This is the most offensive thing to me about this situation--not the monetary loss, but the fact that the Madhatter has first implicitly and then explicitly accused me of trying to defraud him.  Some of the claims in the above post appear improperly researched, and others are outright false.  With your permission, Madhatter, I will post our entire (digitally signed) email exchange here, to compliment the complete information I have available to me in other forms.

If I was trying to scam the Madhatter I would have to be the most foolish criminal in the world, and I think it's pretty clear from my participation in the community here that I am neither foolish nor a criminal.  He runs an anonymous service, so only an idiot would attach both his real-world and (well-established) online identity to the trades in question during the precise period the Madhatter claims I was trying to knowingly scam him.  Yet this is exactly what I did when seeking to honour my own obligations at worse rates to me than the market of the day, and I will provide ample evidence to prove it.  The recent surge appears to be the only reason my trades aren't being honoured.


Continuing:
You should all understand that the underlying context for the situation here is persistent and rampant problems in the Canada Post postal system.  My sister-in-law, for example, recently had a package going from my city to the same province as the Madhatter which was lost for several months before turning up.  Some useful references:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2010/11/23/mb-letter-carriers-sorting-dispute-winnipeg.html  (I live in Winnipeg, the "testbed" for Canada Post's new system they are developing)
http://savemoneyinwinnipeg.blog.ca/2011/02/22/problems-with-the-mail-10660686/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2010/11/15/mb-canada-post-complaints-mail-neville-winnipeg.html
http://www.leaderpost.com/mail+moves+slowly/4681185/story.html
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/canada-posts-little-secret-121374374.html
http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110413/wpg_strike_vote_110413/20110413/?hub=WinnipegHome
http://postandparcel.info/39044/news/canadian-postal-union-talks-pick-up-pace-under-strike-threat/
etc.

I did not mail you letters "for locked in trades from months ago."  I mailed them on time months ago, and have been in regular communication with you since then wondering why they are taking so long and asking you whether I should consider them lost or stolen.  You have repeatedly assured me there was no problem, and never once mentioned that you planned to cancel the trades.  Had you requested it or warned me at all of the impending cancellations, I would have immediately re-sent additional money.

I do not have a history of untimely mailings.  The postal service has a history of untimely mailings.  Case in point--my first three trades:

1GHrztccFjTVnrzpk1QmR8XeVmniH2fEqP  transaction 536-927 booked on January 7
14e9e8uWGpgZUwarcWDNGmpQbcFKbarrds  transaction 205-192 booked on January 13
1CV2TbssjiDwHwExvBn4CLR6QXJELdKCwv  transaction 399-754 booked on January 14 (mybitcoin to mybitcoin trade so no record in blockchain but I am happy to allow a trusted member to log into my mybitcoin account and verify it)

These trades were all mailed shortly after booking, yet as you can see they were processed in a clump on January 24th.  If the Madhatter had only bothered to look at the postmarks he could have verified for himself that Canada Post, and not me, was the cause of the delay.  Yet despite this the letters still arrived within a maximum period of 10 business days.  It was long enough to make me uncomfortable since they only had to travel two provinces over, but it's well within the time you later quoted me as typical for your trades.


This statement is patently false.  The only way I can think that you would make it is if you were conflating my expresspost for a separate trade with these two letters which are still missing; or if you have somehow confused me with someone else.  The latter is perhaps the only reason I can think of that you would turn on a trusted customer and community member so abruptly.  The following is the entire history of my trades with you, continuing from the above three:

On February 10th I booked my fourth trade with you for 100 CAD, and sent the letter shortly thereafter.  Although I was prepared from my previous experience to expect a certain amount of delay, I didn't expect this to be a problem.  These coins are for people who plan to hold them for a long time.

