So, I tried Dwolla

http://blog.goodstuff.im/dwolla_clowns

by aatifh • 13 years ago

200 144 13 years ago

blog.goodstuff.im

loceng• 13 years ago

I'm curious if others have had similar experiences.

trebor• 13 years ago

Same here. I was considering this as a better alternative to PayPal, but if this is a somewhat consistent experience, it most certainly is not.

austinstorm• 13 years ago

I had to email them some PDFs to get verified, but nothing compared to the hassles I've suffered at PayPal's hands over the years.

zefhous3• 13 years ago

I've done about $120,000 of business through Dwolla with multiple parties and I've not had or heard of any bad experiences whatsoever.

javert• 13 years ago

I've had good experiences moving a few thousands of dollars around through Dwolla in order to get them into bitcoin exchanges.

eridius4• 13 years ago

As a personal account, I've moved a few thousand dollars through Dwolla with no problem.

jboynyc• 13 years ago

Only good experiences here. I've also referred at least two other people who have been happy with Dwolla. Unfortunately their service is really important in the U.S., where transfers between banks aren't as easy as they are in Europe (and, I suspect, much of the rest of the OECD world).

kylelibra• 13 years ago

Nothing could be worse than PayPal, but this is alarming. Personally Stripe is my go to payment method to use for clients.

jusben13696• 13 years ago

Stripe is fantastic but 2.9% and 30 cents isn't trivial vs 25 cents if you're trying to have a client pay you $5000 or $10,000. If Stripe nails ACH that might be another thing.

ok_craig3• 13 years ago

The other day I was trying to make some kind of transaction with Dwolla, and before I could, they asked me a series of questions to verify my identity.

The questions had obviously been pulled from a background check based on my name that I didn't know they had done. It was asking me what the price of a house was when I originally bought it, and what street I lived on in a given time period.

Outside of this being really creepy, all of the questions weren't actually useful for identifying me because they all applied to my father. I am a Jr., and the background check must have been run for my dad.

I also now have a reasonable idea of the price range my dad paid for a house that we moved into when I was 7, which I never would have known or asked about otherwise.

At this point I'm afraid to continue using the service. They allowed me to transfer $1,000 into it, but apparently don't know enough about me to let me make certain transactions. They should get everything they need for me to use 100% of their service up front, and not have this staggered approach where additional identity info is required to transfer money, at the last minute when you're trying to do the transfer.

Right now it seems that they could at any arbitrary moment determine that they haven't actually identified me well enough, and suspend my account.

I don't think Dwolla is the payment solution we've been looking for. At least not yet.

wmf3• 13 years ago

My understanding is that Dwolla is trying a fairly unusual approach to handling fraud, which is that they pay out of their own pockets for fraud (instead of kicking it down the line as all other financial institutions do) but this requires that they actually prevent fraud, not just identify it after the fact. And the cost of really stopping fraud turns out to be something that many people do not feel comfortable paying when they're personally confronted with it.

dopamean• 13 years ago

If this is the case then the story is still creepy but I support this attempt to combat fraud.

spinlock• 13 years ago

Kind of, Trade Hill lost a hundred thousand or so when Dwolla falsified their tranaction record and stuck them with the fraud. This was a bunch of reversed ACHs (which Dwolla claims they don't allow). Very shady company.

kbuck• 13 years ago

FYI, those sound like credit check questions. They probably did some sort of credit pull.

(They know the answers to these because the credit reporting agencies know how much the house cost, where it was located, what previous address(es) you've had on your credit accounts (including credit cards), etc.)

mikec3k• 13 years ago

Yes, those are exactly the questions I've seen on credit checks to verify my identity.

citricsquid• 13 years ago

Are house sale prices not documented publicly in the US?

ars• 13 years ago

They are. It's a very strange question to use.

Osiris• 13 years ago

Yes, sale prices can be found in public records. Just look at sites like Zillow, you can look up any property and they'll show you a history (I'm not sure how far back they go) of the sales history of the house.

ok_craig3• 13 years ago

I guess they are, it just wasn't something I expected to learn at that time in that way. So I guess it isn't really a big privacy issue, just a strange experience.

