Typically, unless the amount of money is greater than $10,000 and involves CASH, a Suspicious Activities Report (or SAR) is not triggered. If you’re just wiring money around domestically and/or between accounts over which you have authority, it’s generally not an issue. More often than not, the big issue with SARs is with CASH or large wires to countries that are tax havens or on the government’s watch list for terrorism.
The reason that Eliot Spitzer’s transactions got flagged is because he’s a public official, so there’s a higher degree of scrutiny by banks, the FBI, etc. The investigation got started once they saw several cash transactions of less than $10,000 spaced by only a few days in some cases (suggesting “structuring,” as a way to stay under the $10,000 limit) and wires to entities that looked like shell companies, AND noted that he was a public official. Had he not been a public official, I think there’s a 99% chance nothing would have come of this. For the average person out there, the BSA is a non-issue. Just go about your business and its highly unlikely you’ll ever be bothered by it.
99.9% of SARs don’t even get reviewed. They just sit in a regulatory database somewhere.
