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Dwolla Developers

51 points by Ataub24 14y ago

Ataub24 14y ago
I may be bias but the konami code is pretty awesome :) Unicorns and Fireworks
shtylman 14y ago
Until I see how they are dealing with fraud instead of just shafting their merchants I won't touch anything Dwolla no matter how pretty they think their api is.
- Codhisattva 14y ago
  Have you read their new procedure and dispute policy?
  - shtylman 14y ago
    Honestly, as long as they are still passing the chargebacks on to merchants then none of these "procedures" matter. Because Dwolla keeps the user information secret you have to trust them to do all the resolution and such. In the meantime, you are still out of funds and have no recourse.
- levifig 14y ago
  Do you have any facts on that? I'd love to hear stories and accounts of anything like that happening…
  - thinkcomp 14y ago
    California Northern District Court, Case No. 3:12-cv-01082-MMC Tradehill, Inc. v. Dwolla, Inc. et al http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716058 http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716058
    - jnbiche 14y ago
      Yeah, take a real close look at that case, and read about what Dwolla did to Tradehill. Read both sides, Dwolla's and Tradehills. Believe me, Dwolla doesn't come out looking too good. Dwolla rode Tradehill and Bitcoin to viability and prosperity, then turned around and destroyed Tradehill when they started getting some negative press about Bitcoin. It's too bad, because I was an avid Dwolla user and was impressed with their approach to technology. But this is my biased opinion as a Bitcoin user (and former Dwolla user). Please go read about it yourself. Perhaps others will come to a different conclusion.
    - shtylman 14y ago
      Anyone that is thinking about using Dwolla needs to read about this incident and understand what happened. Dwolla was completely unable to understand or handle the fraud. In addition, they are in total denial that the only reason anyone cares about them is because MtGox (a bitcoin exchange) uses them and brings lots of volume to their platform. I run Bitfloor and was hit with similar fraud as Tradehill (on a much much smaller scale) and Dwolla was just as ignorant and dismissive of it. Fundamentally, they went into a business that they did not understand. I know this to be true because early on (even before any Tradehill incident) we emailed them to ask about ACH chargebacks and how they handle them. They claimed there were no chargebacks and this was everything I needed to know about their lack of understanding.
  - shtylman 14y ago
    It personally happened to me. I had a Dwolla merchant account for a while and then it was hit with fraud. Dwolla took all the funds out of my account and provided no real way for me to try and get them back. They WILL NOT work with you to recover your funds, they will just take them to cover their ass. They have no incentive to recover them since they just pass the fraud and costs onto you.
  - shtylman 14y ago
    I would also suggest you read: http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 A while back I recapped what happend between myself and Dwolla and why they are not a useful service.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  Dwolla puts a lot of attention towards fraud. Have you seen any of the recent changes on the site, articles about how Dwolla combats fraud now? If you want to have a real conversation about it- feel free to email me at Alext@dwolla.com.
  - larrys 14y ago
    "articles about how Dwolla combats fraud now?" Links? Nothing obvious I am seeing even with a search for "how Dwolla combats fraud" Additionally is there any difference (for a merchant) in how Dwolla handles chargebacks vs. a credit card company?
    - shtylman 14y ago
      No, Dwolla WILL take your money if they are hit with chargebacks. Do NOT use them if you value your payments.
  - shtylman 14y ago
    Articles do not combat fraud. Until Dwolla actually starts protecting merchants from fraud and covering the losses themselves they will remain unsafe to use.
  - prplhaz4 14y ago
    These resolution steps seem to completely support the notion that the merchant is entirely responsible for fraudulent behavior... "If a transaction was reversed, what can I do?" per http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/99253-if-a-transaction-was-reversed-what-can-i-do- http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/99253-if-a-t... What you can do: You may request a copy of the affidavit from Dwolla, who will forward it to you. If you choose, you can then take further action directly with your customer who filed the dispute with the bank. If you were intially the receiver of the payment, you may send a money request to the other party by logging into your Dwolla account. If you were intially the sender of the payment, you many send another payment to the other party by logging into your Dwolla account. What you can do: Contact the other party to work out a resolution. What you can do: Contact the Financial Institution directly to see if your account has been closed or is no longer valid. What you can do: Contact Dwolla to inquire about verifying information to ensure the account is reopened.