I would have been more comfortable with it if it had been part of the original screening, and not something that popped up randomly before a transaction, after I had already moved money into my account.

kenmck2• 13 years ago

Sounds like they pulled a credit check. I got the same kind of questions when I applied for regular merchant (credit card processing) account.

g_h• 13 years ago

Dwolla did not perform a "background check" in the sense that you may think. When dealing with online fraud, it's common to use identify verification services like IDology (and a few others) that basically provide an API to generate these types of questions based on public records matching your name/address. Many banks use the same verification services.

Xorlev• 13 years ago

This. Experian provides the same service, it's usually ~$3/pop if I remember right. This gives you those "Did you live with a Paul Foo at 378 Combinator Way from 2006-2009?" questions.

unclebucknasty• 13 years ago

Odd, because if it's publicly available...

jrockway• 13 years ago

I also now have a reasonable idea of the price range my dad paid for a house that we moved into when I was 7, which I never would have known or asked about otherwise.

It's a matter of public record. You can probably type the address into Google to find a site that shows you the full transaction history on the house. Here's the house where I spent most of my childhood:

http://www.redfin.com/IL/Third-Lake/186-Mainsail-Dr-60030/ho...

ok_craig3• 13 years ago

Yeah, not a privacy violation it seems. I didn't know that. For me, it was just unexpected and weird to experience.

tragomaskhalos• 13 years ago

The "background check" questions for verifying your identity will have been drawn from a credit reference agency or similar. It may seem creepy, but actually if you want to verify someone's identity online and mitigate the risk of identity theft, the alternatives are limited. Of course the fact that they mixed you up with your Dad is unfortunate to say the least; your date of birth should have disambiguated you.

What they should have done is explained this, rather than just baldly present you with what appear to be alarming and intrusive questions.

Having different levels of service depending on the level of identity assurance is sensible for many applications, but for a funds transfer system I agree that it does not seem sensible.

chourobin• 13 years ago

Try Venmo?

boling112• 13 years ago

Venmo has a $5k per week limit on payments as well as cashouts.

michaelfairley• 13 years ago

Venmo now has payout business accounts: https://venmo.com/payouts

cykod• 13 years ago

Clowns implies that they screwed something up or did something wrong - from his story, he signed up and moved 5 figures of cash immediately (which is either exactly the limit of a business account or over it, see https://www.dwolla.com/about ) if I were in the payments business (and I was previously) this would have been a fraud red flag.

This is something that happened today (April 18th) - this is not five days of waiting around for money to free up. This is a gripe because the author triggered ever fraud alarm in the book and they have not responded fast enough.

I'd lean towards the "give them a little bit a of break" - yes it sucks he had to provide additional documentation and they haven't sorted it out yet, but no business could allow anonymous folks on the web to sign up and move 5 figures of cash providing only publicly available information as documentation.

alanctgardner2• 13 years ago

This is an excellent point, the site says "Up to 10,000 for businesses, with the possibility of increasing it". So obviously he's opened a brand new account, and then tried to pull more money than he's authorized for. That seems like it would take some time, and I would have talked to Dwolla before I had them send the money.

On a side note, I love their payment method comparison matrix (on the page you linked). It's factual, but a bit cutesy, and just a little bit mean to Paypal (who totally deserve it).

hexis• 13 years ago

I opened an account about a year ago and did nothing with it. I had my account suspended about a week ago, after not really touching it that whole year. When I asked Dwolla about it, they couldn't tell me why it had been suspended, so I just closed the account. Very unprofessional, all around, I was very glad I never attached any real accounts to it.

christopheraden• 13 years ago

I currently use Dwolla for transferring funds over to Mtgox. Given this information, is there a better service for getting funds from a bank account over to Mtgox without doing a wire transfer?

siculars• 13 years ago

Citibank and Chase both have money transfer services via email. QuickPay and PopMoney, I believe. I have used both of them and they work. The sender needs to have an account with the originating bank, either Chase or Citi but the recipient can have an account anywhere with a routing number and account number. The bank facilitating the transfer will ask for ACH access to your receiving account and place some small transfers into your account. When you see those transfers they are like activation codes which you then use to validate that you are the owner of that account.

This certainly works in one off situations but I would love to see Citi or Chase productize this via an API for authorized merchants, etc.

zefhous3• 13 years ago

What a poorly written and immature article! Calling Dwolla "a bunch of clowns" because you couldn't get your account verified right away is just ridiculous.

