As I am not a user myself, I do not know. The Silk Road forums would be your best bet to get these questions answered. Download Tor, fire it up and navigate to the URI listed in my previous post. Alternatively, you can use Web->Tor gateway www.onion.to (if its up) to proxy your connection.

To my knowledge they follow similar rules to eBay; there is no charge if you are a buyer (the price you see is the price you pay), however if you are a seller you incur a ~6% charge on every sale. In addition, if you want to sell your wares on Silk Road, there is a fee to open a seller account. I do not know exactly what this is - $200 in BTC I believe I read once - but the Silk Road forums may be able to give you more information: (Tor Address: http://[Link Removed].onion)

It is naive to think that Transferwise halted transfers to Bitcoin exchanges because of perceived competition to their own business model. Transferwise is an internet business - to adapt its model to integrate Bitcoin would be trivial. They have the business, software and regulatory foundations making them better placed than any existing Bitcoin business to take advantage should Bitcoin prove popular.

A more plausible answer is that their banking provider noticed an increase - or was notified of an increase - of funds that had been flagged moving through Transferwise's account. Bitcoin provides those with unlawful access to funds the ideal opportunity to 'break' the paper trail. By funneling money through Transferwise and then into a Bitcoin exchange, the money can be laundered and effectively pass the fiat liability onto the last link in the chain. It is fairly clear that Eastern European banks are not particularly concerned about the provenience of funds that are deposited to their accounts (this was a prime concern of the Germans with regards to the Cypriot banking systems "Ask no questions, hear to lies" attitude) so this likely leaves the liability in the lap of the preceding link in the chain... in this case Barclays. Money service businesses are categorized in the highest risk bracket by the banking sector - those who are lucky enough to exist with a banks grudging blessing - do so at the banks pleasure.

Transferwise was likely told that due to an increase in fraudulent transactions entering their account and an increase in funds leaving to high risk endpoints (Mt Gox Poland or Bitstamp Slovenia), they either cease directing funds to these accounts or their account would be terminated. If they lost their account, it would likely severely hinder their ability to do business in the UK. Sure, it was profitable, but they have no real power in the relationship and that in essence, is the irony of Transferwise's rhetoric; they spout about how much "Banks are bad" "Banks have had their fun" etc etc, when infact they are completely and utterly at the mercy of the banking sector...

Probably too busy doing media interviews... http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01s0qnk/The_Report_Bitcoin/

Regardless of whether it was a problem with their hosting company or not, they were running a financial service handling millions of euros (http://blockchain.info/address/1LrPYjto3hsLzWJNstghuwdrQXB96KbrCy). It is not exactly as though there hasn't been precedence for hosting company related abuse (http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-228000-stolen-from-customers-of-hacked-webhost/) and frankly an oversight of this nature points to systemic failings in their software and business model.

As does the French edition of Gruyère: http://www.frenchfoodintheus.org/spip.php?article4173 - but pedantry aside, it should not distract from the serious issue of trusting your funds to a company which seems wholly incapable handling them securely. 

Yet another disconcertingly amateurish operation. I am curious what your 'banking partner' thinks of your clearly lax approach to security? Your services appear to have more holes than one of your expensive French cheeses.

There are some things only Bitcoin can buy... Whatever your view on the wares they peddle, these businesses are pretty much the main and only real economic justification for Bitcoins - they force it to be used as a currency not hoarded as a commodity. If not for them Bitcoin would likely exist only as a curiosity. For those who are wondering which businesses I'm talking about specifically; Silk Road, Black Market Reloaded and all the other darknet enterprises that offer 'legally ambiguous' wares and services. (read: websites running on the Tor - https://www.torproject.org/ - network)

It's likely that BitcoinFridge purchased Bitcoins at or near the height to satisfy its customers demand (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118396.msg1772906#msg1772906), probably in bulk...then the market crashed. If BitcoinFridge has purchased at even 120 GBP / BTC (I'm probably being generous here) - the current price is ~74 GBP. A 2.5% markup (~1.85 GBP) on the Mt Gox last is only going to cover approximately 4% of the difference. In effect, that's a 96% loss on the current BTC price.

BitcoinFridge runs on a flawed model. It's all fine when there is either A) relative stability in the market or B) a consistently rising Bitcoin price, but when either of those conditions is false, the wheels fall off. Shame really because it was pretty fast at processing orders.  

