Obviously your US based; this is a cheap method that I use going the online route:
Setup free MtGox and Dwolla accounts:
ACH from your bank account to Dwolla (free), transfer from Dwolla to MtGox ($0.25) , buy BTC at spot price (0.06% fee)
Total Fees: .25 cents + .06% of total bitcoin
This sounds pretty good. Is MtGox a foreign or US based company and does it conform itself to US banking laws when on the US side of the exchange? Isn't Dwolla US based also? To get from US to anything else I think requires giving up a lot of personal info. That kind of undermines the anonymous benefit Bitcoins.
It looks to me like the big banking cabal is quashing bitcoins and at best inviting them in to play as just another subordinate currency propping up the US dollar...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374611351125202.htmlWell, most people are worried about getting bitcoins to cash anonymously (if said bitcoins were earned by illegal methods). But regardless, if you want to make sure 100% you don't get scammed when trying to buy/sell bitcoins, you're probably going to have to give up some personal information to legit companies or else you just have to do this stuff in person as others have suggested.
PS. My method no longer works; damn US government just froze MtGox's dwolla account. /sigh
Probably the motive and the source of the Denial of Service attacks at MtGox. Now that they have submitted they will swarm someone else into compliance.