It's also ridiculous to claim to "understand the whole fraud aspect" and then imply that they are engaging in fraud because the money hasn't been transferred back to the other guy's account within a single business day. And claiming that Dwolla is too good to be true because it didn't work out for you right away? Really you want us to take you seriously?

These things take time and these businesses cannot and should not be run without adhering to processes and rules that aren't transparent to consumers. As a payment processor, a false positive is much worse than a false negative.

Dwolla is providing a fantastic and much-needed service. In my experience the people at Dwolla are providing a great service and doing a good job of it. Their support has been responsive and very well done.

niggler• 13 years ago

You didn't read the complaint.

'Currently, there's 10s of thousands of dollars that have been removed from my business partner's account, that are sitting in Dwolla's accounts, that Dwolla claims they will "return in due course."'

That should never happen. If there are fraud problems, they should be clarified and settled before the fact, not while they hold onto the cash. The sum is too large to take to small claims court and I imagine too large for the author to just write off.

zefhous3• 13 years ago

I did read it, and I see no evidence that they are holding on to the cash.

Dwolla was trying to verify his information at this morning at 11 am. His business partner transferred money through Dwolla, so of course that's where it is right now waiting to get passed through to him.

If Dwolla is actually holding on to the money and refusing to give it back, then there's a story — but I don't see any evidence of that.

Like I said, these things take time. I believe this post was published about 3 hours after they called to verify the account — he tweeted about it at 2:06 PM.

powertower• 13 years ago

Which service would that be?

The original one were you could transfer in, transfer out, buy bitcoins, all in a 24h window - or the current one were it takes paperwork, and 30 days before they allow you to even send funds out that are in your account?

As far as I can tell, Dwolla is only a good fit if you have a business that can't take credit cards (high risk, or sells CC processor "banned" items like Kratom), which actually quite well explains why they are so difficult to work with (due to fraud checks and prevention).

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

News flash: Customers get upset when they give you their bank details and you act like an opaque, incompetent bunch of stonewalling nitwits. They will jump to all sorts of conclusions that aren't necessarily justified if one is aware of the whole story. Ric Romero has film at 11.

Got a problem with that? Don't go into the payment-processing business.

metaphorm• 13 years ago

lets see some identifying credentials from you. prove to us now that you are not employed by Dwolla, and have no other business interest in Dwolla.

throwaway04583• 13 years ago

Dwolla shill located.

yarou• 13 years ago

I can understand this guy's frustration. While I've never used Dwolla before, all the negative reviews of it make sure that I will never use it. Hopefully Ripple and OpenCoin take off, in the meantime it's probably better to use traditional methods of money transfer.

aleksandrm• 13 years ago

Is there really no "good-guy" alternative to PayPal? Since PayPal froze my account several years ago and robbed me of 2K, I have been in search of a better alternative. First came WePay, I tried using it, but it was awkward and slow, it took weeks to transfer a simple $500 in the U.S. between verified accounts, and customer service wasn't all that helpful. Then came along Dwolla, I haven't had any large transactions here yet, but it's been slow as well, and unwilling to work with me and my buddy with whom we share a referral credit -- not a very good beginning to start a relationship with a customer. And now this article. Le sigh.

BoyWizard• 13 years ago

The problem is, payment processing is hard. Fraud is a real problem, that costs real money and takes a massive amount of effort to prevent. You can limit your exposure (eg Stripe) by placing limitations on your solution (limit by country, by transaction types, etc), but there is no fix for it.

Big banks don't do much better than Paypal in regards to fraud prevention, the major difference is that they are regulated more tightly so they can't just freeze your money without recourse.

jusben13696• 13 years ago

Zipmark is a possible alternative. They're also tackling ACH payments but in a fairly unique way. Haven't used them though so can't vouch one way or the other.

mp99e99• 13 years ago

Well, If its in the tens of thousands of dollars ($10,000) for a .25 cent charge, this seems like alot of risk to handle in house. Ie at that size 1 in 40000 transactions could be fraud and they would be breaking even on the .25 cent charges, assuming there is no overhead to running this business.

xer0x• 13 years ago

Me too. I was totally frustrated when trying to signup. I didn't have the paper work they wanted, and so I had to use another service.

