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Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

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Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#41

Post by hayksaakian »

dobbsbob wrote: post #34
mschuster91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Can you share the name of that bank and the minimum requirements of opening an account in Belarus?

http://www.priorbank.by/e/ or infobank. Min deposit was 25,000 Euros but I was told other banks it's a lot smaller, like 5,000 Euros but this is the best bank. Be aware this is Belarus, and it's a dictatorship so you're flying by the seat of your pants finances there's nothing to stop the government just taking your money but then again, US does this all the time too. If you want to open a mega bitcoin exchange there…

This seems completely legit. Thanks for the information.

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#42

Post by code_duck »

conformal wrote: post #27
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind describing his method of swindling you out of $30K? Surely it wasn't a single transaction... Was it a single credit card? Did he use multiple cards with different names? Or we're they all same name + same address?

he was using many cards with many addresses and billing names. i didn't have a system in place to catch this behavior at the time, and it was totally on me for not having proper countermeasures in place. iirc there were like 15 different billing addresses and card numbers in a few month period. once i saw that i knew i was going to get fucked on chargebacks. his fraud scheme was so creative i'm not going to describe…

I'm not sure whether not describing the swindle method is more like security through obscurity or responsible disclosure. Wouldn't it be it be good to let people know what this guy was doing so we can all protect ourselves against such methods?

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#43

Post by wonkaMikeTV »

conformal wrote: post #6
HalfPriceDigi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey atmosx, the site is an MVP, but yes I agree the design needs work. The site itself and its revenue is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Any US citizen (or non-EU citizen) who wants to form a company in Europe is going to run into the same banking problems I ran into. Bitcoin can provide some relief for this issue.

haters gon hate :) nice response

But seriously... selling "used" software?

Used. Software.

That's like selling used poems, or used voicemail greetings.

  Hey guys! This particular hard copy of Ezekiel 25:17 
  from the bible is almost new! It's only been seen by human 
  eyes three times! Verified as authentic via flatbed 
  scanner and then CRC32 checksumming it's OCR results! 
  Hardly any wear and tear! $150 and it's yours!
I know, how about we start selling used radio waves, and used alternating current polarity cycles. (your choice of sine or triangle waves)

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#44

Post by eru »

Brig303 wrote: post #32
dobbsbob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal as long as you report any income you make from it personally. There's nothing stopping you from incorporating in the Seychelles, and getting a bank account in Latvia, Belize, or Panama/St Vincent. Just so long as you report foreign income paid out to yourself. The foreign corporation doesn't have to report anything (this might have changed, i'm not a lawyer). That's why you see all those shady collector co…

But what if you end up "working" for your company? Let's assume that you are in the US and might have to put in hours to hack together a product or a service. And none of your "employees" are in Latvia or Belize. Is it still legal?

Sure. Incorporation and where you do business are two completely different things. It's all legal as long as you comply with regulations of all involved countries.

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#47

Post by Jacqued »

dobbsbob wrote: post #26
HalfPriceDigi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey dobbsbob, thanks for your comment! Great info! I did try getting a Latvian bank account but even their banks seem to have clamped down on opening accounts for non-EU residents due to money laundering laws - at least in my experience. As for payment gateways, I wanted to stick to well-known gateways like PayPal and Skrill that consumers would already have accounts with. I'm sure that walking into a bank in Europe…

Payment gateways all take Skrill or Paypal. Just find one that doesn't charge a minimum fee per month (there's a few left that don't). You sign contracts directly with Paypal and the gateway accepts the payment, then drop it in your Okpay or Latvian account. I also live around a few Chinese banks that opened in my country. Got an Alipay account through them in a couple of minutes by walking inside and depositing $100…

That might just be why. I know when doing operations at my bank in the EU, from time to time they require a certificate that I am NOT a us citizen

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#48

Post by alextingle »

HalfPriceDigi wrote: post #40
dobbsbob wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see Adobe and Microsoft sicking their army of lawyers on this site. I also see it is US domain/hosted which could be yoinked regardless of German law. I would recommend a more bulletproof domain, and hosting in Germany or with PRQ in Sweden, who has lawyers to defend DRM claims. A good German host is BS web run by Henning Brauer an OpenBSD developer. http://www.bsws.de/en/ Also I think you're right this might…

My .com domain actually redirects to a .co.uk for the very reason that you mention :) And I made sure to host the site on servers in the UK as well! Adobe has moved to a subscription based model, which makes the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling irrelevant. Microsoft may actually let you resell your used software, many companies do. In fact Adobe actually used to let you resell your used software so long as you didn't keep a…

Anything that undermines the awful Steam model gets my vote.

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#49

Post by alextingle »

Beltiras wrote: post #45

If you were willing to spend hundreds of dollars, why not hire a lawyer to proxy your application? With a POA the attorney should be able to sign documents on your behalf.

I'm not sure that's true. The EU's "know your customer" rules for banks are pretty strict.

Re: Bitcoin accidentally solved my startup's international banking problem

#50

Post by Zak »

wonkaMikeTV wrote: post #43
conformal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haters gon hate :) nice response

But seriously... selling "used" software? Used. Software. That's like selling used poems, or used voicemail greetings. Hey guys! This particular hard copy of Ezekiel 25:17 from the bible is almost new! It's only been seen by human eyes three times! Verified as authentic via flatbed scanner and then CRC32 checksumming it's OCR results! Hardly any wear and tear! $150 and it's yours! I know, how about we start selling u…

Used software (in the form of original floppy disks or optical media) used to be a common sight at independent computer stores. Even now, used games (usually optical media for consoles) are widely available for a fraction of the original price.

The part that's odd is that, as with any digital media, it's trivial to make copies. Traditionally, things have only been property if it's possible to possess them and keep them from others. In an industrial society with a powerful government, that's true of things like the right to print books containing a given text, but it isn't true of publicly-distributed digital media.

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