Everything works until it doesn't. Every problem is someone else's problem until it is your problem. Those rules apply to binance.

The case

I have recently sent, accidentally, 350 HBD to Binance. Although Binance does not support HBD, they do support HIVE and own the receiving hot wallet. They could retrieve it for me if they were willing to.

Regardless of their will, they claim to be legally acting in Brazil, where I live. Brazil, as most countries, do have laws. A few of those are:

The law requiring them to refund it

If you receive something that was not meant to be yours, you are legally required to return, regardless of the conditions.
Artigo 169 do Decreto Lei nº 2.848 de 07 de Dezembro de 1940

Apropriar-se alguém de coisa alheia vinda ao seu poder por erro, caso fortuito ou força da natureza

In English:

Appropriating someone else's property coming to their power by mistake, fortuitous event or force of nature

They appropriated of my HBD by a mistake. By refusing to return they are already going against the law. And not just any law, that law is in the criminal code, which by being broken is legally considered a crime.

The law requiring them to show their company details

Now that I have showed how they are breaking the law, and not just any law, a law that when boken makes them criminal, I am going to show how I can't take action, and how they are breaking another law by doing so.

Decreto Federal 7.962/13

Art. 2º Os sítios eletrônicos ou demais meios eletrônicos utilizados para oferta ou conclusão de contrato de consumo devem disponibilizar, em local de destaque e de fácil visualização, as seguintes informações: I - nome empresarial e número de inscrição do fornecedor, quando houver, no Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Físicas ou no Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Jurídicas do Ministério da Fazenda; II - endereço físico e eletrônico, e demais informações necessárias para sua localização e contato;

In English:

Art. 2 The electronic websites or other electronic means used to offer or conclude a consumer contract must make available, in a prominent and easily visible place, the following information: I - business name and supplier registration number, if any, in the National Registry Individuals or in the National Registry of Legal Entities of the Ministry of Finance; II - physical and electronic address, and other information necessary for its location and contact;

Usually companies, to easily comply with the law, just put all that information on the footer of every single page, or at the very least, on the main page.

But binance? They don't need to comply with the law. They are above the law.

I have contacted Binance customer support, both in Portuguese and in English, and on the chat, e-mail and through a brazilian platform to contact companies, all because none of that information is shown at the website, and their answer? Oh boy, that is a long ass answer that spans days of attempts to help them comply with their duty, but the core of it is:

Conclusion

To me it is abundantly clear that** Binance is not willing to comply with the brazilian law**.

In this post alone I made it clear how they put themselves above two simple laws, one of which is in a criminal code, which means that by not complying it is already a crime.

Because it is against a law that by being broken is a crime, we can safely say that Binance is a criminal company. The fact that they break another law just means that they believe they can go unpunished.

Regardless, I am going to keep pushing. At the very least, by posting about it, I can get people informed. Maybe it can make a change.

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