Dwolla/MtGox nightmare

[billyjoeallen]

Ok, I have to admit that this is partly my fault, partly the fault of a transfer system intolerant of error, but really this has been an extremely unpleasant weak. I sent $600 to Dwolla on May 26. The money was not cleared for xfer to MTGOX until May 31. The whole time BTC are appreciating against the dollar and I am watching my purchasing power diminish by the hour.  I called my bank. Yes the funds were sent. I called Dwolla no, they hadn't come it yet. Must be the holiday weekend or something.

FINALLY the money arrived in my Dwolla account, which I noticed immediately because I had been checking every 10 minutes like I had OCD. I forwarded the money to MtGox in about 9 femtoseconds and then....nothing.
I checked back an hour later...nothing.
I checked back a half hour after that...nothing.
I checked back 15 minutes after that...you get the idea.

Meanwhile, BTC just keeps on climbing.

I felt like that weird kid in the movie 40 year-old Virgin who just wants to buy those weird goldfish boots and he can't understand why he can't have them. 
Six hour later...nothing.
12 hours later...I read a response here on the forum from Magic Tux, so I shoot him an email, thinking this would be cleared up any minute...nope.
Bitcoin is hitting $9/BTC

I get an email the next day:
Hi,

Please send me your dwolla account ID so I can locate your funds.

Thanks,
Mark

after several more emails over the course of the day (Bitcoin climbing and climbing) We figure out that I sent HIS DWOLLA account number instead of MY MTGOX acct number. It took us another few hours to sort it out, but as yet I still don't have access to the funds. SIX days later BTC=9.61$
I've lost over 20% of my BTC buying power. 20% in a week. that would wipe out most currency traders on the Forex.  I guess paying 3% to paypal, and bitmarket.eu's inflated prices isn't such a rip-off after all.

Moral of the story: time is money. other moral: sometimes a bargain is too expensive. other moral: whatever you do, INCLUDE your MTGOX ACCOUNT NUMBER in your Dwolla XFER!!!!!!!

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[BookofNick]

I'm sorry about that. That can be frustrating. It took over 5 business days (7 actual days) for my first Dwolla xfer to go through. 

Just remember, though...prices fluctuate up and down. It's quite possible that if you hold your money at Mt. Gox and put in an order to buy at a lower price, you'll see that lower price. But if you're in it for the long run, you could also be safe and buy now at this high price. Up to you. I'm just saying, don't work yourself into a frenzy over things beyond your control.

Good luck

[Prze_koles]

Oh, well. But don't worry, I've lost about 50%. I've sold my Bitcoins for 15PLN on polish exchange bitomat.pl and 12 hours later it was  30PLN/BTC (because of many new users joined that day). Bad timing lol.

[billyjoeallen]

UPDATE: got the money spent it in less than 60 seconds. I feel like a teenager having sex. Blew my load as if it were a race.

I wonder if this will be the last time I will get to buy under $10/BTC or if I top-ticked the bubble. time will tell. Either way, it was an expensive, unpleasant experience and a lesson I won't soon forget.

Nobody said it would be easy being a pioneer. I hope to someday look back on this and laugh (to my harem of supermodels in my 2 acre hot-tub). I have nothing but respect for the guys who saw the value of BTC early and got in at a fraction of my buy.  Well played, cryptonerds. Well played.

[MagicalTux]

Moral of the story: time is money. other moral: sometimes a bargain is too expensive. other moral: whatever you do, INCLUDE your MTGOX ACCOUNT NUMBER in your Dwolla XFER!!!!!!!

+1, would allow us to spend less time on searching all those lost transactions and more time on doing bigger stuff

[FooDSt4mP]

Moral of the story: time is money. other moral: sometimes a bargain is too expensive. other moral: whatever you do, INCLUDE your MTGOX ACCOUNT NUMBER in your Dwolla XFER!!!!!!!

+1, would allow us to spend less time on searching all those lost transactions and more time on doing bigger stuff

Is there an API for the request money feature of Dwolla?  It seems like you could integrate with that and use that to link the funds to the account.

[lemonginger]

wait, you are freaking out b/c one short speculative buy didn't work? what are you going to do the first time your bitcoin holdings drop like 100% in 24 hours?

[error]

Wait, you didn't follow directions, and this is somehow MtGox's fault?

[billyjoeallen]

wait, you are freaking out b/c one short speculative buy didn't work? what are you going to do the first time your bitcoin holdings drop like 100% in 24 hours?

Your mother.

[casascius]

This is why I get good response on my bank wire offers.  Someone who wants a big BTC deal can call me by phone (801-255-2980) and, if it's early in a business day, I can have a bank wire of any size show up in my account within hours.  I deliver a signed PDF contract before delivery, and BTC immediately upon verification of receipt.  I am presently offering 500 BTC at mtgoxask via bank wire.

Yes this might sound like a plug for my BTC, but what I am really plugging is the methodology of selling the coins.  When I'm selling $15k of coins, the typical buyer is probably a businessman, not an IRC junkie, and would prefer a legally binding document over a bunch of positive feedback for lots of $10 and $20 deals done in a chat channel.  I have no problem commanding mtgoxask or more.  (If buyer wants more than I want to sell, and I happen to have mtgoxusd, I can just ask for what it would clear for on mtgox, and then immediately buy on mtgox the portion I didn't want to sell in the first place at zero net cost.)

Part of the advantage for them is a locked-in agreed-upon price (it's in my signed offer letter after all), and they don't have to worry about the BS of when their funds will arrive.

[billyjoeallen]

Wait, you didn't follow directions, and this is somehow MtGox's fault?

assigning blame wasn't really the purpose of my story.

[Horkabork]

This story is actually more a comfort to those new to Dwolla and MtGox rather than a warning. Something went wrong, due to your own error, and MagicalTux was able to fix it rather promptly.

Customer service kings such as Newegg and Amazon didn't get their good reputations based on there never being problems, but in how they dealt with them.

[billyjoeallen]

This story is actually more a comfort to those new to Dwolla and MtGox rather than a warning. Something went wrong, due to your own error, and MagicalTux was able to fix it rather promptly.

Customer service kings such as Newegg and Amazon didn't get their good reputations based on there never being problems, but in how they dealt with them.

rather promptly is a relative concept. It wasn't fixed until after the price of BTC went up another 15%.  My point is that it can be extremely expensive to make a mistake that requires fixing in the first place.

[stic.man]

what i get from this and from my own personal interactions with magicaltux is that he is willing to give you the hands-on treatment and help you through the process. It's pretty cool when the operator himself answers your email and works with you and you aren't even a particularly "large" customer (believe me I wasn't)

Also don't let this turn you off of dwolla/mtgox, now that i've been setup i've had a few more transactions go through seamlessly, the only wait on my end was my bank getting their crap together.

It probably helps to just be logged in to both mtgox and dwolla so when you click on the "add funds" on mtgox it automatically fills out everything you need in dwolla aside from your pin.  Keeps the errors to a minimum for a novice like me.

[billyjoeallen]

what i get from this and from my own personal interactions with magicaltux is that he is willing to give you the hands-on treatment and help you through the process. It's pretty cool when the operator himself answers your email and works with you and you aren't even a particularly "large" customer (believe me I wasn't)

Also don't let this turn you off of dwolla/mtgox, now that i've been setup i've had a few more transactions go through seamlessly, the only wait on my end was my bank getting their crap together.

It probably helps to just be logged in to both mtgox and dwolla so when you click on the "add funds" on mtgox it automatically fills out everything you need in dwolla aside from your pin.  Keeps the errors to a minimum for a novice like me.

I'm not turned off. My next order will be more than double the last one.