- codexon 14y ago
  This comment should be at the top. I don't see any reason to use Dwolla instead of Paypal if they are going to handle chargebacks the same way. As much as I hate Paypal, you will earn more money by being able to receive credit cards from different countries through Paypal than being restricted to US customers and forcing them to wait 5 days to get money to Dwolla.
swang 14y ago
FYI to Dwolla people. The developers page shows a scary red, "This is probably not the site you are looking for!" when I click on it. https://developers.dwolla.com/ https://developers.dwolla.com/ "You attempted to reach developers.dwolla.com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as *.heroku.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of developers.dwolla.com. You should not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this site."
- Ataub24 14y ago
  Fixing it... thanks for the heads up.
untog 14y ago
I want to love Dwolla, but while it requires people to add money to a balance I just can't see it fitting into a natural flow of purchasing. I see, I click buy, I go to checkout, I checkout... oh wait, not enough money in my account, OK, I'll top it up with some cash... OK, cash added, now I can go back to my original checkout page... I don't know what the answer is- clearly they want to avoid making a bank transfer for every purchase (which is understandable) but the user experience just seems kind of lacking to me. Last time I checked they did have an automatic option, but it cost users $3 a month. Eh.
- larrys 14y ago
  "I just can't see it fitting into a natural flow of purchasing." Dwolla is a benefit to merchants. Under $10 no fee over $10 .25 (see how long this lasts of course). Presumably the merchant because they are saving money will offer an incentive to the buyer to make the trouble worth it, at least in theory.
  - shtylman 14y ago
    It is not a benefit if that money isn't actually there. They provide no guarantee that the funds are yours to use since they can be hit with chargebacks and will just take the money from you. This is just as bad as paypal.
    - JVIDEL 14y ago
      Doesn't amazon payments have the same problem?
      - shtylman 14y ago
        I don't know anything about amazon payments, but anything that is dealing with the US banking system via ACH or the credit card system is exposed to chargebacks.
        JVIDEL 14y ago
nanodeath 14y ago
If any Dwolla folks are looking, this page seems to have massive character encoding problems when viewed with the Android Browser (Android 2.3). It's...rather interesting.
vwadhwani 14y ago
I wanted to love these guys, I really did. I had a b2b operation all set up and just needed some help with the payments. After going through their API I realized I could technically do everything I needed. But they insisted that each customer have their own account which didn't make sense in my circumstances. I couldn't even get them to return emails or have a phone call to discuss. Pro tip to startups out there: it never hurts to talk to potential customers.. they may be your next pivot.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  Yo! I run partnerships at Dwolla. Your email from May went to my spam- I just responded. No excuse, but sorry about that.
shtylman 14y ago
If you are a merchant, please read this before thinking about using Dwolla (or any service for that matter). Feel free to contact me about what I wrote and my personal experiences with it. http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 This is not meant to be trolling; I genuinely want people to be aware of what they are getting into and understand the risks so they can avoid the problems I (and others) have already faced.
- prplhaz4 14y ago
  Thanks for the post. I'm very interested in hearing more real world experience with Dwolla, as there doesn't seem to be much out there. Presumably, the things it would be most useful for (larger transfers - where credit card fees are high, or p2p) are the most risky. I will say, however, that the API is simple to use, and having a built in mechanism for charging a facilitator fee is great - but convincing my customers and merchants to use it will be difficult if fraud continues to be a sore spot.
FellowTraveler 14y ago
I used to have good feelings about Dwolla. Until they dumped Bitcoin. Now I have bad feelings.