I understand that fraud is serious. However, I'm very disappointed that I wasted a lot of time trying to signup with them too.

boling112• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity, which other service did you end up using?

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

>>>>>>"What I will not gladly do is let a bunch of folks who I have no idea who they are other than a web site ever again reach into my bank account."

Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to let them handle so much of your money. To me, this is putting a LOT of faith in web site to handle that much money right away on a brand new account.

viggity• 13 years ago

wtf. they are a lot more than just a website. they're a front end on top of "The Members Group" which IIRC is a financial services company for a ton of banks. But to say that all they are is a website is pretty lame. Sorry you couldn't move 5 figures of cash on hours after you create an account.

kenmck2• 13 years ago

Why is it that people think that they can open a payment account, transfer thousands of dollars into it as their first transaction and no one will ask any questions or be the least bit suspicious?

jusben13696• 13 years ago

Yes I was kind of thinking of filing this under "the 1% problem". Who does that much money first time around?

dublinben• 13 years ago

Criminals. This kind of activity would trip any fraud detection algorithm.

oijaf888• 13 years ago

Businesses? Depending on the industry a $10K invoice isn't exactly huge.

uuilly• 13 years ago

I tried to use Dwolla and it it was absurd. I set my account up fine. My friend sent me $1200 for a ski lease. I withdrew it and it appeared to work. Days later when the money did not appear in my bank account, I checked back and it said, "processing withdrawl" (or something like that.) It said that for many days before I contacted them. They said I needed to scan my drivers license and send it to them. The only account that has a copy of my DL is the DMV. No other company in capitalism asks for a scanned DL except for (maybe?) my employer. They had my social for crying out loud! And their UI was so broken that it wasn't clear that anything was wrong. At that point I refused to deal with them and kicked the money back to my friend and had him go through paypal. To top it off, they won't delete my personal details from their servers.

aidenn02• 13 years ago

Every bank I've opened an account with has asked for photo id...

idiot900• 13 years ago

Do they ask for it up front, or at some random point without warning after telling you the account has been successfully set up?

greyboy• 13 years ago

Interesting, none of my (four) banks have asked for photo ID. Two of which were started online (but are still a traditional bank).

bricestacey• 13 years ago

I've had a VPS require photo ID (ServInt)

Spooky233• 13 years ago

A drivers license is a higher trust level document, as your driver ID and document number can be tied to an actual, trusted physical interaction, and it links you to a physical location.

SSNs are horrible IDs for a variety of reasons. Thousands or millions of Americans do not have valid SSNs or use EINs for personal IDE identification.

jgoodwin• 13 years ago

I have both bitcoin and dwolla, and between the two I've found Bitcoin much more useful. Dwolla has a difficult business model these days, and I will be sorry to see them fail. But they will fail.

mutagen• 13 years ago

I had some minor issues with Dwolla or at least my perception of how they work that left a bad feeling for their brand and operations.

A buddy paid me money he owed me through Dwolla. I made the 'mistake' of leaving it in the Dwolla account instead of pushing it on to my bank account. A month later his bank was allowed to pull that back out because he had overdrafted.

eridius4• 13 years ago

> A month later his bank was allowed to pull that back out because he had overdrafted.

How is that even possible?

alex_h• 13 years ago

This is something about the US banking system that I find completely crazy. Other banks/companies can 'pull' money from your account. Where I come from, all bank transfers are 'push' as far as I'm aware. Ie. the sender of the money has to specifically authorize an amount to be sent. In the US it appears that in a lot of cases, the receiver of money can specify the amount they want to receive and simply pull it from the senders account.

dbond• 13 years ago

Do US banks not support direct transfers online or by phone?

wmf3• 13 years ago

Sure, for $30 each. Or you can use "bill pay" to have your bank mail a paper check.

whynotbalu2• 13 years ago

This is not true, it obviously varies by bank. Bank of America allows free online transfers to other B of A accounts, and it costs between $3 and $10 to transfer to accounts outside the bank. The $3 option to transfer between banks is pretty fast, while the free, inside bank option is instantaneous.

jokoon3• 13 years ago

Maybe the time you spent doing it the way you used to do was not in vain at all. Security is not really something you can sell at a poor price.

If they can lower their prices, and if their business allows them to retain your money, maybe they want to target clients who are 120% cristal clear clean, because that's how most client are.

