Fundersclub sounds quite disruptive.
Bufferbox might be useful (at the right price) once it is within walking/bicycling distance of my house, as a UPS store location already is.
I have no use for BufferBox personally because packages get delivered to my house just fine. In the case of USPS, our neighborhood mail boxes have the old style key boxes and the postman just locks it in and puts the key in my mailbox. In some cases I've had things delivered to my office instead. I can't think of the last time I had to go retrieve a package.
Anyway, I understand that a great number of people do not have a reliable solution for getting packages when not at home... or keep hours that do not match with the non-24x7 drop points. BufferBox seems to solve that issue by making things self-serve. Sure it costs a few bucks per delivery, but that is the price you pay for convenience. And when you don't really have a better solution, you pay it. I wish them a great deal of success.
Regarding price, IIRC the prices for service (in the Beta at least) were extremely attractive, only a few bucks for the couple of credits needed for a decent sized box. For larger item's I'd probably find a cheaper way to get it shipped direct and avoid their charges, but for small items (4 or 5 books from Amazon maybe) their fee is pretty insignificant.
It preys on the 'seeker' human behaviour (like reddit, minecraft, even HN). Maybe next visit there will be something hilarious?
A lower volume of higher quality wouldn't invoke the same response.. visits would often have no new content, and users wouldn't regularly visit.
Could FunderesClub be an avenue for laundering money?
Think of it this way - an entity or a group could setup many accounts on FundersClub to invest small-ish amounts <9500 in many many avenues and be able to make interest on that money and then sell whenever they want. Because they invested smaller amounts than would be required to be reported, however you would have to pay tax on all interest/dividends received over $1500.
Although, I am sure there are some very creative financial mangers for the elite of silicon valley that do away with even these rules with a deft hand...
I think your average individual or organization laundering money would want to invest in the kind of things he understood, like small businesses, in the later stages of laundering money, too.
They already exist... on the industrial scale. Which is where the rumored Wachovia laundering of mexican drug money was really active...
Cellphone stores are often used for this, I think, though.
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