51 points by Ataub24 14y ago

I may be bias but the konami code is pretty awesome :) Unicorns and Fireworks

Until I see how they are dealing with fraud instead of just shafting their merchants I won't touch anything Dwolla no matter how pretty they think their api is.

Codhisattva 14y ago
Have you read their new procedure and dispute policy?
- shtylman 14y ago
  Honestly, as long as they are still passing the chargebacks on to merchants then none of these "procedures" matter. Because Dwolla keeps the user information secret you have to trust them to do all the resolution and such. In the meantime, you are still out of funds and have no recourse.
levifig 14y ago
Do you have any facts on that? I'd love to hear stories and accounts of anything like that happening…
- thinkcomp 14y ago
  California Northern District Court, Case No. 3:12-cv-01082-MMC Tradehill, Inc. v. Dwolla, Inc. et al http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716058 http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716058
  - jnbiche 14y ago
    Yeah, take a real close look at that case, and read about what Dwolla did to Tradehill. Read both sides, Dwolla's and Tradehills. Believe me, Dwolla doesn't come out looking too good. Dwolla rode Tradehill and Bitcoin to viability and prosperity, then turned around and destroyed Tradehill when they started getting some negative press about Bitcoin. It's too bad, because I was an avid Dwolla user and was impressed with their approach to technology. But this is my biased opinion as a Bitcoin user (and former Dwolla user). Please go read about it yourself. Perhaps others will come to a different conclusion.
  - shtylman 14y ago
    Anyone that is thinking about using Dwolla needs to read about this incident and understand what happened. Dwolla was completely unable to understand or handle the fraud. In addition, they are in total denial that the only reason anyone cares about them is because MtGox (a bitcoin exchange) uses them and brings lots of volume to their platform. I run Bitfloor and was hit with similar fraud as Tradehill (on a much much smaller scale) and Dwolla was just as ignorant and dismissive of it. Fundamentally, they went into a business that they did not understand. I know this to be true because early on (even before any Tradehill incident) we emailed them to ask about ACH chargebacks and how they handle them. They claimed there were no chargebacks and this was everything I needed to know about their lack of understanding.
- shtylman 14y ago
  It personally happened to me. I had a Dwolla merchant account for a while and then it was hit with fraud. Dwolla took all the funds out of my account and provided no real way for me to try and get them back. They WILL NOT work with you to recover your funds, they will just take them to cover their ass. They have no incentive to recover them since they just pass the fraud and costs onto you.
- shtylman 14y ago
  I would also suggest you read: http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 A while back I recapped what happend between myself and Dwolla and why they are not a useful service.
Ataub24 14y ago
Dwolla puts a lot of attention towards fraud. Have you seen any of the recent changes on the site, articles about how Dwolla combats fraud now? If you want to have a real conversation about it- feel free to email me at Alext@dwolla.com.
- larrys 14y ago
  "articles about how Dwolla combats fraud now?" Links? Nothing obvious I am seeing even with a search for "how Dwolla combats fraud" Additionally is there any difference (for a merchant) in how Dwolla handles chargebacks vs. a credit card company?
  - shtylman 14y ago
    No, Dwolla WILL take your money if they are hit with chargebacks. Do NOT use them if you value your payments.
- shtylman 14y ago
  Articles do not combat fraud. Until Dwolla actually starts protecting merchants from fraud and covering the losses themselves they will remain unsafe to use.
- prplhaz4 14y ago
  These resolution steps seem to completely support the notion that the merchant is entirely responsible for fraudulent behavior... "If a transaction was reversed, what can I do?" per http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/99253-if-a-transaction-was-reversed-what-can-i-do- http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/99253-if-a-t... What you can do: You may request a copy of the affidavit from Dwolla, who will forward it to you. If you choose, you can then take further action directly with your customer who filed the dispute with the bank. If you were intially the receiver of the payment, you may send a money request to the other party by logging into your Dwolla account. If you were intially the sender of the payment, you many send another payment to the other party by logging into your Dwolla account. What you can do: Contact the other party to work out a resolution. What you can do: Contact the Financial Institution directly to see if your account has been closed or is no longer valid. What you can do: Contact Dwolla to inquire about verifying information to ensure the account is reopened.
codexon 14y ago
This comment should be at the top. I don't see any reason to use Dwolla instead of Paypal if they are going to handle chargebacks the same way. As much as I hate Paypal, you will earn more money by being able to receive credit cards from different countries through Paypal than being restricted to US customers and forcing them to wait 5 days to get money to Dwolla.

