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.

(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.)

http://www.meridianlink.com/creditAPI.asp

I have personally used this API, and it works.

My wife and mother in law share a first name. And a middle name that varies by one letter. (Ie. Mary Ann and Mary Beth) credit reports routinely mix them up.

When I was in school in 1996, a collector managed to get a business debt of my grandfather (who shared a name and died in 1986) attached to me.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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).

When I was 15, I was able to open a checking account by mail with no ID. Today, every bank I use lists government-issued photo ID as a requirement right on the website before you can start applying.

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.

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

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)

Not all credit cards have annual fees, and those that do usually offer benefits to the card holder that the card holder has determined are worth the cost of the fee.

Interest is only charged if you don't pay your card off each month, and I have mine set up to pay automatically.

They do allow you to spend money you don't have, but they are also isolated from your savings account. My credit card limit is substantially lower than the amount of money in my bank account. A debit card on that account would mean that card fraud actually has an impact on my savings.

In addition in most cases, using a debit card over a credit card network (as opposed to EPTPOS) subjects you to the same rules as using a credit card - you can still end up spending money you don't have, and be liable for it. So your distinction between Credit and Debit cards is actually between credit card networks and the EFTPOS network.

All of which is unrelated to your original point that I was offering a counter-opinion to. Regardless of you personal views on the merits of credit cards, my experience is that Australians use credit cards for in store purchases more often than EFTPOS, and much more frequently than your suggestion of "when they're already living beyond their means".

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.

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

But yes, and most gas stations I've ever used don't have a cash and credit price.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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.

How is that even possible?

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

'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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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

It could be time has made things better - or it could be you live in one of the better BofA fiefdoms...

I personally would prefer to never have to change banks again in my life - and since my banking has been near entirely online since the late '90s that has seemed reasonable for almost 2 decades.

In fact Citibank closed down my account type/product, and required I go through the whole rigmarole to set up a new account (vs just converting my account). Wells Fargo, started requiring fingerprints to do any action with my account. (Bad neighborhood - but depositing a check shouldn't require a fingerprint. ) And BofA did the above when I was flying between Seattle and Santa Fe every 3 weeks.

After BofA I switched to a local bank in Los Alamos (a town I've not been to in 5 years at this point) and it's working out splendidly.