Bitcoin Forum

Hey All!

www.BitcoinWireless.com (http://www.BitcoinWireless.com)

We just rolled out the soft launch and looking for people to test and review for us!

As always, if your order fails and its our fault...the transfer is free!

Thanks,

Charlie and the team @ BitInstant

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You can now pay your mobile phone bill with Bitcoins! If your carrier is listed, then the system is compatible with your network.

Step 1) Select your country, mobile carrier, and product.

Step 2) Enter your email address and mobile number (do not add area code).

Step 3) Hit Submit button and send specified Bitcoin amount to the Bitcoin address to pay.

After this, you’ll receive emails confirming your purchase, and you will likely need to follow some steps with your mobile carrier to complete the process.

IMPORTANT: Please ensure your carrier matches up exactly. For example, do not select "TracFone" if your plan is through Walmart's "Straight Talk." Also, if you have a Contract plan, please select Contract and not Prepaid or Pay As You Go. Certain carriers have problems with PIN-based top-up systems. If you encounter an issue with your carrier after you have paid, you'll need to call them directly.

Some comments and reviews here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/180alb/bitcoinwirelesscom_280_carriers_in_112_countries/

Just placed an order earlier this morning. The website looks nice, and while I would say it's a good service, I've yet to receive any confirmation emails past the first one; my phone has yet to be refilled as well. Payment has well over 6 confirmations at this point, but the order seems hung up on a status of "No response from mobile processor yet." It's Tracfone, for whatever that's worth.

This service is automated, right?

EDIT: Also, looking at come some of the Reddit comments, I agree it would be much better if you could give an estimated time of fulfillment upfront.

On Brazil, the service is very expensive. See:

Carrier: TIM Brazil
Product: TIM Brasil R$27 Recarrega
To complete your order:
Send 0.7992 to 13tEDaBihhtKmkYY71D2DBQ3dvLH8CYzTc

1 Dollar is = R$1.97
0.7992btc is = 17.98 USD
17.98 * 1.97 = R$35.42

Conclusion: I'm buying something of R$27 for R$35.42

Any chance to have better price?

Yes, it looks like our USD-BRL conversion is wrong, we will correct it.

Let us know when you fix it.

Thanks

Nice, keep up the good work Charlie!

Wow that's nice! I'll try this for sure

Wonderful!  I will be trying this soon.

That's great!

But why are european countries (besides Spain) missing?

oOo

Great news. How's the coverage on major airports! Glad to see news like this!

Ah - I thought wireless meant wifi. I get it now, you can pay your phone bill! :)

Will it be available for Noway ? What are the fees ?

Looks like the US H20 Wireless option needs a little refinement.

With H20, which has great prices and runs on the ATT network, there are (1) Month and (2) Minute plans. Credit bought between plans is not interchangeable. The Bitcoin Wireless page does not distinguish between them and only offers 'H20 $25 Recharge' and 'H20 $40 Recharge'.

The H20 Wireless page (https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/pageControl.php?page=plans&category=W) is not very helpful either. H20 Wireless customer service is horrible. And if you need to convert a Month plan to a Minute plan then you have to go through the Master Distributor of the Distributor you bought from (a complete nightmare). Thus, it is not possible to buy with complete confidence.

Consequently, I would recommend some special attention by the developer(s) to make sure H20 Wireless purchases are handled properly so buyers don't have to deal with H20 customer service. With Tangible Cryptography dropping H20 there is an unmet market demand.

Thanks for the tip. I will reach out to H20 on Monday and get clarification from them.

Stay tuned for an update

Charlie

Awesome, thanks!

Finally! An easy way for everybody to get bitcoins. Or am I missing something?

seems like this is an additional way to spend them (not receive them). Always a good thing though.

Exactly! Now that I'm able to get them (think SMS), I can now spend them anyway I want to. Therefore, if you are next to me (or not), I can transfer some of my coins to you for product/service or fiat currency. If my normal bill is $100/mo., and through some service I purchase $20 worth of bitcoins, my next billing cycle will reflect a balance due of $120, which I can now pay with bitcoins, thanks to Bitcoin Wireless.

Bottom line, we are so close, if not now, to being able in getting bitcoins into the hands of a noob/newbie within a minute of them asking how do I get some. I fire up the droid, log on to something like text2pay, get coins, which will be billed to my carrier's account, transfer coins from my phone to his. If it takes me more than a minute, it's because I'm between cells and only at 3G.

