 Today's episode of the Bitcoin Show is brought to you by USGoldCoins.com 1-800-HOTCOIN and MEZZIGRILLMEEZEGRILL.COM and tradehill.com and MTGOX.COM MTGOX.COM Hey everybody, welcome to the Bitcoin Show. This is episode 31. We're bringing it to you fast and furious. Sometimes we're doing two shows a day because there's so much breaking news all the time. You know, I'm Bruce Wagner. This is Manny, man, of course. My cohort cohort in Bitcoin non-crime We, you know, only only cash is used for crime and this is not about crime. This is about Bitcoin. So anyway today's a quick extra special bulletin update is about the Duala situation They don't want me to call it a crisis. I say, you know, if there's tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars It's it's a crisis to me. I mean, I don't know how many thousands of dollars it takes for you to call it a crisis But it's pretty darn important, but we'll just call it a situation. So here's the story I want to bring bring you up to date here this is You know, as you heard a few if you heard our episode, what was it 28 29 the one where we talked about Well, we had the the trade hill guys on talking about this 28. Okay about the Duala situation We actually played some phone calls one where the trade hill guys were trying to get a hold of Duala and They were just absolutely not getting through Unavailable they've been trying for two weeks. They say and no one could be I mean the customer service guy Who answered the phones just could not reach the CEO or the COO just absolutely unreachable in this teeny tiny little startup Okay, it'd be like the three of us in the room and I just can't reach Manny I don't know where he's at for two weeks now So anyway, and and many of the CEO of the company, whatever. Okay, so what that be that as it may then we showed you how like Like minutes later really like 30 minutes later about I called myself and I didn't say who I was I just called the customer service number and Asked can transactions that have been cleared be reversed if I'm a merchant can clear transactions Actually ever get reversed or charge back and they said no cleared transactions cannot be reversed And then you hear the whole conversation as it went on and on and on just go back to listen to episode 28 was it about that because You'll hear the whole conversation and let length and decide for yourself But basically they said no, they're still saying no as of episode 28 that day But no clear transactions cannot be reversed. Well, actually their policies apparently can be reversed And their banks their statements that they give to merchants after they've been published can be reversed I don't know. So here's the story. This is obviously very disconcerting for anybody who uses Duala All right, so I'm just gonna read to you I I just decided to write an open letter. This was six hours ago 926 a.m. I Wrote this letter to Duala and I said this is my open letter to Duala And I actually posted it in the forum and I sent it to to Duala as well as you know, putting it everywhere So here it is if you bring up my screen, you'll you'll probably be able to read along like a little karaoke This is my open letter to Duala. I said this I Said I again employ you know I again implore your CEO and COO to come on my show and explain their side of things Several of their largest customers are all claiming the same things hiding under a rock will only make things worse much worse Life always works that way I implore them to both come on to my show and explain their side of things like it or not The Bitcoin world will make or break your business the Bitcoin community makes up so such a large percentage of your business We have no animosity toward Duala as you can see I've made many mentions and even Promotional videos on YouTube of how to use Duala The only animosity anyone has is when you hide and avoid talking Come out with the whole truth publicly apologize if and where appropriate and the world will be in love with Duala again or Hide out speak only through attorneys and I predict a very very short life for Duala Life has much bias towards honesty transparency and humility And that's my letter my open letter to Duala. Well, as I said besides posting it I actually went ahead and sent it directly to them and I got a reply Okay, so this was at 926 a.m. Now. I flip over to to my reply to their reply to me And this comes from Duala support two minutes later late 926 928. Yep two minutes later this morning And so Duala replies and says Bruce. Thank you for your email Duala does not for any reason release transaction information on any user account in a public forum or to reporters I think you'll find any information regarding the company's stance here with a link to a blog post dated June 2011 okay, which was written by the CI CEO if you have any specific Duala questions I can assist you don't hesitate to ask okay So that's my that was the reply So of course I responded again, and I said I'm certainly not asking for any information about any specific account holders We're asking for a public statement addressing broad allegations from a large number of your customers No one customer Specifically those blog posts from three weeks ago say nothing about the current situation Your opinion about Bitcoin, I'm referring to the CEO Addressing him your opinion about Bitcoin is only barely mildly amusing But it certainly does not address the very serious issues at hand You really need to come out with a response regarding the claims of malfeasance by many of your largest customers Simply attempting to rewrite history and then hide is not the winning strategy here Trust me, and I am again. I implore your you to address the Bitcoin community with the respect they deserve as The vast majority of your customers Bitcoin users are not just morons buying truckloads of rotting bananas as your blog posts like to clearly imply if you read his blog post you'll see what I'm talking about and Answer their concerns about number one stating all along that cleared transactions are irreversible To reversing old posted and cleared transactions on old statements and telling no one Three not communicating the fact that you are doing or have done that to the affected merchants For being unreachable to your largest customers for weeks at a time very apparently avoiding all of their calls Five changing the online FAQ support pages, etc. Only after all of this has come to light Addressing these five questions directly to the Bitcoin community your customers would go a very long way Toward saving your company's reputation I highly recommend you allow me at least a telephone interview to hear you out on these five