They're not bugged by that tiny percentage of people they prefer not to validate because paranoia can rule you out easily. You had the bad luck of having a bad smell even on all the paperwork you have them.

That's like calling brown people terrorists. That's not racist or mean. That's just unfortunate. Sometime security is a real bitch. That's just pickup up the pieces. That feels bad, but it's for a good cause.

eridius4• 13 years ago

I was with you right up until you tried to justify racial profiling. That's not security, that's racism.

jokoon3• 13 years ago

Well security is something the US is having a lot of problems with.

jusben13696• 13 years ago

"That's like calling brown people terrorists. That's not racist or mean. That's just unfortunate." - Wait what?

jokoon3• 13 years ago

Well I'm not the one pushing for racist policies. that's just how the US defends itself. I'm against it, but that's the only way the US does it. Because the US is isolated from having good relations.

Now back to how corporations filter things. How would you do it ? Nobody wants to do it.

ryanackley• 13 years ago

My Dad owns an ACH processing company. This is typical for any electronic payment processor. It does sound like they went overboard with the identity verification.

It just goes to show that disrupting payment processing is not just about some awesome new payment API. It's also about preventing fraud and crime without pissing your customers off. From my observations, this problem has yet to be solved.

jaksmit• 13 years ago

Try Balancedpayments.com I think it does what you're looking for.

abawany• 13 years ago

Their passive-aggressive credential demanding is nasty - I tried to create a basic account and then the demands started. Calling them clowns is insulting - to clowns. Dwolla: you are supposed to be upstanding midwestern folks: be G-D UPFRONT about your requirements!

etfb4• 13 years ago

America is a funny place. You can get 127 varieties of salad dressing at your local supermarket, but you can't pay for it except with cash, unless you want to be hit with credit charges, and when you do the prices are not as marked. Australia, in sharp contrast, has laws requiring that the price on the shelf matches the price at the register -- some of them even allow you to get incorrectly-priced items for free, although technically this is a voluntary agreement among shops, not a law. Also, Australia has EFTPOS nearly everywhere; in fact, people are justly suspicious of retail businesses that don't provide EFTPOS, because that's one of the first signs that the business is probably going to go under. And if you want to transfer money, the same system that makes EFTPOS ubiquitous makes direct deposit from one bank account to another a very simple thing. The result is that cheques ("checks" in US English) are very rare indeed, and people really only use credit cards for online purchases or when they're already living beyond their means. (Which means the use of a credit card in day-to-day spending is another warning sign!)

Granted, it's hard to get all 127 varieties of salad dressing here, so there is that.

timv2• 13 years ago

people really only use credit cards for online purchases or when they're already living beyond their means

If I'm parsing what you're saying correctly, then that doesn't match my experience.

Most people I know will use a credit card at an EFTPOS machine in preference to using their ATM card, and lots of people use the credit card regular because it's simpler than regularly getting cash from the ATM.

My current trip from Home -> Work does not go directly past any ATMs that are free for me (I pass a couple, but the ATM operator will charge me to use them), so I regularly buy everyday items on my credit card.

Heck, I buy my train ticket (a whole $6.60) on my credit card each morning because

1. it doesn't cost me any more than paying with cash

2. it saves me from having to worry about whether my wallet is empty, when my focus is on getting in to the office

Now, I also have a cheque book in a drawer somewhere, but I think the last time I used it would have been when about 3 years ago when I needed to give my parents some money and my Mum didn't have her bank account details with her (which would have allowed me to transfer it electronically)

etfb4• 13 years ago

Credit cards are still more expensive than debit cards, and in Australia any machine that can take the former will take the latter as well. Credit cards allow you to spend money you don't have, whereas debit cards don't.

jacques_chester• 13 years ago

One key difference: banks in Australia have high assurance of identity because of the 100-point check, which non-Australians may find sounds a bit like what Dwolla were asking for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check

jusben13696• 13 years ago

Hah. Australia's population is half of California's so having "singular" experiences is just a wee bit easier. I'm not sure what you're referencing with prices being different between cash and credit. It sounds like you might have been struggling with county taxes that vary significantly and thus mean you don't see the final price till you pay.

stinky6132• 13 years ago

I don't think your impression of American shopping is accurate.

