The issue on privacy. This is important to all of us who use Tradehill or thinking about using Tradehill in the future. Because of the public display of the Dwolla issue I can no longer feel secure that that Tradehill will keep my account details 100% private. They have shown that when the chips are down they will go public at the drop of a hat. I feel the majority of us wouldn't want that at all. Tradehill is being VERY childish be discussing it and I won't give me money to children.
That's a load of nonsense. We're talking about people committing fraud here. They have absolutely no right to expect their identity to be kept secret. In any event, though most people probably won't say so, they don't want the business of someone who insists they be permitted to secretly defraud them. So I don't think your business will be missed.
What I wasn't clear on. From what it looks like it looks like chargebacks happened. There are many accounts that get affected from the originating bank to Dwolla to Tradehill. The company at the end of the link is Tradehill that is where the "bad" money was supposed to go and ultimately its up to Tradehill to make sure that money is acceptable for use on their system.
I have no idea what you mean by "acceptable for use on their system" and I suspect you don't either. And you are wrong, the company on the end of the link of the fraudulent transaction was Dwolla, not TradeHill.
Dwolla is an intermediary they are not responsible for Tradehills losses only to refund the originating bank if a call for fraud or chargeback is requested.
Umm, no. An intermediary is 100% responsible for losses. It has to be this way or no contracts could ever work -- you'd just launder the contract through an intermediary who would then say "sorry, I not responsible. I just intermediary."
Here's the example in case you missed it: Jack wants a graphics card. He hires Jeff to buy one from NewEgg for him. Jeff gives $200 to NewEgg to buy a graphics card and gives it to Jack. Oops, Jack takes the graphics card and refuses to pay Jeff. Now Jeff wants the $200 back from NewEgg, since Jack didn't pay him, he's out the money and the graphics card, and he was "just an intermediary" between Jack and NewEgg.
An intermediary is only not responsible if the agreement is directly between the two parties. If, say, Jeff drove Jack to NewEgg where Jack paid with a credit card. Then, yes, Jeff would not be responsible if Jack committed fraud. But in this case, the agreement with both parties was with Dwolla. Dwolla didn't bring the two parties together so they could make a deal with each other, Dwolla made a deal with each party. Dwolla didn't watch two other people exchange money, Dwolla handed the money to TradeHill.
Again, this shows Tradehill's immaturity in financial transactions. They should be insured against fraudulent transactions if/when they happen in the future. This isnt a Dwolla issue, they are just stuck in the middle and no longer want to pay for fraudulent transactions going to Tradehill.
This is a Dwolla issue. It's Dwolla that charged back the transaction between Dwolla and TradeHill, despite no evidence that
that transaction was fraudulent.
Dwolla's whole point in existing is to make electronic payments "just like cash". That is what they are paid for. That is what they told everyone they did. That is precisely what they failed to do, surprising everyone, in this case.