basic questions The world wants to know about Dwallis general operating policies. Okay, so that's what I sent Back that was at 10 14 a.m. And I had a chance to reply. Okay, so then I got and by the way You know some of the some of these points. I mean if you if you read the actual blog posts he only posts this This information on the silicon prairie news comm a little Open blog where he this is from what weeks ago three four weeks ago And he was a guest post. Yeah as a guest post right on this blog for the local area And basically he's like, you know just say I don't know he didn't say much at all really I mean he just is explaining what Bitcoin is and kind of I mean to me the tone of it was really mocking Bitcoin that you know You know equating it to buying a truckload of bananas that are just gonna rot I mean people can buy whatever they want blah blah blah, but It sounds like the tone to me is that he's just mocking Bitcoin He's mocking Bitcoin buyers in the Bitcoin community when meanwhile, it's what what is it? Is it 90% of their business? You know, it's it's interesting that his success is actually coming from those that he mocks All right, whatever be that as it may then I Received another reply to that. Okay, so this is 1138 a.m. Central time. There's three hours ago So I got this Bruce. Thank you for your continued communication. Is it too small? Can you read that? Let me make it bigger there? How's that? Okay, so now maybe you can read it Bruce, thank you for your continued communication. It appears. There's a great deal of misunderstanding as The processes in place have always been there and the rules that drive them through financial institutions have as well Long-term our hope is we can make everything much easier to understand and we don't under and we don't underestimate our role in that okay So in response to question one and let me just go back up here to question one is Stating all along the clear transactions are irreversible. This is what he answers to that Duala hot and by the way, who's writing this? Let me go down here Well, it's not really signed, but I can only assume this is the CEO or the COO. Somebody Is responding to this just to all the support. All right So response to question one Duala has always had a dispute process and a bank failure process Both of these processes have been in place since we launched in Iowa in 2009 A Duala user can cannot simply cancel a transaction within the Duala software in a case where a transaction is reversed It is due to an individual filing a reject directly with the financial institution attached to their Duala account To clarify there is a difference between credit debit card charge backs versus disputes and returns Duala does not have a credit card or debit card charge backs as these Platforms are not used by our system instead Duala works with financial institutions and operates within the same set of rules as others in this field We follow those guidelines very closely So, you know now I'm going to go back and go what was the question again Oh, yeah, the question was stating all along the clear transactions are irreversible. This sounds like a whole lot of double-speak to me I mean, I have to really interject here and say he didn't answer the question at all He's saying there's there's always been a dispute process and we follow banking guidelines and blah blah blah blah We don't take credit. We're not credit cards. Therefore. It's not called a charge back Well, anyway, that is a bunch of double-speak in my opinion when you're asked clearly and I we have it on tape in episode 28 You listen we called Duala and said can cleared transactions be reversed the answer was no They go on later than you know I think they recognize my voice because as I said after I hung up with him within three minutes I got a reply from The the customer service person who he said he had spoken to the COO so suddenly the CEO is immediately available within three minutes of my phone call and replied and Now, you know, they're saying that Really nothing. They're absolutely saying nothing. It sounds like a politician double-speak. They're talking about oh banking industry and la la la Financial institutions we follow guidelines They don't say anything about the fact that they were saying on their site And they were saying to anyone who asked and I had asked I mean the day that I opened my account the next day They called me and that was one of the things I said can as a merchant can transactions be reversed and they said no And and they said the same thing the other you know, what was that was that yesterday the day before day before yesterday I mean, they said the same thing today's Wednesday. I know time flies. That's crazy So anyway up until two days ago. They're still saying the same thing No, if you ask them transactions that have cleared cannot be reversed. So they didn't answer the question. All right So let's move on Just a bunch of gobbledygook to not answer a question is not acceptable number two Reversing old posted and cleared transactions on old statements and telling no one. I mean, this is really really bad I mean serious allegation. Shall we say? His answer the transactions themselves all have a history Okay, whatever we I guess we know that what we are learning is that people would like to see them are organized differently and that is something we take very seriously I Don't even know what that means let what the columns should be sorted in a different way Or they should rearrange the fonts and the colors and the layout of the statement this I mean, or are they meaning that they should actually go back and alter the actual numbers of historic transactions? This doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, keep one. We've also been getting direct feedback from users as To how they'd like to see them reflected this two-way conversation is very useful to making merchants lives easier in the long term Okay, I sure hope so because you know reversing $40,000 of their transactions in a month is not making their life easier After they have been told that those cannot be reversed and then suddenly they are reversed without being notified. Okay What we've moved towards is a more automated solution which from recent feedback We believe will make my life much easier especially when dealing with financial institutions It will make whose life easier. What the heck you said making life easier twice and People want to have the information organized differently. I have to say I don't think that they're really asking for it to be organized differently I think they're asking for it to be accurate and not changing not fluid when we're talking about