I'm just curious if anybody knows if there's a limit you should watch for when buying btc from lbc. mg has been my main source of obtaining them for a while and I can't get that out of my head, everytime I give the people behind the register my phone number they pull up my history and ask if I've sent to someone before or if it'll be a new one. I guess I'm just worried with the amount of btc I get and the lack of payroll on paper.. it'll look weird lol like raise some flags to the irs or something you know.
TL;DR at the bottom
All quotes taken from "Latin America and the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Guide", though to the best of my knowlede all of these will apply to the US as well. Here's where you can find the book: http://corporate.moneygram.com/Documents/Corp%20site%20docs/Compliance/LatAm%20and%20Caribbean/aml_lacaml0908_eng.pdf
Takeaways:
Photo Identification must be shown and recorded for any transfers over 900 dollars. The lack of any section on dealing with unvalidated ID info leads me to believe that this is not verified beyond merely looking at the photo ID.
Keep all transactions under 3k
All records of transfers less than 3k are retained for only 6 months.
Luckily for you, they are only trained to ask about your occupation if the ammount is over 3k:
As long as you stay under 3k, your only problem should be avoiding a Suspicious Transaction Report. I'll quote the relevant sections:
the TL;DR version of the above is basically
1: Don't make your transfers look like you're structuring to get around transaction filling requirements
2: Don't act nervous like you're doing something wrong. Remember, buying bitcoins isn't illegal.
3: Don't give the agent a reason to suspect you don't have a legitimate source of income. Dress well. It might be a good idea to have a quick excuse memorized. They won't ask for any proof as long as the transaction is under 3k.
4: Don't look like a drug dealer.
5: Try not to make multiple transactions in a day, unless you have a plausible excuse for doing so.
As you've probably gathered by now, the magic number is 3k. Keep all your individual transactions under 3k and try not to get anywhere near 10k in a day. I'd keep it under 10k a month if you can, if not a week is probably sufficient. A warning might get triggered if you go over 10k a month; I don't have a source for that though, so take that with a grain of salt.
The good news is that it seems like the IRS will only be alerted to your activity if the agent files either a High Currency Amount Transaction Report or a Suspicious Transaction Report. The bad news is that the Moneygram agent will never tell you when they are filing an STR, so you've got to be proactive in making sure that doesn't happen.
Hopefully some of this helps. I've dabbled in using Moneygram through LBC and while it definitely has a place, I would avoid relying entirely on it for all of your coins.