swang 14y ago

FYI to Dwolla people. The developers page shows a scary red, "This is probably not the site you are looking for!" when I click on it. https://developers.dwolla.com/ https://developers.dwolla.com/ "You attempted to reach developers.dwolla.com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as *.heroku.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of developers.dwolla.com. You should not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this site."

Ataub24 14y ago
Fixing it... thanks for the heads up.

untog 14y ago

I want to love Dwolla, but while it requires people to add money to a balance I just can't see it fitting into a natural flow of purchasing. I see, I click buy, I go to checkout, I checkout... oh wait, not enough money in my account, OK, I'll top it up with some cash... OK, cash added, now I can go back to my original checkout page... I don't know what the answer is- clearly they want to avoid making a bank transfer for every purchase (which is understandable) but the user experience just seems kind of lacking to me. Last time I checked they did have an automatic option, but it cost users $3 a month. Eh.

larrys 14y ago
"I just can't see it fitting into a natural flow of purchasing." Dwolla is a benefit to merchants. Under $10 no fee over $10 .25 (see how long this lasts of course). Presumably the merchant because they are saving money will offer an incentive to the buyer to make the trouble worth it, at least in theory.
- shtylman 14y ago
  It is not a benefit if that money isn't actually there. They provide no guarantee that the funds are yours to use since they can be hit with chargebacks and will just take the money from you. This is just as bad as paypal.
  - JVIDEL 14y ago
    Doesn't amazon payments have the same problem?
    - shtylman 14y ago
      I don't know anything about amazon payments, but anything that is dealing with the US banking system via ACH or the credit card system is exposed to chargebacks.
      - JVIDEL 14y ago

nanodeath 14y ago

If any Dwolla folks are looking, this page seems to have massive character encoding problems when viewed with the Android Browser (Android 2.3). It's...rather interesting.

vwadhwani 14y ago

I wanted to love these guys, I really did. I had a b2b operation all set up and just needed some help with the payments. After going through their API I realized I could technically do everything I needed. But they insisted that each customer have their own account which didn't make sense in my circumstances. I couldn't even get them to return emails or have a phone call to discuss. Pro tip to startups out there: it never hurts to talk to potential customers.. they may be your next pivot.

Ataub24 14y ago
Yo! I run partnerships at Dwolla. Your email from May went to my spam- I just responded. No excuse, but sorry about that.

shtylman 14y ago

If you are a merchant, please read this before thinking about using Dwolla (or any service for that matter). Feel free to contact me about what I wrote and my personal experiences with it. http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 http://www.shtylman.com/archives/319 This is not meant to be trolling; I genuinely want people to be aware of what they are getting into and understand the risks so they can avoid the problems I (and others) have already faced.

prplhaz4 14y ago
Thanks for the post. I'm very interested in hearing more real world experience with Dwolla, as there doesn't seem to be much out there. Presumably, the things it would be most useful for (larger transfers - where credit card fees are high, or p2p) are the most risky. I will say, however, that the API is simple to use, and having a built in mechanism for charging a facilitator fee is great - but convincing my customers and merchants to use it will be difficult if fraud continues to be a sore spot.

FellowTraveler 14y ago

I used to have good feelings about Dwolla. Until they dumped Bitcoin. Now I have bad feelings.