historical Transactions at least verbose so they can know what's going on. Yeah, I mean the thing is like When when you're told they can't be reversed and then you're told that when you get an email that then it's absolutely Definitely positively cleared and then you go back and look at previous statements and compare them to another copy of the That same statement and the numbers have changed, you know, the guys at trade hill One of the guys at trade hill was saying he actually saw the numbers change before his very eyes He was looking at an HTML version of the thing and the numbers were changing right before his very eyes You know, it's oh my god. You can't just go back and rewrite history. So Basically question number two let's go back up here because I forgot what question number two was because it certainly had nothing to do with What he said reversing old posted and cleared transactions on old statements and telling no one Yeah, he basically didn't say anything about that People would like their transactions their statements organized differently does not answer the question Completely avoids the question. All right now question number three Not communicating the fact that you're doing that or have done that to affected merchants So it's kind of like reiterating the fact that not only are they saying you went back and changed historical statements But you didn't even bother to tell anybody it like like almost like you were doing it and and hoping no one would notice Not cool. Okay, so their answer to that is while we cannot post merchant information or communication history publicly, of course not We do have full records of communication for these types of issues with any and all merchants We're happy to support anyone and everyone inside the customer service channels Okay, what does that mean it's supposed to say? Oh that means that they can prove that they did communicate these transactions to Mt. Gox trade Hill all these sites that have been Have been affected by this, you know, the sites are saying that they have been affected by this To one extent or another many of the exchange sites have now come forward and said wow upon Taking a much closer look. You're right. This has been happening Mt. Gox says entire blocks of transactions have disappeared You know and you know a lot of exchanges have had this or they're reporting basically the same stuff and obviously They're saying that they this has not been communicated to them because if it had been communicated to them They wouldn't all be surprised and coming forward right now. I mean that that makes no sense So if you can prove that you did communicate this to the merchants You know before during or after then you really need to do that because the merchants are saying, you know This these are representing, you know the vast majority of your customers are saying the opposite. It just doesn't look good All right moving on so question number four. I think we're on. Let's see here question for is is What here being unreachable to your target cost to your sorry being unreachable to your largest customers for weeks at a time Very apparently avoiding all of their calls I mean, you know trade Hill said that they've been trying for two weeks to get someone to return their call or to get someone to Take their call I'm inclined to believe them especially when we did call they called together with me on the line listening we recorded it and played it in episode 28 and Basically, it was your typical You know gatekeeper receptionist who is saying no no sorry unavailable all they can do is assure you that I will take another message You know and I don't know what pitch it in the waste basket I don't know what but they were obviously unreachable and then like I said when I called 30 minutes later Then I got an email when I had not even identified myself So and then the email said that they had spoken to the CEO So they're unreachable when they want to be unreachable. It's very very obvious to me. I guess I was there damage control Yeah, yeah damage control mode, but you know what it's not honest I mean if you're you at least communicate something communicate. There is an issue. We're aware of it We're working on it. Whatever you don't just say. Oh, he's in a meeting for two weeks straight You know, what is this? What kind of meeting is two weeks straight without any communication? That is not cool Not cool. All right, so The answer is to that question number four about avoiding their calls is well I can't speak for everyone if you have any questions or anyone else does we're very easy to reach And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about processes via email I cannot however comment on any other user accounts. We were all entitled to our privacy. Okay, basically It's just nonsense. They're not gonna respond to the fact that Everyone's saying that they're avoiding them They're You know except me when they recognize my voice then I get a reply that he spoke to the CEO or COO right away But when trade hill or mount gox, which represents Whatever it is 80 90% of their business is trying to reach them for weeks at a time. Oh, no response All right, the unavailable in a meeting. All right number five is Charging the online or changing sorry changing their online pages changing your online FAQ support pages, etc Only after this has come to light and we showed that we showed that on the screen in episode 28 Many use the Google cache to show the webpage to prove that they actually did change it on the day of that show I should probably take it some screenshots of that. Right. Yeah. Well, we got it on the video We got that we got it in the episode 28. I did he's look at episode 28. It's all right there You can see it in a video screenshot where we brought up their page and there was nothing referencing chargebacks Everyone, you know, I was told personally that they that clear transactions could not be reversed way back when I opened my account and that same day and It didn't it said basically it said the same thing on their website their support pages and didn't even reference chargebacks Until that day two days ago. All right, so Where are we question five? Oh, yeah changing the FAQ On the fly only after this is all come to light They're too busy to take phone calls from people who have lost Tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of of dollars during, you know, due to their incompetence and not telling anybody about it allegedly yet they have time to quickly retroactively Alter and not only alter the numbers on the past statements But alter the FAQs and support pages as if that has always been their terms of services always been their