As a long-time reporter I find it a strange question, as strange as finding myself working on a story about me.īy way of an answer, the bank refers me to an Internet link that calls up a 521-page report so densely typed it looks like wallpaper. Treasury Department that “reviews” transactions. It turns out, the bank informs me, that OFAC is a division of the U.S. Speak carelessly and the name sounds like just what you might say upon learning that you’ve been sucked into the ultimate top-secret bureaucratic sinkhole. It rhymes with Oh-Tack, but you’ve got to watch how you pronounce it. The funds had, in fact, left my account weeks before, along with a wire transfer fee. The bank wasn’t actually holding up the delivery of the money. Long story short: we went round and round for a couple of weeks, as I coughed up ever more morsels of previously unsolicited personal information. Why not? All my fault, they insisted, for not having provided complete information. When I politely inquired, Citibank told me that the transaction hadn’t gone through. So the first thing I noticed was that one of those wires with money I needed never arrived.
