Quote
Wells Fargo made a $3500 deposit from ML-Implode’s merchant account processor “disappear”, leaving a short-term advance of $1500 from an affiliate un-covered, and a similar $1500 obligation to another affiliate unpaid. The whereabouts of the monies are unknown.
The article should be titled: When banks attack.
Wells Fargo took deliberate action that deprives Andelman of his $3,500 that wasn't rightfully theirs to take.
It is a messed up situation.
As far as Andelman using Wells Fargo for checking, ... if your suppliers pay with direct deposit (as credit card merchant processors do) you need an account somewhere to receive those funds at. A credit union won't work for a business account, so options are limited -- but banking options other than a TBTF do exist.
We in the Bitcoin community too are [generally] hypocrites.
I rail against PayPal, but am willing to use them to buy and sell bitcoins.
I rail against the banks, but I have a bank account and recently did deposit money into an account at a TBTF (for a BitInstant transaction, however :-) ).
I rail against the dollar, but have more savings in USDs than BTCs.
But progress occurs in baby steps. I now pay for my mobile prepaid wireless plan each month using bitcoins (at a cost lower than if I were to pay using USDs even!). I've paid my portion of rent in bitcoins before. I give a Casascius physical bitcoin as (part of) the tip when dining every so often. I exclusively use Bitcoin-based ad networks for ad inventory.
These actions are all necessary from all of us to help expand this bitcoin economy, to quicken the arrival of the day where no bank can do this to us because we simply never needed to use a bank in the first place.
Every human on this planet is a hypocrite. The saving grace is that we also have the ability to recognize this fact, however many people do not. The key is to not let our biases cloud our judgement but to try to approach every decision with an open mind and attempt to take stock of any preconceived notions we may have.
Also I don't really think it's hypocritical to rail against the dollar and keep your savings there. One of the fundamental purposes of a currency is a store of wealth. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be holding a bunch of Euros right now, even with the recent Greek elections. You can be a stakeholder in something and still offer criticism. Ultimately it is a smart idea to have wealth spread around in various investments and stores so that a crisis in any one sector does not have a devastating impact on your savings.
