For the 3rd time, I've bought some bitcoin thru BitInstant using a cash deposit in Bank of America.

I had it sent to one of my btc addresses directly. It works well, and pretty quickly, but wow, it's expensive.
I wanted to buy $100 worth of btc. The bitinstant fee for this was 4.49% + $1. That's bad enough to begin with, but there were additional charges from TrustCash, which is the intermediary between BofA and BitInstant.

Bottom line, I ended up depositing 107.14 in BofA and ending up with about $97 worth of BTC. So that's nearly 10% in fees. Ouch.

I think if there's any expectation for bitcoin to become popular there will have to be a much, much cheaper way of getting btc for dollars and vice versa.

I may even become a local bitcoin trader.