policy Change it on the spot after it's all come to light, right? so They say the entire help section was just moved to another software service Assistly a few weeks ago, you know, I read this and I told that I said well, that's always the excuses in it Well, we just moved to another platform. That's why The fact is it's not a few weeks ago It was two days ago that we saw it change before our very eyes I mean, it wasn't there then it was two days ago. You could see That's when that these these lines appeared suddenly out of nowhere about Chargebacks and transactions can be reversed and that there is a policy and a procedure for that Although we've never seen the policy to my knowledge. Nobody's ever been notified and hat that there is some sort of a policy going on to Deal with these chargeback situations. They say can they continue? This has helped a great deal streamline the communication process with our users If there's any specific part I could provide clarification on please let me know This is like gobbledygook. This is just like a form letter nonsense. It sounds like a politician or a lawyer wrote it Or a marketing person, but they're not answered. They're obviously avoiding every question. They go on Please keep in mind any emails coming in here will receive attention and while I can't Comment on other users or accounts. I'd be happy to assist you with any questions about processes Yeah, except that you're avoiding all of the questions about processes. It's absolutely gobbledygook Double-speak our design. That's my comment our desire and goal is to build automated processes which streamline the education about how working with Dwarla and financial institutions work as Our service continues to grow As well as our use as user systems, we want to make these things as clear as possible Thank you for your time and consideration. Have a great afternoon. Okay, so anyway, that's That's the end of our conversation so far The thing is that the questions still remain the questions have not been answered What the world wants to know is What are you doing? You know, what are you doing here? Why are you avoiding these questions? Number one stating all along that clear transactions are irreversible number two Bring that up on my screen. Will you number one stating all along that clear transactions are irreversible Number two reversing old posted and clear transactions on old statements and telling no one number three Communicating that that the fact not communicating that fact that you're doing that to the affected merchants And number four being unreachable to your customers for weeks at a time avoiding their calls number five changing the online FAQ support pages terms of service things like that only after all of this has come to light. Okay, so these are the questions and That you know that the audience and your customers and the Bitcoin community which you know I don't care what you think about Bitcoin. You can think Bitcoin is Absolute morons who are buying truckloads of bananas that are just gonna rot in the shipping yard If that's what you think that's what you think. No, we don't care We really don't care what you think the fact is that your business is reliant on Bitcoin Because the vast majority of your business is the Bitcoin community And if you show that much disrespect and disregard for your customers, it's gonna come back to bite you I mean, it's just that's the way it is. I don't care what I mean You should either ban them from being customers But if you're gonna take their money, you're gonna do business with them Then you you better treat them with respect and that's not treating them with respect Your disdain is a parent. All you have to do is read his blog post and you can see where he's coming from Okay It's it's just absolutely uncool. These five questions have obviously been completely Avoided you're avoiding the questions. You're not taking phone calls. You're not doing interviews You're hiding under the rug scared little cat and that is not cool Okay, that's not the solution. Like I said in my open letter, you know This is really this can I can totally see this making or breaking Bitcoin. I'm not Bitcoin. Sorry, Duala as I said in my open letter the This is not the solution. You can't just hide under the rug like a you know, like a scared cat You really have to face the situation. It's not appropriate. It's not cool. Your customers are not gonna be around and You know, this will make or break Duala I this is my prediction. Anyway, I believe it You know, Duala everybody loves Duala. They love the technology They love the ability to to use it to get you know to get their stuff in and out of the exchange sites and merchants and so on but if Duala shows so much disdain for their customers and if any of these allegations are true, then You know, that's not I mean I can understand if you were if you're taken off guard Okay, and the software broke the systems broke down. You weren't anticipating this kind of fraud whatever it is But you don't hide it. You don't lie about it You definitely don't go back and play the shredder game and try and change past Transactions and if you do do that, you certainly don't do that without telling anybody That's just like a game a child would play. I really like a six-year-old would probably know better if they're raised Right, it's just not appropriate and I don't know I mean this is just these are just a lead allegations What I what I read obviously I had the text on the screen So the words that I was showing on the screen were their actual letters. The rest were my own comments and interjections, but In my opinion if these allegations are true, it's very very very bad. It does not look good for Duala I have Repeatedly asked for them for a statement that text is the only statement that I could get and it obviously was avoiding the questions It was avoiding all the questions. So, you know, it just doesn't look good. Just doesn't look good all right, so let me take a break really quick because we have to thank our sponsors and We we love to thank our sponsors because without them we wouldn't be here so what I want you to do is Get on your computer type in these websites send off an email and thank them for supporting the Bitcoin show and only one TV Because we love being here. We love bringing you all the latest stuff, you know good batter and different You know, we're here for you and we love you guys. We love Bitcoin We love you the Bitcoin community and our viewers and we love our sponsors because without them we wouldn't be here So us gold coins calm 1-800 hot coin is Andy Gauss He's the host of the real world of money as I you guys know this by