I've been following your business for some time and since you've posted this - it needs to be said; your current implementation of your business model is awful. Everything you've listed above is either an excuse or addressing a symptom not the cause. Support is great, but most businesses do not need to bias their entire workforce in favor of support agents. So - objectively - lets look at where you really should be focusing on:

-> Based on the numerous complaints and the common theme that runs through them, your primary focus should be on gating your system so that you can manage demand and resolve your outstanding issues. You seem to have no mechanism to prevent users from creating orders. You know your liquidity is finite, you know (or should by now) how long it takes to transfer capital funds through the traditional banking network, ergo you should be able to estimate how many orders you can fulfill in a given time period. If you do not know this, break out Excel. If your existing development team cannot gate your system, hire developers who can.

-> User experience is key. Your website User Interface is awful. No field validation, no feedback - frankly, you put some of the relics on the waybackmachine to shame. If you have customers complaining that they don't know if "the box should take my Mt.Gox account number or Username" - you should have validation to ensure only the correct format of value is accepted...this is 10 minutes with the JavaScript RegExp object. At the very least, you should have a step-by-step tutorial *with screenshots* showing customers what value you expect and where they source it from. Send one of your support drones to document the entire process for each exchange/partner that you operate with. Make things easy and transparent for your customers.

-> Software development. Clearly whoever is responsible for your software stack needs a refresher course in software development. When you are sending customers emails with failed API responses - you should tweak that somethings up. It stinks of laziness and a rotten software core that you're basically spitting out 'whatever' the exchange sends you without any sort of pre-parsing or consideration of the response. As a result, you're getting customers pasting entire Mt.Gox redeemable codes, error messages, your exchange fund balance and other embarrassing information into the public domain. Work out what you know to be a successful response and only send that to your customers; Regular Expressions are your friend. The intricacies of your business should be abstracted from your customers. Your automated responses to your customers should be tailored to the product which they have purchased. Bought an Mt.Gox coupon? Stick a hyperlink to your step-by-step instructions on how to redeem it. Don't just assume they know. Finally; *DONT* send 'Success' emails when your process has failed. As an aside; if you have software development tasks stacking up; hire new software developers not support agents (antibiotics vs a band-aid).

-> Guarantees. You can't meet them so stop offering them. It's only costing you money and making you look incompetent. Unless you are a bottomless pit of cash, you will not continue to be able to refund the difference between the quote price and the final amount you deliver - especially if the price continues its exponential upward trend. It's clear that you are not at fault on all occasions, but you should by now be well acquainted with just how rickety the Bitcoin support infrastructure really is, and should alter your terms and conditions to reflect this. A reasonable best-effort delivery of 24hours would probably be advisable. You aim for an hour, but your order may take longer in busy times or when one of your partners suffers a outage. This is business - with many links in the chain it happens - people will understand and those who don't should take their business elsewhere.

Although I have no vested interest in your company, I do not want to see you fail. Your heart seems to be in the right place and you appear to have the enthusiasm and drive, but don't for a minute think that all eyes aren't on you. You won't get much more grace to sort these issues out before you do irreparable damage to your business, fall by the wayside and into irrelevance.

Genuinely; I wish you the best of luck.

Surprisingly fast service. Genuinely impressed

Sent you a PM

Hello, are you still looking to make this transaction?

Lived up to the promise. 69K ripples traded in minutes. A pleasure to deal with - thanks again!

Are you still looking?

The Android "Bitcoin Wallet - by Andreas Schildbach" application (not sure if there is an iPhone/iPad equivalent) is very user friendly, albeit you have to download the block-chain so it's best to have phone/tablet hooked up to WiFi for an hour or two - after than updates of the blockchain are fairly econmic on 3G/4G data allowance.

The wallet prints a receive address on the client when you first start it - so it's pretty much 'novice' proof - which is what you want. Options confuse people, especially the many esoteric ones that come with most Bitcoin Wallet applications.

Alternatively you could go for online wallets such as: http://www.instawallet.org or for a more managed solution; http://blockchain.info.

rwDVJQ2P2oquoSy7HhJvxr75zNKaqqp4T6

Probably a bit off topic but what exactly does Coinlab do? I read through the website and it seems full of the vagaries you'd expect from a nebulous corporate holding company website; "Provides liquidity" - Does this mean they buy and hold tonnes of Bitcoins and USD's to resell at 'wholesale' rates to their customers or that they are an investment group that provides capital backing to existing/new services or some other entirely different 'financial' service?

Apparently BitInstant and a few ventures I've near heard of use them (Ribbon? ZipBit?) but it's not clear for what exactly. They've also got endorsement from some of the 'big-cheeses' in Bitcoin, and investment from some of those with more colorful histories in Bitcoin ventures (Roger Ver: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131574.0) - it all seems very cozy. I'm sure they are providing a useful service - it'd just be interesting to know what it actually is.
 

Caveat emptor

I'm afraid I have no idea what this: "trolls and haters which did nothing for the community" means in the context of my statement. I get the distinct impression that neither do you.