On March 6th, still taking the previous trade on faith, I booked my fifth trade with you for 100 CAD.  These are the two trades which are in dispute, and they are for a combined total of 214.45 btc, plus 21.44 btc in deposits that have been promised back but which have not yet been returned.  Neither letter has shown up so far, but since they were mailed at different times I find it exceedingly unlikely that both are lost or stolen.

By the time I booked additional trades on the weekend of March 18th-20th (50 CAD, 500 CAD, and 100 CAD) I was getting worried that I still had not had either the February 10th or March 6th trades processed.  Therefore I emailed you wondering if you had had problems with delayed mail, to which you responded that although one letter had once taken 3 months I didn't need to worry.  I also asked if you would accept a registered mailing for the new trades (the website said not to send these).  You said this would be okay in your email of March 24th, which I read a couple of days later.  Going on your description of what constituted normal timing for your trades, I waited a couple more days to offset the cost of the expresspost by including another trade on April 4th (20 CAD) and then mailing right away.  At the time of mailing, everything except the 20 CAD had been done at worse rates for me than the current market rate, as can be verified by examining that period in bitcoin charts.  But since I am in BitCoin for the long term I didn't mind, and also took away from the experience that even if my two missing letters took a long time to arrive they would still be honoured.  Nothing was mentioned about anything being cancelled after a certain amount of time.

This delay in mailing of approximately one week is the longest I have ever delayed in mailing a trade, and since I sent it by expresspost the trades still arrived within 10 business days of when you authorised me to send them by that method.  The quoted statement is false.  It should also be noted that when I inquired about the two missing letters I identified myself as eMansipater and signed my real name to the email, which no scammer would do if they were trying to defraud you via those trades.  All my trades have also included my email address and return address.  But most significantly, as I have already drawn your attention to in an email, the two trades in question were at a disadvantage to me when I began inquiring after them, and remained so for nearly a month afterward.  I am clearly not a scammer.  Your accusation that I was somehow trying to defraud you is both baseless and extremely onerous to me.


Continuing:
On April 30th, with exchange rates now rising, I logged into the tracking option and was surprised to see that my February 10th trade was marked "cancelled."  Since neither the website nor any of the Madhatter's emails had ever warned of cancellation, I was extremely concerned and emailed him immediately, telling him if there was any problem I could simply re-send the cash or even transfer Mt. Gox dollars.  On May 3rd, he emailed me back and told me for the first time ever that he had configured his system to cancel trades at 60 days and that he did not plan to honour the trades past then despite still telling me it was "probably too soon" to write off the missing letters.  The trade from March 6th had still not reached 60 days and after another email exchange patiently attempting to find a "win-win solution", I quickly mailed an expresspost with additional (repeat) payment for the not-yet-expired trade, and also included repeat money for the February 10th trade since I expected the situation would be resolved amicably upon a review of our correspondence and my trading history, which he seemed initially confused about.  I even offered that the repeated money could be held as collateral (or the bitcoins escrowed with clearcoin) until the original two letters show up.  But he became obstinate, cancelled the second trade, and refused delivery of my expresspost despite having the tracking information in hand that showed it had been mailed before the second cancellation.  He implicitly accused me of attempted fraud with phrases like "How convenient. I wasn't born yesterday."  His treatment of me despite my forbearance and patient seeking of win-win solutions has gotten me somewhat riled up about this--which should be significant for anyone who has read my posts here.

I intended to wait until receiving the refused expresspost back before posting here on the forums, but when "Bobby" posted I felt it was important to mention my own experience at the same time.  I emailed the Madhatter to let him know about this thread, and have today received back the refused expresspost (An indication of how slow Canada Post continues to be).  Although he has my information he has not yet returned my deposits, which he promised to do when he began insisting the trades had to be cancelled.  I refuse to email him a request to do so since that would be a tacit acceptance of the cancellations which were never mentioned either on the website nor in our extensive correspondence (which included an anecdote by him of mail taking 3 months to arrive).