heart You could recite it Andy Gauss is the the monetary expert of the world in my opinion He knows more about money than than anyone. I know if I had any questions about money monetary systems He's the guy but not only that he owns a business. He's absolutely trustworthy. I mean no matter what happens You know Proven time again in my own experience as a customer myself He's very very honest and has the highest integrity and extremely knowledgeable and fair So his name is Andy Gauss and his company is called us gold coins calm This is not one of these fly-by-night, you know cash for gold nonsense things nothing like that He sells rare coins gold us gold and silver coins as investments. He's an expert He's not trying to buy your your gold, you know jewelry for cheap. It's nothing like that He's actually selling these things as an investment. He's an expert and he asked actually, you know You listen to his radio show which by the way the real world of money is coming to only one TV every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Soon and he talks about everything You know your home might be in foreclosure or this or that and he can give you advice About how to actually stop the foreclosure things like that and he is the coolest guy You can literally call him if you're in the US 1-800 hot coin is the number Or just go to us gold coins with an s.com us gold coins calm and send him an email But you can reach him on the phone and he'll answer your questions I had I have a friend in Florida that was in that situation and I referred him He called up and he had he said he talked to him for like 45 minutes and gave him the best advice ever and saved his home I mean, this is the kind of guy this is he's not just there to sell you sell you the you know US gold coins, you know the US gold and silver rare coins That's his business, but he's a really really cool accessible down-to-earth guy. I totally vouch for him We love Andy gals us gold coins calm, okay, and Mezi grill see I can go on and on about these people because I love them These are my friends and these are my people and they're your people too by extension. All right, messy grill Oh my gosh, what can I say messy grill? You know me zee grill calm check out their menu just look at the pictures of the food and look at the pictures of The place it's just a beautiful place I mean, it's not five-star dining sit-down service It's it's like kind of like a Chipotle, but much more upscale clean and really nice atmosphere No, they don't have burritos. It's not Mexican. No, it's not Chipotle but what it is is Mediterranean food which is super super healthy as you if you read about that stuff You'll know they're the healthiest people in the world because of the types of food that they eat It's delicious wholesome organic locally grown as much as possible and all that Super healthy. They now serve breakfast in addition to lunch and dinner and they are the world's first brick-and-mortar Restaurant to accept Bitcoin. So that's their claim to fame until now recently I think we broke the news yesterday They now not only do they accept Bitcoin for breakfast lunch and dinner, but they also are an exchange site So they're the world's first retail store or you might call it, you know Call a brick-and-mortar outlet if you don't want to call it a store, whatever It's a restaurant, but you can actually go in there and buy Bitcoins for cash or sell bitcoins for cash Say you've got so many bitcoins and you want to sell, you know $500 worth you can literally go in there with your bitcoins on your smartphone or your laptop or whatever And you can give them bitcoins and they'll give you cash I mean, that's so cool my lunch. Yeah, absolutely now and then buy some bitcoins, right? That's it. There you go. You can go there and now they're they're deal right now As they've stated it is a $500 per day $500 worth of Bitcoin transactions per person per day and the fee is 6% in either direction and What's the other thing last price? Yes, that's right The rate is Mt. Gox last price on either direction. So it's the same both ways Fees 6% $500 limit per day and that's fair Don't email them and ask them to negotiate the rates because they don't have time for that. It's a restaurant Okay, give a break. The fees are non negotiable the rates non negotiable and the limit is not negotiable But it's super convenient so you can go there if you need more than $500 then go there for lunch two days in a row You can just go there every day get $500 every day if you want But that's the deal. They're the world's first brick-and-mortar retail outlet that buys and sells Bitcoin as well as accepts Bitcoin so messy grill there are Bitcoin heroes and Trade Hill calm. Oh my god trade hill, you know our buddies They're they're they're probably our most frequent guests on the show because these guys are based in Chile But they're like American American guys and there's they have a team of experts These guys are really really knowledgeable and they have created them the most amazing Bitcoin exchange site where you can actually buy and sell bitcoins online Obviously with buying it through an online site. You got to get your money to them So you have to use something like a bank wire transfer to them or a Duala or some some sort of method to get the money to them and back They're not accepting wallah at the moment. They're not accepting wallah, right? Okay, yeah, so they're letting you withdraw from Duala, but they're not accepting input from Duala Can't blame them with the situation as per the topic of today's show, but You know as far as online exchange sites go they have lots of features and lots of benefits more ways to get Instant by instant sell easy convenient They have a US dollar exchange and they also have a completely separate Euro exchange which the other sites to my knowledge don't have you in other words if you have euros anywhere in Europe and you have euros and Or actually anywhere in the world if you have euros You can send them to trade hill and just buy and sell bitcoins in the euro market without having to pay those Expensive exchange fees that the banks charge to convert them into dollars put them into the dollar market buy and sell and then convert them back Into euros and stuff. It's that's nonsense. So they have an actual What would you call it like an organic? Euro market, right? It's actually native native euro market. So you don't have to do any conversions to and from the euro all right, thank you trade hill calm and Mount gox calm we call it mount gox. Some people call it MT gox, but it's m t g o x calm Mount gox has also Euros great pretty great written pounds Australian dollars