Silk Road forums
Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: vlad1m1r on June 19, 2012, 04:04 pm
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Dear all,
As you know I operate a service selling Bitcoins for cash in the mail in the UK. My man on the ground got in contact today to say that all packages sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery had been opened by Customs - interestingly enough those from abroad and those sent by regular First Class mail hadn't...
Anyway I don't think there's an immediate cause for concern as it's not illegal to receive money through the post and I have a friend who used to work in Customs who says this is standard procedure for someone receiving so many packages. However, in two cases my clients had supplied a return address on the package itself. As such I am going to advise them to use a different address if they want to order any goods from Silk Road.
Moving forward if anyone is using Royal Mail Special Delivery to send goods/cash I'd suggest that you put the address of a trusted friend/local post office as your return address.
I still maintain that using cash is the safest method to buy Bitcoins - but I think it's important to bear this in mind in case LEO decide to stake out the return address. I admit the odds are very slim but better safe than sorry!
V.
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Vlad1m1mr you can avoid this by having everything sent to you as a verifiable limited company. It costs you £15 to set up and makes life a lot simpler, for various reasons which I assume you already know. (Different laws surrounding personal & company post etc).
Having 200 packages a day come to "Cash for Coins Limited, 4 XYZ Road, XYZ" isn't suspicious at all and they'll stop opening them. I had this issue too when I used to send dodgy paperwork between countries.
Even better is to write "Rule 39 - Legal Mail" on the front of the envelope. Then they (the government) can't open it at all without you or your lawyer present, which they won't bother to do, and it's very common for law firms to send correspondence between their client this way.
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the only problem I see is packages being opened and start being stolen when they realize it's all money. You can send it registered but breaks a lot of anonymity rules.
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Vlad1m1mr you can avoid this by having everything sent to you as a verifiable limited company. It costs you £15 to set up and makes life a lot simpler, for various reasons which I assume you already know. (Different laws surrounding personal & company post etc).
Having 200 packages a day come to "Cash for Coins Limited, 4 XYZ Road, XYZ" isn't suspicious at all and they'll stop opening them. I had this issue too when I used to send dodgy paperwork between countries.
Even better is to write "Rule 39 - Legal Mail" on the front of the envelope. Then they (the government) can't open it at all without you or your lawyer present, which they won't bother to do, and it's very common for law firms to send correspondence between their client this way.
Many thanks to you as ever OZ, an excellent suggestion.
V.
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Moving forward if anyone is using Royal Mail Special Delivery to send goods/cash I'd suggest that you put the address of a trusted friend/local post office as your return address.
whos gonna wanna receive goods with special delivery now, nevermind the sending of it.
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Moving forward if anyone is using Royal Mail Special Delivery to send goods/cash I'd suggest that you put the address of a trusted friend/local post office as your return address.
whos gonna wanna receive goods with special delivery now, nevermind the sending of it.
I suppose it depends what you're signing for! Fortunately in my case it isn't illegal to send or receive money in the post within the UK.
V.