Press Release - TradeHill, Inc. Files Suit Against Dwolla, Inc.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

www.tradehillblog.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:    
TradeHill, Inc. Files Suit Against Dwolla, Inc.



San Francisco, California - March 6th 2012 - As we have mentioned in previous press releases and blog posts, we at TradeHill believe we unjustifiably lost tens of thousands of dollars when we used Dwolla as our money transmitter during June and July 2011.  We spent months attempting to contact Dwolla to resolve this dispute but were met with silence or obfuscations.  To this day, though Dwolla has claimed these losses were due to chargebacks, we have not received any kind of documentation accounting for those losses.  Regardless, Dwolla's contracts and advertisements from the time specifically and repeatedly highlighted a "no chargeback" policy.

As a result of these losses, TradeHill was unable to pay its employees and was forced to shut down exchange operations on February 13, 2012.  We did not want to do this.  We believe in Bitcoin and greatly enjoyed being involved in the community in such an integral way.  Though we had hoped to continue different business operations on bitcoin.com, we were contractually obligated to return that domain name (along with bitcoin.co and bitcoin.co.nz) once we stopped operating as an exchange.  As such, bitcoin.com is no longer owned and operated by TradeHill.

Yesterday, TradeHill filed a complaint for damages in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Dwolla and two of its officers.  In the complaint, we allege that Dwolla fraudulently reversed nearly $100,000 in supposedly "credited" transactions and unjustifiably blocked an attempt by TradeHill to transfer $70,000 of its funds from Dwolla's control.  Besides these direct damages, TradeHill is also claiming damages resulting from Dwolla's actions, including the harm to TradeHill's reputation and the loss of bitcoin.com, a very valuable domain.

We have received confirmation from other former Dwolla customers that they also lost money when Dwolla reversed supposedly completed and credited transactions without notice and in violation of Dwolla's own policies.  If you also believe you were treated in a similar fashion by Dwolla, do not hesitate to contact us.



Jered Kenna
Chief Executive Officer
TradeHill

Twitter: @jeredkenna   @tradehill
Please send all press inquiries to press@tradehill.com

ENDS

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

reserved

[evoorhees]

Good luck with this Jered! That was a terrible cost for you guys to endure just as you started up business.

[damnek]

Good luck to you guys. I hope to see Tradehill back online soon.

[rjk]

Besides these direct damages, TradeHill is also claiming damages resulting from Dwolla's actions, including the harm to TradeHill's reputation and the loss of bitcoin.com, a very valuable domain.

WTF how does this happen? Didn't have enough cash on hand to pay a $10 renewal fee to the registrar? Please enlighten me, and correct me if I am wrong.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Besides these direct damages, TradeHill is also claiming damages resulting from Dwolla's actions, including the harm to TradeHill's reputation and the loss of bitcoin.com, a very valuable domain.

WTF how does this happen? Didn't have enough cash on hand to pay a $10 renewal fee to the registrar? Please enlighten me, and correct me if I am wrong.

No, that wouldn't be forgivable. We acquired the domain and as part of the deal we were contractually obligated to keep the exchange running. When we decided to shut the exchange down we returned the domain to the original owner who I believe is going to do good things with it. It will revert over in a few days most likely.

-Jered

[stick_theman]

Really?  Ya, what happened to bitcoin.com?

I support TradeHill.

[bulanula]

Besides these direct damages, TradeHill is also claiming damages resulting from Dwolla's actions, including the harm to TradeHill's reputation and the loss of bitcoin.com, a very valuable domain.

WTF how does this happen? Didn't have enough cash on hand to pay a $10 renewal fee to the registrar? Please enlighten me, and correct me if I am wrong.

No, that wouldn't be forgivable. We acquired the domain and as part of the deal we were contractually obligated to keep the exchange running. When we decided to shut the exchange down we returned the domain to the original owner who I believe is going to do good things with it. It will revert over in a few days most likely.

-Jered

Who is this so-called "owner" ?

Satoshi maybe

[rjk]

Besides these direct damages, TradeHill is also claiming damages resulting from Dwolla's actions, including the harm to TradeHill's reputation and the loss of bitcoin.com, a very valuable domain.

WTF how does this happen? Didn't have enough cash on hand to pay a $10 renewal fee to the registrar? Please enlighten me, and correct me if I am wrong.

No, that wouldn't be forgivable. We acquired the domain and as part of the deal we were contractually obligated to keep the exchange running. When we decided to shut the exchange down we returned the domain to the original owner who I believe is going to do good things with it. It will revert over in a few days most likely.