Canadian dollars coming soon. They take euros and those I mean they only have a US dollar market But they can accept euros British pounds Australian dollars and Canadian dollars And then of course the bank converts them into US dollars for the actual market, but at least they can accept it So there's that and also they have a special deal going on Basically their fees are on sale zero point three percent now through August 9th, which is really cool right up till 10 days before the Bitcoin World Conference or Conference and World Expo, which is August 19th to 21st Anyway, by the way, they're gonna be presenting some really cool stuff I think everybody is presenting some really cool new products and technologies hardware software all kinds of gadgets and gizmos At the Bitcoin Conference and World Expo in New York City hosted right here at only one TV August 19th 20 and 21 Anyway mount gox calm very innovative They're here to stay the very resilient no matter what happens they're in it for the long run and we give them a lot of kudos for that and Obviously send them an email. Thank them for supporting only one TV in the Bitcoin show So what do we make of this whole dualist situation? What do you guys in the chat room think about it? I? Mean it's certainly they should just never be in Cuma, Nicaragua, you know that they have to At least state what they're doing or what's happened or we discovered this discrepancy or something like that Because when you're dealing with money and your money transmittal business like they are It's very important for the confidence of the customers and you know everybody that's using them Like you said it could possibly make or break them, but Regarding to the blog post I'm not sure if he was like disdain for the Bitcoin community. I think he just wants to distance himself Because he's not sure of the legality But again, you know there should be some communication Mm-hmm Well, I mean there's I don't he doesn't say anything about the legality I mean that there's Bitcoin is completely legal as far as anybody knows in the United States and Everywhere as far as we know the Bitcoin itself. There's absolutely no precedent for it to be illegal at this point I mean nobody can predict what future laws there are But he might just think that it's crazy like the guy from Wired Magazine who just said it's a crazy wacky currency You know, he doesn't understand it. Well, let's face it When you look at it eBay doesn't have like the warmest feelings for Craigslist Why do you suppose that is? Because eBay's biggest competitor in the world is not only is Craigslist, but eBay is a multi You know billion-dollar corporation. It's a you know an empire really. That's not just one exchange site They own many things and their biggest competitor in the world is free eBay charges exorbitant rates that are just unbelievable and Ridiculous and it's just to me. It's absolutely a rip-off in my opinion I mean, it's obviously people agree to pay it then then it's not a rip-off But the thing is that it's their exorbitant rates that I'm not willing to pay I'll just leave it like that Craigslist is free and that's their biggest competitor So I see it like that if you're PayPal or if you're You know if your PayPal or your Dweller or something like that and you're charging fees now Dweller's fees are minimal They're 25 cents PayPal's are exorbitant compared to that, but when your biggest competitor is Bitcoin is free You know, there's just no comparison They they can I you know, I can imagine that they're concerned too because Bitcoin could easily replace PayPal or Dweller in the future and that's kind of scary when you're imagine if if PayPal's biggest Let's see if PayPal's biggest Competition or no eBay if eBay's biggest customer if eBay's biggest customer was Craigslist It'd be kind of like that like they would be very upset if Dweller's massive Proportion of their market is actually Bitcoin, you know the technology of Bitcoin. That's got to be very disconcerting It's got to be very upsetting to them because dependent on that economy They're dependent on Bitcoin Which is just kind of like the shoe that could just step on them like an ant Because Bitcoin once it gets once the systems are in place Bitcoin won't need Dweller Let's face it Bitcoin won't need Dweller once everybody has Bitcoin then everybody's an exchange or Bitcoin will not need Dweller Won't need PayPal won't need bank wires won't need any of that So it's got to be very upsetting if they think it through, you know, how they're gonna compete with something that's about to replace them There's that and I understand that so, you know, he's not gonna say he's in love with Bitcoin or anything like that Certainly not on the other hand It's just you just don't do this you can't these are not business practices that are acceptable hiding behind a phone receptionist and if it's true, I mean, I have to say these are allegations We've given them every opportunity every opportunity to Respond to these allegations, but they basically don't admit or deny it They just talk a whole bunch of double-speak blah blah blah blah blah Banking regulations blah blah blah blah making things easier blah blah blah blah nothing It's just a whole bunch of not double-speak nothingness. They didn't answer any of the questions at all that I posed So it's just a bunch of nonsense to me. So I mean once again, it just keeps adding to the questions You know, somebody said we read in one of the forums that someone had asked them About asked them directly about the trade hill situation and they said they actually said that someone at Duala had said that trade hill was inappropriately approving transactions and selling products to people who Who are transactions that had not cleared yet and you know, oh my gosh once again, it's just an allegation We don't know but if that's true, that's even worse like that particular blogger said well that just adds libel and slander to their list of Possible complaints if that's true But once again, I mean, how do we know what's true if they're not willing to actually Stand up and answer these questions and no nobody's asking for any specific account information or private things like that No, we just want to know in a broad sense the whole Duala user base The whole your whole customer base wants to know in a broader sense What's really going on? Why are so many people claiming that this? This is you know that these are things are happening in there. They they seem to collaborate. I mean corroborate each other's stories You know, it's really a fiasco and they need to actually address it I don't they don't have to appear on my show or anything like