a PIN number. An
identified account has much lower fees than the anonymous account,
so it is worth your time to upload your picture ID and scan of your utility
bill.
Account Types
The following tables gives a summary of the different account types at iGolder:
| Account Type |
Anonymous Member |
Identified Member |
Verified Member |
Fee to fund your account
or receive gold payment |
4% |
2% |
0.1% to 1.0% according to reputation * |
| Open account fee |
Free |
Free |
0.5 gr of gold
(learn
how to upgrade) |
| Storage fee |
Free |
Free |
Free |
Delay to clear gold
when receiving payment |
48 hours |
24 hours |
Instant
(24 to 72 hours for
first transaction between
two users) |
Transaction limit
when receiving gold |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
| Spending Limitations |
Send maximum 100 gr per year |
Send maximum 100 gr per month |
No send transfer limit |
Minimum information
required to
open an account |
|
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Upload scan of utility bill.
- Upload scan of passport
or driver license.
|
- Address is validated with
a letter by the mail.
- Phone number is optionally
validated with a phone call.
|
* The ratio of Demerit Points directly
increases the transfer fees, so it is possible for a verified member to pay fees
higher than 1.0%.
Step-by-Step For Upgrading My Account Type
First, you must click on the link Account Settings and you will see the following page:
To become an Identified Member, you must fill the
form and upload a scan of your utility bill
and photo ID. iGolder will automatically upgrade your account to
Identified Member once all the fields have been filled, including an
upload of your utility
bill and photo ID.
Next, click on the button
Upgrade my Account Type to Verified Member. Upgrading your account
to
Verified Member will cost you
0.5 gr of gold.
After paying the fee of
0.5 gr of gold, you may now enter your
Address Verification PIN.
Of course, you have to wait a few days for your PIN to arrive by mail.
Once your Address Verification PIN is confirmed, you
become a Verified Member with all its benefits.
iGolder Security Features
Using iGolder is safe and secure.
Most of our security features rely on a sound
KYC policy so we can identify fraudsters and boot them out.
Criminal Activities
If we suspect an account is used for
criminal activities, we reserve the
right to freeze the account and to ask for a proof of legitimacy, such as the name
of customers and invoices. We have no desire to freeze any account;
however, we are determined to combat criminal activities. Criminality
impoverishes the whole population, and when criminals earn a comfortable
living, it invites others to join. We are bly against
rewarding crime.