I tried it for the first time a couple of days ago.

I followed the instructions to send 0.4239 BTC to some address. Some time later I got a confirmation that the funds were received. The message said "You should now wait to receive a third email, which provides instructions from your carrier in order to credit your mobile phone. This email may take up to a few hours to receive."

I didn't receive the follow-up email or the credit on my phone after 24 hours. They've ignored a follow-up email as well as a message I sent from the contact form on their web site.

At best, they're disorganized and their customer support sucks. At worst, it's a scam.

I've already decided that I won't use them again. I'm interested in hearing if anyone else has successfully gotten credit.

Geez, it's clearly not a scam, the same guys already move 10s or 100s of thousands of coins per month, it's just new and they are working out the kinks I'm sure.

But when you launch and ask for feedback would be a good time to be quick on support, my simple inquiry via the form on the website is like 10 hours waiting.

Hello, many thanks... some comments about country Ukraine... (international code +380)

- local money is UAH, not RUB...
- you can sell US$ note thru the local exchange desk rate about 8.1 UAH per 1.0 US$
- so, today, 2013 Feb 9 - to buy 25 UAH voucher (for example) you need to sell 3.09 US$
- Ukraine few mobile providers -
       gsm : kyivstar mts life beeline
       cdma: intertelecom
       umts: 3mob
       landline: ukrtelecom

and many others services which payable by street cash machines, such as cable tv, internet providers etc.

you service is very interesting, and, i suppose, you will improve your Ukrainian partner

thank you again

+1

I don't think they would ever pull this off to scam people but I tried twice and never did it charge any phone. It was on two different Chilean numbers. Also I think problems should be made public and if they fail to make it public, I will not hesitate to bring it up again.

(I charged friends phones twice as the service went life days after I left Chile and Germany is not on the list. My friend ran out of credit after sending 2 SMS 12h after I "charged" it and hours after bitinstant insisted the phone was charged $4. My friend also did not get any notification whatsoever and neither did I get my 3rd mail.)

Thanks for testing this for us.

I also think that you should mention to everyone that we fully refunded all your orders.

Additionally, I personally responded to you every single time extremely fast.

Thanks again for testing, we are working on the Chilean issue.

Charlie

My first order you refunded. That is right.
The second order you claimed to have delivered which I claim you haven't. Well, maybe you paid the telco and they told you they delivered but my friend has received nothing.

Fast, yes but not every single time. My (and all other's) questions about fees remain unanswered.

Great. Hope you sort that out soon. Will be back in Chile in some weeks from now :)

I tired a topup to a Jamaican (Cable & Wireless) Number and still have not received the topup to the phone as yet.

It has been a few hours will keep this post updated.

Charlie, you must be responding to giszmo here and not me.  To date you've taken my bitcoins, NOT compelled my provider to send me an email as promised, NOT added money to my phone, NOT responded to my email, NOT responded to filling out a form on your site, and NOT refunded my bitcoins.

About eight hours after I made payment, I finally sent a message to customer service. I didn't receive a direct response from them, but it took about another hour before I finally got the PIN I needed to refill my phone.

While I see that this has a lot of potential, and I understand kinks are being worked out, for me the biggest deal here was that there was no indication it would be 9 hours before I would get my phone minutes, which is pretty jarring when one expects the service to be completely automated and relatively fast. More information throughout would be good. I understand that if Bitcoin Wireless sends the funds to the carrier and then has to wait until the carrier acts, there's not much they can do about that. But it doesn't change the fact that because of all this, I won't be using the service nearly as often as I otherwise would. I literally could have walked across town to Wal-Mart (or the gas station, or other places) to get a phone card and back to my house in the time it took for my PIN to be delivered, and for me the speed and automation of the service is just as important as it being a place to spend bitcoins. Once I see more reports of successful purchases and kinks being worked out I may buy on occasion, but it won't be a regular thing.

Also, so far when I've spent bitcoins on cellphone minutes it's been through this forum. Bitcoin Wireless sent my PIN, unencrypted, through email. I can't say I'm very comfortable with that. But since they likely can't directly refill my phone themselves, I'm not sure what other options there are that wouldn't put another couple steps at least into the process. Still, addressing this would go quite a ways toward enticing more purchases out of me as well.

