Bitcoin Forum

There are people publicly announcing to send Bitcoins for anonymous cash deliveries. I would do the same service but without announcing it like that. Would you?

(To help decide which option to pick, lets assume the cash is less than 5% of your bitcoin holdings.)

My choice: 10% and send. In Germany it would actually be 5% and send but here in Chile, trading Bitcoins is not that easy.

Do multiple transactions.

Pardon?

If you don't belive that he will do the transaction, just try with capital*(1/5); than capital*(2/5) and than capital*(2/5). Maybe he will setup a webcam to check his incoming mail anyway if you do this :)
Also, remember that if he is reading this forum he might adapt to this.

Really? Where?

Ok, he does not explicitly state "anonymous", but somehow I'd say he implies it: http://bitcoinsinberlin.com/

I have had a small number of these given that I publish my address on my website.  Not very many - easily counted on my fingers.

I have always made good on them immediately.

It's always been for small amounts like $20.  I haven't ever bothered to charge a fee.

If I started receiving much larger amounts, I would almost certainly charge a fee, in part because there's no guarantee I'd even have the BTC to spare - my willingness to accommodate it is more to do with me being interested in helping someone get their first few coins with a minimum of hassle, and not to turn into a bitcoin exchange.

Looks a great way to buy your first btc. Mainly for young poeple (no online bank account? fear of paying on internet? simplicity), the problem for those new potential adopters would be to find thooes open mail box, and the need of reputation to back the bitcoin mailbox... any service for that?

Where are these people? Ok, I should have read past the OP

If anyone was brave enough to do what OP suggest at my place, I would honour it with a 0% fee, and use the mtGox price, and send the bitcoins ASAP.

First, I'd consider that (1) I don't solicit such anonymous transactions, (2) I'm always short on bitcoins and need more, and (3) I keep my mailing address VERY private, and would immediately be suspicious if such an envelope arrived.

Now, assuming that the only things in the envelope were cash and a bitcoin address, I'd be stuck. There's no way to return the money. And if anyone is watching me surreptitiously, I'd have a hard time imagining doing the transaction would be seen as worse than just keeping the money (for now at least.)

So, yes, I'd do the transaction. It would take a little while, as I'd use the money to buy more bitcoins first, rather than send them mine. And I'd charge them quite a bit to compensate for the hassle and annoyance (refer to points 1, 2 and 3 above). But I'd probably take the time to also send them enough micro-transactions to form a message, something to the effect of "dont do this again" or "charging 50% next time."

The friendly hater :)
I laughed imagining a paranoid anonymous person trying to be friendly to a person that's somehow better at being paranoidanonymous together with the urge of sending a message rather than just applying the high fee :)

This could be an interesting plot for a novel. The silent killer. Send him bitcoins for his cash.. or else...

Ooooh! Spooky! Now I'm scared! :)

This thread confirms voluntaryist conclusions about mankind, even in the absence of rules: a minority are sociopathic dicks, a minority of people are altruism absolutists, and everyone else has self interest but also has the drive to help others.

The important thing is that people are not the dicks that the "we need to force people to behave well, else it would be mad max" socialist crowd insists we all are.

For a few bucks I can see it as a courtesy, why not. As OP said, help someone get his first BTC. But otherwise, many people do not want to sell their BTC.

I would do my best to fill any purchase at my own costs plus x. I know how to turn cash into bitcoin. If somebody is so desperate to send me cash not agreeing on a fee upfront, I'll do my best to not have him disappointed. I would not end up having less bitcoins neither.

I do.
http://bitcoinsinberlin.com/

send to my PO box, I will send bitcoins.

Cash is a PITA to deal with unless you have an exchange's free deposit bank within walking distance. I only give out my address to people with whom I make an exchange contract (at a variable USD exchange rate considerably above Gox), via IRC & authed with gribble. Since I advise delivery confirmation with everything, it's always going to be proven received. So in the nearly impossible event I received cash+an address only, no return address, I'd probably post the address on here and say "you need to PM me with a signed message from this key so I can tell you what your exchange rate will be, if you don't want the cash sent back").

I just send BTC right there at the PO box with the exchange rate OF THAT MOMENT, and my customers know that and accept this.

How do you make money that way? Do you use the last price of an exchange that's consistently higher than all the rest, then deposit in one of the cheap ones and buy back at a lower rate?

I do use mtgoxASK+5% (as seen on the website, link below), so the customer can ALWAYS check if the price is correct.

Where I do get the coins? Why, that's need-to-know, and no-one needs-to-know^^

I would do: "Send the equivalent in Ƀ to the address given"

Nevertheless, I would use a more expensive exchangerate than I used to get my coins.

I would put an advert on this forum saying I got an unsolliceted transaction and that I will return it if refunded postage. After 90 days I would keep it.

You can't just force a deal on someone by sending them cash, I don't want to sell my bitcoins for any amount.

And if it turns out to be a "sting" operation to catch you as a money launderer are you really going to be happy with your 5%?

It's actually how I bought my first BTC: put some old american dollar bills I had left over from travelling into an envelope and send that off to some dude in canada. I figured I'd never get any coins... and one day (I think 3 weeks later): CHACHING! coins in my wallet ;)

I have a lawyer and a tax consultant working for me in contact with Bafin (german SEC) since we are of the opinion that what I am doing is nowhere near illegal.
We'll see how that goes, but as far as this goes, I'm good.

Well, now I'm set up to find money in my mailbox (or rather, have it given to me by the postal carrier).

If someone sent me an unsolicited envelope full of cash I would be more willing to give them gold or silver than bitcoins. I think 1 bitcoin will one day be a lot of money to spend.

My point is that I know how to get Bitcoins but it is an effort. I directly loose 2% in fees, so this would be my minimum fee. I loose time, so my fee is significantly higher but I love when people trust me, so I would do the deal. Getting a MtGox account definitely is a hurdle and I don't mind sharing mine (in the sense of this thread) within limits.

If you actually send the money one could (juridical or morally) consider that you agreed upon this scheme and you will see you stucked in a difficult situation. What do you do if you sent the money and he considers this as an agreement and keeps sending you money in envelopes? You would be forced to keep sent him bitcoins.
I'm a fan of totally anonymous transacations but beware of becoming a money launderer just by beeing nice to someone how doesn't disclose anything but a bitcoin adress (on purpose!).

you could send an encoded message saying you will not honor the implicit agreement any more. Or: start increasing fee until he stops.

Yeah.  Plus, what sort of agreement is enforceable between two anonymous people with no arbitrator to enforce it?

Package bomb, anthrax... if you don't comply?  :o
Did anyone mention sending a binary message through the blockchain with a bunch of encoded inputs to that address yet? LOL