Many people pay with credit cards because they don't want to deal with loose coins and because credit card transactions can be viewed online. Anything I put on my Visa card I pay off in full at the end of the billing period; there are no fees, charges, or changes in prices that hit you when you use a credit card.

joe_fishfish• 13 years ago

In the UK we can do all that with debit cards, only there's no monthly bill to occasionally forget to pay.

timdorr2• 13 years ago

I haven't ever been subject to differing costs between credit/debit card and cash prices, with the sole exception of the liquor store. Are there specific stores in the US that do this?

etfb4• 13 years ago

Credit cards have fees -- interest, account-keeping fees, and so on. It's why banks like them.

alimoeeny• 13 years ago

have you ever used your credit card at gas station?

abbasaamer• 13 years ago

If you think pricing is confusing at an American store, you should try figuring out how much anything in the American healthcare system is going to cost you. I've honestly gotten answers from doctors and staff that turned out to be off by an order of magnitude.

obviouslygreen2• 13 years ago

...people really only use credit cards for online purchases or when they're already living beyond their means. (Which means the use of a credit card in day-to-day spending is another warning sign!)

Ridiculous, unsubstantiated, and false. The US is not perfect, but neither are your ideas about credit cards and the people who use them. I, much of my family, and many of my friends use credit cards for all of our daily expenses and pay them off immediately, or at least before the bills are due. It's convenient and lets you keep a small cash stash on you that rarely gets used just in case you need it.

Anderkent• 13 years ago

Then why not just use a debit card, and if you turn out to need that cash stash, use your credit card then? Or take any kind of loan, most of which will have better terms than your credit card anyway...

dkhenry2• 13 years ago

As a word of warning to those who would try Dwolla. Not only do they ask for tons of information as many posters have mentioned, but they will not remove your data if you close an account. If you read the Terms of Service Closely they dictate they they will keep your data for a _minimum_ of three years and possibly indefinitely. This includes your name, address, phone number, SSN, and Drivers License. Think twice about how much you trust them before you fork over information to a company that provides you with that kind of ultimatum.

jusben13696• 13 years ago

There's a chance - given you were doing financial transactions with them - that they have to keep that data around for a period of time.

dkhenry2• 13 years ago

There is, however even if you don't they still will keep it. Also as a bonus. The same law which binds them to keep that information mandates they give you privacy notifications, which Dwolla will not do, because they claim they are not a financial institution.

riderofrinos• 13 years ago

And surprisingly they don't have support for any kind of TOTP, like google authenticator. Any decent financial site today should use TOTP.

zaroth• 13 years ago

You know you can just print a check with your partner's account number on it and deposit it, right?

It's called 'Remotely Created Check' (RCC) and its as good as a check sent through snail mail with an actual signature on it. You just put 'Signature on File - This check has been authorized by your depositor' where the signature line would go.

I wrote a little program to generate my own checks like this a few years ago. I used to print them and take them to the ATM but since my bank added Check Deposit to their iPhone app, I just take a picture of the check displayed on my monitor. As a bonus, my signature is already in the back.

You'll need the OpenMICR font so your can print the MICR line, and it'll take a bit of tweaking to get the alignment right. I was thinking of rewriting it in HTML if anyone is interested... (client side only of course)

WordSkill• 13 years ago

It is true that Dwolla are not professional but it never was meant to be a real business, it was always intended as a spotlight for Ben Milne.

Nothing wrong with that, ego has driven much of civilization but you certainly should build Dwolla into actual business plans, it won't be around much longer.

dasil003• 13 years ago

You can't just drop a bomb like that all innocent and matter-of-factly like that without further explanation. Smells like sour grapes.

andyhmltn• 13 years ago

This is why I'm eagerly waiting for Stripe to arrive in the UK (anyone have an ETA?) For some reason every company that has a service like this seems to feel the need to make you jump through a stupid amount of hoops. That wouldn't be that bad if they were completely incompetent at it. Take PayPal: My account was limited out of the blue. I provided them with all the information they needed. 3 weeks later they asked for more. Then after providing that they reopened my account. A further month later they closed it again and started asking for the same stuff.

