As others are noting, it is one side of the story and very blamey. I think this could have been written differently and been on very solid ground instead of the smear campaign it is. A better framing might be:<p>Lessons learned:<p>1. If you are not US-based, be aware that there are extra challenges wrt actually getting your money and it may take additional time to handle that piece, so don't delay setting that up and thereby get yourself inti a scheduling mess like we did, which is what led to this decision.<p>2. Be aware that a favor of this sort from a non bank business is risky. All kinds of things can go wrong.<p>3. If you can't get your ducks in a row to make this work properly, it may be a de fecto waste of time. We still haven't gotten our money, but made it work anyway. I would have had more time and energy for side projects etc had I not been wasting my time on this debacle.<p>4. Woodshed told us they are "reorganizing," which sounds like our money is being used as a free bridge loan. If so, that's an abuse of our naive trust. It also does not look good that they have largely stopped communicating with us. However, I still hope they do the right thing and get our money to us.<p>--<p>Of course, if they had that level of diplomatic skill in house, they might not feel they need a PR company. So, it sort of isn't shocking that they don't really know how to do this well, all things considered. The diplomancers they thought they hired to help craft their public communications are the very people with whom they have a conflict.<p>I will add that part of the reason to handle it this way is to cover your own butt, not to be "nice" to people who are probably assholes, by the sound of it.