that But they don't have to public statement or blog post exactly they need to at least do a press release and Really answer these points straight on because otherwise I really see it as the death of Duala I mean, I that's my prediction because if they if Duala were to lose all credibility and lose 90% of its customers I don't see a small startup like that recovering It's certainly possible But I do hope that you know they make some effort to give some sort of communication even if they believe or They're so dead set on the mindset, you know that they didn't do anything wrong, you know I at least come out and support your claim that nothing wrong was done You know the most important part is to have communication in there. So, you know, the public knows what's going on, right? I mean, you know Somebody in the chat room is saying, you know multiple exchanges have declared the problems. That's exactly right. That's what I've been saying It's not just one. I mean if you were only hearing the story from one person You know, it's not just trade hill, you know, now we hear that market Mac guys has said, you know, they have more than 20,000 transactions with Duala and that You know, he hasn't actually told us an amount or anything But he has said blocks of transactions in the past have just gone missing That's the same thing trade hills saying and a lot of other exchanges are saying to some extent or another You know, some of them have said that they have much more Security in place and that they're doing a lot more manual, you know If you're a small exchange if you're a brand new exchange and you only have seven bitcoins in your daily volume Okay, well Anybody can do that. I can go and visit the person and make sure that that's a real account but When you're talking about millions of dollars a week of transactions It's a whole nother story You'd a whole completely different scale and nobody can personally call up each person and verify that they're a US citizen And they they are who they say they are and stuff like that The the other thing is I see someone was saying oh It was someone saying that the Duala horse is dead and Bruce keeps beating it Well, you know, it's I don't know if it was if it was a half a million dollars over your money You might not be saying that, you know, and who knows maybe it is who knows who knows Maybe you have money in these exchange sites and maybe it isn't there anymore because of this We don't know I mean they're gonna I'm sure they're auditing it and you know Hopefully everyone will be doing the right thing and the truth will come out But look if they're I don't care if they're Eastern European hackers that have somehow gotten compromised US Bank accounts whatever whatever and they put the money in they sent it through Duala to an exchange site They bought the bitcoins took the bitcoins out reverse the transaction. They figured out how to play the game but here's the thing if people were robbed whether it was 30,000 or five hundred thousand dollars worth if people were robbed somebody was robbed somebody has to make up that difference So, you know who's out? Is it the bank the original bank? Is it Duala or is it the exchange site? We know it's not the crook because if he already got the bitcoins, they're gone, you know now mark I'm not got said that I think he's had like No loss or very minimal loss because He's actually frozen the withdrawals on those accounts. He was able to track the the accounts that where this had happened And he froze withdrawals, you know, okay, so you froze withdrawals and now you got a whole nother investigation process to go through I don't I do not envy his job at all But but what do you think, you know tell us in the chat room if you're watching this on tape Send us an email to Bitcoin at only one TV comm by the way, that's our new feedback email address So whenever you're watching the Bitcoin show and you have a comment If it's especially if it's not live if it's live just go into the click the live button on only one TV Com and put it in the chat room But if it's not live just email us at Bitcoin at only one TV comm and give us your feedback your comments We love to hear from you and if it's really juicy. We'll read it on the air And answer your questions, but what do you think are we are we beating a dead horse here? Or is this is this really justify further discussion? I think we need to put it out there because you know Duala is not putting anything out public Publicly so we should do our job as reporters and you know report what we're seeing and what we're reading and you know Try to get some communication out there, but you know I'm just really waiting to see what they have to say on it all right It's certainly not cool in any sense of the word to you know Be silent when things like this are happening or not even notifying one of your larger merchants. So I Don't know why they would do that You know they could have prevented this whole thing just from sending quick email or spending five minutes on the phone with Jared at Trade Hill or or Adam at trade Hill, you know They could have certainly prevented this and they had the power to do so so I don't know why they chose not to use that power Okay, Johnny in the chat room is saying if the exchanges don't accept Duala Duala fails I don't think the community has to get all excited about it. Okay. Well, you know from your standpoint Maybe not maybe you haven't even used Duala Maybe you don't even have a Duala account if you might have money in a Duala account You might have used Duala and it worked just fine But here's the thing if the exchanges are losing Thousands or tens of thousands or God knows a hundreds of thousands of dollars that affects you I don't care what you you may not realize it, but if the exchanges are losing lots of money like that Guess what that's your money if you have any money in the exchanges. That's your money I mean, you know trade Hill doesn't lose forty thousand dollars and then like whose money do you think that is? That's the depositors money. That's not cool. It's absolutely. It actually brings instability to the entire Bitcoin infrastructure because you know Duala could These types of problems put it this way these types of problems could have far-reaching Implications on all the exchanges that have accepted Duala and have been burned So it might not affect you directly or you think it doesn't but it really does affect the whole infrastructure Steven says Duala is based on a CH technology invented in 1972. They were selling something. They couldn't actually deliver Because of the inherent in Limitations of a CH of course. Yeah, and you know, I saw this when when