I have gone to great lengths to resolve this amicably, but the current situation is unacceptable.  Without warning of the cancellations I had no way to mitigate the risk they exposed me to, and the cancellation of the second trade after I had already sent a repeat payment for it is totally inappropriate.  But most of all, the accusation that I have attempted to defraud him is libellous and abhorrent to me.  I expect better from someone who so many people have trusted, and most of all I expect an in-depth explanation for how on earth he has himself been exposed to any risk by my proposed solutions.  What will he do when the two delayed letters arrive?  I already held all the risk in this relationship from the beginning, and now he has accused me of trying to scam him.  This has to be thoroughly and carefully resolved in complete transparency.

Vlad has put it very concisely.  If the time-limited nature of the trade had been made clear from the beginning, it would be equivalent to a call option.  I did not intend, however, to contract for a call option.  I considered the trade made and the coins reserved, with my deposit as the Madhatter's hedge against non-payment.  Despite this I have been very open to re-sending payment if warned and given time to, escrowing, etc. since I understand neither of us can control delays in the mail.  All I want to know is how any of these options expose the Madhatter to risk, rather than simply affording him an opportunity to profit off the increased value of already reserved bitcoins.  I also demand that he change his website to declare that trades will expire, and when.  When I made the trades all it said was:

This is an example of why I don't do trades through the mail.

Possible.

This thread has made me realize something new.  My employer has begun to block bitcoin trade sites, including bitcoin4cash.com.

What are you talking about?  There have been no trades except for the ones detailed in my post, and everything there (except for the missing letters which are still m.i.a.) has arrived within 10 business days.

Email conversations have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and I will not be accused of violating someone's privacy except as a last resort.  If you prefer to do it differently, I am happy to have you publish the entire exchange yourself.  Stop playing these bantering games and let's just lay everything out.  I couldn't care less if either of our egos are bruised--let's just get this thing resolved to the satisfaction of the entire community here, and for goodness' sake double-check your records before getting all personal.  If this whole anonymous business thing is going to work, transparency and community response are going to have to take the place of courts and mediators in resolving disputes.  Too tired to respond more tonight, will reply to the whole thing after I can get some rest and clear out a growing backlog in my business.


p.s. edited the OP's thread title as I also feel "fraud" is too strong of a word and the discussion is largely focussing on my situation now.  If he has a problem with that he can edit it back.

I'm talking about the other expresspost you had sent me before to cover late mail. You know what I'm talking about.


I don't expect any emails I send someone to remain private. I'm conducting business in public view. Do as you wish.


So you are planning on wasting even more of my time? So I'll have to login to the forum each day and argue the meaning of each sentence I previously wrote? No thanks. I really have better things to do with my time. I won't return to this thread.

Note: I made the 60-day time limit more clear on Bitcoin4Cash. I am also accepting locked in trades again and my Bitcoin inventory is being replenished.

Somewhat OT, but does Canada Post offer delivery confirmation or tracking options on mail?
I know the USPS lets you add it to First Class mail for just $0.18.  I now make it standard practice to put tracking on all my outgoing First Class pieces to help arbitrate non-receipt disputes like this.  Even then, I feel like the USPS delivers things with tracking in a more timely manner, as each mailpiece is being monitored through the system.
Perhaps MadHatter should encourage (or require) his customers to add tracking to their Bitcoin4Cash orders and provide that number to him, especially when sending cash through the mail.

You should grab yourself a VPS server.  Putty + Firefox portable = gold.  It's incredibly easy and bypasses all forms of internet "blockage."  Assuming your SSH tunnel is open.

The best they can see is there is bandwidth traffic through a specific port.

I bring it with me to every job now!

It could prove a lot! I'd like to see the email correspondence. Let their words speak for themselves!

My business is based on a niche. It's for people that want to buy/sell BTC with anonymity. Therefore, tracking a package defeats that purpose. If you want security, I would recommend that you use a wire transfer and buy/sell on Mt Gox.