I understand the financial industry is extremely locked down, but I was hoping itd be a little easier to accept payments now-a-days

kalleboo• 13 years ago

> While there are no really good alternatives to moving money domestically except via check

Does the U.S. really not have customer-to-customer wire transfers from regular banks? I'm continually amazed by how terrible your banking system is.

aidenn02• 13 years ago

They cost about $20 and some banks double-charge (i.e. charge the recipient as well as the sender).

atvicar2• 13 years ago

The reason why Americans still use checks so often suddenly makes sense.

jes5199• 13 years ago

that's not universal! I have accounts with CapitalOne360 (formerly "ING Direct") and Wells Fargo that both have free electronic transfers to any other bank. They both use some sort of third-party system that sends an email to the recipient who has to enter their checking account routing info into a form. I use them regularly, and there's never been a problem.

Also the nice thing about banks is that they don't like to make mistakes, and are better about reversing errors than any other industry.

The only downside is that it takes about 3 days for money to move - apparently that's the speed that the checking network moves, but since paper checks have legal guarantees, the banks are willing to take the risk during that time - that's how you can cash a check and have it "bounce" after you've already withdrawn the procedes from it. Without the paper check, you just have to wait for the EFT system to do what it does (and the technology is old and weird - I think it was designed in the mainframe days - so it's all based on batches of processing, instead of on-line immediate stuff)

hoi• 13 years ago

It truly is shit. Japan's isn't great either. UK's probably the best I've experienced in all the countries I've lived in. Hong Kong comes a close second.

tallanvor• 13 years ago

Norway's is also pretty easy. You log on, enter the person's account number (unless you already have it saved), and give the amount you want to send along with the date you want it to happen.

SeanDav• 13 years ago

I found South Africa to have a far easier banking system. When I first moved to the UK, I found their banking system very antiquated compared to what I was used to.

That was some time ago, so things are likely better in the UK since then. Hard to tell as I am part of the system and haven't got anything to compare it to now.

hackerboos2• 13 years ago

I believe it does but they are not free/cheat like BACS in the UK and IBAN in the EU.

atvicar2• 13 years ago

I always assumed IBAN was a global thing. I don't know what I would do without it. I make/receive all my payments via direct bank wire. And I can do it from everywhere at any time for free.

mbesto• 13 years ago

As an American living in the UK, I was amazed at how easy it was to transfer money here. It's seriously painless.

suhastech• 13 years ago

It's pretty easy in India too. It's called NEFT and very cheap. I've never been charged more than Rs. 10 - 20.

kybernetyk2• 13 years ago

Maybe I'm a little old fashioned here but I don't trust all those new private payment processors (including paypal) with any significant amount of money.

I'm usually fine with using the services for < $200 but above that I'm using wire transfer (within the EU) or checks. Yes, it takes longer (and in case of checks costs me ~40 EUR to cash in) but at least I know that the entities handling the transfer are registered banks and have refined their procedures over decades.

I happily pay the extra charges or wait a few days longer for minimizing the danger of getting into a kafkaesque verification loop comedy - or worse.

userulluipeste2• 13 years ago

"have refined their procedures over decades"

Yet it also (still) "takes longer"???

kybernetyk2• 13 years ago

Yes, it's not optimal. But still I feel more secure with banks than with the next hot startup payment processor.

userulluipeste2• 13 years ago

All the exposed material can help in a law court. How about suing them?

aneth4• 13 years ago

Moving 5 figures of needed funds through Dwolla immediately after opening an account. Come on - that's just pricelessly stupid, and I'm not surprised it raised flags. The clown is the person who would do such a thing. And he expects the funds to be available almost instantly. Send a few hundred or thousands of dollars to test an entirely new payment method first, and to establish that it works.

Anyone involved in technology should know - test before making a big commitment.

Sorry, I don't give any demerits to Dwolla on this and neither should you.

I've used dwolla quite a bit, mostly for bitcoin, and it's been fine. As with any place that handles your money, you need to establish a short record of legitimate transactions and use it sensibly. Otherwise you are a "clown."

kfcm• 13 years ago

He wasn't sending 5 figures; he was receiving it.

And why is he a clown for assuming his "verified with state and federal ids" Dwolla account could receive such amounts, and he could get it?

It's a business account--5 figures is nothing. This may have been his test.

Getting in the way of business? I do give them demerits.

toast42• 13 years ago

I use Dwolla to transfer less than $500 every month for splitting rent, utilities, etc. I've never once had a problem, they're just kind of slow sometimes.

So, I tried Dwolla

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