I first understood what Duala was I was like, they're using a CH. I mean, how how are they doing that? I thought they must have some new secret technology some secret magic recipe that actually Allows them to do a CH without any chargeback liability because I've never heard of a CH without at least a 60-day chargeback liability anywhere and they They're you know, how can they possibly do that and guarantee that clear transactions won't get It might have been also it might have been on their part not communicating clearly enough that it specifically you know has some provisions in place for refunding of transactions or that it has Anything at all or even you know training their their employees to know what the proper procedures are and getting that information out to everybody Because you know, maybe they were just hoping there wouldn't be that much fraud on there And they could just eat the cost and then maybe they realized like they're bargained way too much and here's the You know from a consumer's perspective that you know, okay, whatever it is what it is I mean, you haven't lost any money directly Jessica wants to know what are people going to use instead of Duala And that's a really key thing Duala. I mean, you know, it's kind of like I Guess it's kind of like being an Indian giver when something is so great and everybody quickly jumps on it And then all of a sudden there's a failure of trust about it If people if the whole Bitcoin community loses trust in Duala, what are people going to use instead of Duala? I mean, we're going to go back to bank wires You know Hopefully something else will replace it but not if it's based on a CH They're all going to have the same kind of problems or else they're going to charge exorbitant fees and we're gonna end up with PayPal And charge backs pay, you know exorbitant fees and charge backs, which is what we have with credit cards and PayPal Johnny says Mezzy Grill, what are people gonna use instead of Duala? Mezzy Grill. Well, $500 a day. There you go Maybe Pete friends and faith, you know Facebook There's actually a page on Facebook called I Sell Bitcoin for cash or something like that if you go to Facebook and type in sell Bitcoin for cash You'll find it and I've seen people are liking that page and then looking among their personal friends and family and friends of friends and family of friends and so on but the personal Facebook network and Finding people who buy and sell Bitcoin and that's a way to do it right there because if you buy Bitcoin from people, you know, then you've got your local I mean you've got what kind of web of trust is that you can buy it from your sister or your sister's boyfriend or your You know, whatever your brother's roommate Whatever the case may be People are still in what is this they're saying people are still denial What else are they saying they lied The chat room is saying they lied Anything else, let's see people use checks wire. I and G direct pop money And ex CHB No, no, no, I'm in the chat room. I'm strong way back. I'm like behind. I guess Duala the modern-day Apaches We have like three minutes. Yeah, well seven eight six. Yeah Let's see then the fourth one fails was a good while it works the same way Where are you gonna have me if you keep doing it? Oh the half a million. Oh, yeah, Scott wants to know Bruce Where are you getting that half a million dollar figure you keep coming up with? Well, okay? It's just an if we don't know but here's where I'm getting that according to trade Hill about 2.5 percent of their June transactions were actually Subsequently secretly reversed and disappeared so 2.5 percent of their money just disappeared and evaporated So if you take the volume that mount gox did, you know mount gox hasn't come out with all these Figures publicly, but if you take the amount of volume that mount gox did with Duala, which he Mark did post publicly in a forum, and you just reverse engineer that percentage. We're saying if we don't know but hypothetically if mount gox lost a similar percentage 2.5 percent of Their transactions for that same period that four to six week period then that could amount to close to five hundred thousand dollars That's serious serious money and the question is who is gonna pay it? You know does does Duala have that much this does Duala have that much an investment capital that they can just cover, you know $550,000 or whatever it is you make up any number you want. I don't care if it's five thousand or five hundred and fifty thousand Whatever that X number is does Duala have that much and their coffers that they can just cover that I mean does trade Hill does mount gox somebody has to absorb it Whatever profit they're making that's the thing somebody has to absorb that loss and the question is Who's gonna absorb it? Who's gonna be honest about it? The truth will come out You can like I always say you cannot lie to the internet Don't even try don't try to lie to the internet because you will be called out, you know and you know Communication is king if you talk and explain that you made a mistake and you apologize Well people will forgive you I mean they might not send you their money right away You have to earn that trust back, but if you lie hide You know and try and reverse history and things like that It may have worked in the dark ages, but not in the days of the internet. It just doesn't work So Anyway, there you have it. There's the latest update on the Duala situation. I mean it to me. It's very very sad Sad state of affairs. I mean I love Duala. I promoted it I created a video the best way the easiest way the best maybe but the easiest way to buy Bitcoin was Using Duala at the time so I created a whole video and told people I recommended people Use Duala and put their money into the trade, you know trade Hill and Mt. Gox and buy their Bitcoin that way But now obviously trade Hill doesn't even accept while and now and there's gonna be I just the repercussions are gonna Be vast because you know if Duala is completely out of the Bitcoin picture. I mean Duala itself I don't know maybe it'll fail Regardless of that though Bitcoin is not gonna fail But something else is gonna replace that they'll have but the whole the Bitcoin world is gonna lose a very valuable tool It is it allows one of the fastest ways to actually get into Bitcoin exchanges using Duala Exactly, so it's a sad day for Bitcoin, but Bitcoin has survived worse and Bitcoin is here to stay so That's this the answer I mean until we hear more that's the latest and as you know, we will be right on it as news breaks here at the Bitcoin show and So we're at a time. 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