-Jered

Thanks for the clarification. Best wishes for a speedy trial and full settlement in your favor.

[evoorhees]

Who is this so-called "owner" ?

Satoshi maybe

How funny would that be if he took all these infinite steps to remain anonymous, and nobody could figure out who it was, and he forgot about the WHOIS details on bitcoin.com...

[Steve]

Good luck Jered.  It's very clear to me that what Dwolla was providing was nothing more than a value add on top of ACH…while I've not reviewed their original terms of service, it seems they were asserting that their transactions were not reversible, yet when they had some ACHs reversed on them, they didn't follow through on that commitment.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Who is this so-called "owner" ?

Satoshi maybe

I don't believe so but he wants to remain anonymous and not only do I respect that decision I'm legally obligated to comply with it.
If it turns out he is Satoshi I'm going to be upset I didn't know at the time, I would have asked slightly different questions.

Good luck Jered.  It's very clear to me that what Dwolla was providing was nothing more than a value add on top of ACH…while I've not reviewed their original terms of service, it seems they were asserting that their transactions were not reversible, yet when they had some ACHs reversed on them, they didn't follow through on that commitment.

They were very clear about it and I agree with you. I'm going to limit my comments on the lawsuit and stick to TradeHill / Bitcoin issues from here out though. It'll keep my attorney from getting mad at me.

-Jered

[RandyFolds]

I wish you guys luck. I've got a lot of respect for the manner in which tradehill operated...hope to see you guys back in action, waving fat paychecks courtesy of the scumbags at dwolla.

[jimbobway]

You can voice your opinions at Dwolla's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/dwolla

[Nachtwind]

WIsh you all the best luck with your case.



What if the original owner of bitcoin.com was RealSolid? ^^

[moocow1452]

WIsh you all the best luck with your case.



What if the original owner of bitcoin.com was RealSolid? ^^

That would make about as much sense as the free masons squatting on it with funding from Blackwater.

And so it begins. We just cannot catch a break from cash to bitcoin services, can we?

[kiba]

I hope the lawsuit end as expeditiously as possible, or otherwise, only the lawyers will win.

[Coinabul]

Interesting!

I wonder if the startup world will notice this lawsuit.

Keep us updated!

[kiba]

As a result of these losses, TradeHill was unable to pay its employees and was forced to shut down exchange operations on February 13, 2012.  We did not want to do this.  We believe in Bitcoin and greatly enjoyed being involved in the community in such an integral way.  Though we had hoped to continue different business operations on bitcoin.com, we were contractually obligated to return that domain name (along with bitcoin.co and bitcoin.co.nz) once we stopped operating as an exchange.  As such, bitcoin.com is no longer owned and operated by TradeHill.

I am extremely surprised. As far as I know, you did not disclose to us that the bitcoin.com domain have a constructional obligation tied into it until today. Now, it simply redirect to bitcoin.org.

Who is the owner of this bitcoin.com and what are they going to do with it? Is it satoshi.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

As a result of these losses, TradeHill was unable to pay its employees and was forced to shut down exchange operations on February 13, 2012.  We did not want to do this.  We believe in Bitcoin and greatly enjoyed being involved in the community in such an integral way.  Though we had hoped to continue different business operations on bitcoin.com, we were contractually obligated to return that domain name (along with bitcoin.co and bitcoin.co.nz) once we stopped operating as an exchange.  As such, bitcoin.com is no longer owned and operated by TradeHill.

I am extremely surprised. As far as I know, you did not disclose to us that the bitcoin.com domain have a constructional obligation tied into it until today. Now, it simply redirect to bitcoin.org.

Who is the owner of this bitcoin.com and what are they going to do with it? Is it satoshi.

We wanted to keep operating and hold on to the domain but it just wasn't possible. Ideally it wouldn't have mattered that we had that obligation but things changed when we lost the funds. We weren't able to innovate and had to cut all the features / employees we had planned. I've personally blown all my savings to stay afloat.  

I'm not 100% sure what they have planned for bitcoin.com and if I find out they'll probably ask me to keep it under wraps. I believe they really want to see Bitcoin succeed though and are going to do amazing things for it.

I can't say with 100% certainty that it's not Satoshi but I don't have anything to make me believe that it is.

-Jered

Edit: I'm happy to return coins to anyone who donated to the bitcoin.com project as I won't be working on it directly unfortunately. Just shoot us an email.