Dear Patrick, I agree that the path from dollars to digital gold-backed currencies (DGCs) and back is important. Making those transitions workable is a big part of the work I see Cambist.net doing in the future.
Right now, today, we work with Yahoo PayDirect and even show their funky icon on our page at: http://www.Cambist.net/exchange.html Why? Well, they do a pretty serious job of confirming things like mailing addresses and such like. They do not seem to screw around. From my own point of view, they have an unfortunate requirement of asking for the Social Security Number of participants, but, you should know that your name, address, and credit card number lets anyone get your SSN from a credit reporting agency in a few seconds time. Your name and date of birth does the same conversion to SSN. So, if you are using a credit card, you almost certainly obtained it by providing an SSN in the first place. What about fraud? Well, I didn't say that we accept Yahoo PayDirect payments from just anyone. In fact, every single time I've had an inquiry about online payment systems like "PayPal" my reply is always, "We take Yahoo PayDirect, and require additional verification information." That seems to lead to silence from the other party in virtually every case. They just don't want to know what else we require. We have about reached Eric's position with respect to c2it. They refused to satisfy us about what they would do with an SSN if we supplied one, and showed no remorse. So, we wouldn't supply one. That's that. > Look at what Cambist has done for e-gold <-> goldmoney > conversions! To be clear, Patrick, we could use a few more buyers of Cambist bonds to make those conversions in larger amounts happen more frequently. > There is apparently NO such low-friction path for dollars <-> > gold. Yes, there is. Cambist.net makes all kind of low-friction digital to fiat conversions available. We make Yahoo PayDirect conversions available. > Oh sure I could send a bank wire, but that'll run me $20 Your bank is expensive. One of our banks charges $9. If you keep a high balance in the bank, perhaps $1,500, you may be able to get the bank to waive the wire fees. That varies from bank to bank. I strongly recommend that if you are using a major national bank, such as JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America, that you re-evaluate toward a small local bank, or a medium sized regional bank. You'll get much better service, I think. > and cost me a trip to the bank, and at my hourly rate that > trip is going to cost me some serious jack! Again, no, I don't think so. You should be able to get online banking from your bank. You should be able to use automatic deposit/withdrawal features to send money auto-magically. Claude Cormier does this service for me all the time: he takes a DGC and directly deposits funds into a bank account. You should be able to confer with your banker and get a similar bank-to-bank direct deposit going with your friends over here at Cambist.net. And do it with the online banking interface from your armchair. If not, you need to seriously re-evaluate your bank. > gold to US funny-money so I could use it at the grocery store! Again, your grocery store probably takes a check from your bank, provided you have sufficient photo ID. I can put money directly into your bank account without even a wire fee. Moreover, there are available gold-denominated ATM cards. 3PGold offers one, Graham Kelly offers one, I think there are a couple other out there. Now, the transaction fees for using them seem pretty steep to me: 1% plus a $3.50 charge for one that I saw. But, convenience has a price. If you don't believe me, price a six-pack of beer at your local convenience store versus the same thing at Sam's Wholesale Warehouse. >Any way you look at it, the dollar <=> gold path is HIGH FRICTION! It is, to some extent. JP May explains why at: http://www.interestingsoftware.com/mayscale.html Eric Gaithman makes it pretty clear in his PlanetGold interview that credit card money for digital gold currencies is not a market he wants to be in. Graham Kelly makes it clear in his PlanetGold interview that he uses private investigators and other means to stay on top of credit card purchases. > It involves expensive bank wires, time-consuming trips to the > bank or post office, and days waiting for funding. I won't argue about days waiting for funding. You can get bank wires for free if you keep a high balance at the bank, but that is another way of paying too much, isn't it? <grin> Doesn't the postman come to your home? Doesn't your bank offer online banking? I cannot always fix the "days waiting for funding" problem. In many ways, those days are my safety net. If I abolish them for just anyone, I stand a pretty good chance of getting screwed at least some of the time. But, for the right person, such as yourself, if you are willing to submit to a bit of due diligence from me, I can do a lot better than days. Hours would be more likely. > They said "no". That's pretty interesting. Apparently, Eric's experience with ecount is different. Regards, Jim http://www.Cambist.net/exchange.html --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