You guys might want to test out that feedback form. I asked a simple question ~16 hours ago and didn't get a response.

I received the following e-mail:

Hello,

A BitcoinWireless order has been created for you:

Carrier: Virgin Mobile Canada
Product: Virgin Mobile $25 CAD Top Up
Phone Number: 2506318267

To complete your order:
Send 1.0318 to 1PeDgZ2di3RYwxyj7vGrfVtJG5Zmcd1zGF

Order ID: 18149251-5cbf-4eae-a3ea-4250ef141bf1



After payment is received, you'll receive another email confirming the payment, and then a third email when your phone has been credited.

Thank you for your business,
BitcoinWireless.com

I sent payment to  1PeDgZ2di3RYwxyj7vGrfVtJG5Zmcd1zGF and there are now 102 confirmations, as well as 47 confirmations of the amount being cleared to 1HZ1vaSVxnhgGqXuUvnxXFGTQJQajN6QRe

But I have not received "another email confirming the payment, and then a third email when your phone has been credited."  or any further communication at all.

I would appreciate some update.

Apart from one person on reddit that is "happy about the service since one month", is there any other person that actually got his phone charged? At what fee? At which delay? With which carrier?

I've done two successful Simple Mobile refills.

May I ask for carrier, country, fee and speed?

Simple Mobile is a carrier in the US.

According to my archived emails I was quoted BTC3.685 on Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:55:03 -0800 (PST) for a refill card with a face value of $50.

I received the email containing the refill code 10 minutes later on Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:05:03 -0800 (PST).

Wow! This sounds really really good. $13.42/Ƀ * 3.685Ƀ = $49.45 if I picked about the right rate. That is no fees and 10 minutes processing time.

Hope this will soon be available to Chile and the rest of the world.

Can you guys PLEASE add Movistar Costa Rica?  Their page where you recharge with a credit card online is UNENCRYPTED.  I might switch to kolbi just so I can use BitcoinWireless.

http://movistar.cr/recarga/

Thanks for being so patient with us. The testing helped us see some issues we missed in development - primarily with our carrier integration. We are looking at fixing these on a case-by-case basis so please bear with us.

Once those issues are fixed we will have much faster processing and support.

I'm excited to see Bitcoin Wireless provide fast service for most major carriers. We're looking forward to meeting that goal soon.

Great job guys.

I will certainly try this the next time I need to fill my Etisalat phone with minutes.

That was an Egypt carrier, right?

I don't know exactly what you're talking about.

You took my bitcoins.  You didn't give me any phone credit.  You disregarded my email and you ignored the problem description I submitted on the form on your website.

The statement "we fully refunded all your orders" is nothing but a lie.  You didn't refund my bitcoins.


I don't really know what you're talking about either.

Are you saying that a person who takes bitcoins, doesn't provide the agreed-upon service, and then simply ignores efforts to communicate about the issue isn't a scam?

FreeMoney, all I can say is that we have differing opinions about what a "scam" is.

Germany is not supported? We are one of the biggest bitcoin group

So, as last time I will let you know about this not being settled until it is. Please send refunds to the same address I gave to Alex Waters or the address my payment came from.

When I select "Costa Rica" and "Kolbi", the product field says "null".

I do not consider that sufficient.

Would you say that if you pay for a hotdog and the gentleman serving it has a heart attack dies and drops the last one on the ground? Is he is a scammer? More is required than not delivering in order for a scam to happen. It requires intent. There is no bad intent here, they are trying to offer a new international service, there are going to be some problems for a while.

I wouldn't call it scam yet but I wouldn't call it O K neither when they don't resolve issues. I'm willing to share all information they need. I invest time. A lot of time testing their service from Chile. I charge a friend's phone, not mine and when I tell them it failed and had an incredible fee, they claim it did not fail and ignore my and other's questions about fees. Sorry I asked for one year when this is going life and they said they are still negotiating with some companies and I asked, why not start with some first as this is what you do to get the service tested. Take a small group and see if it scales (support also has to scale) and then add one country after the other. They said it would be better to start global. Hey, great, so they delayed things by almost a year to not launch global and not have things ready neither. Either you are a big guy and launch global and provide the support all at once or you are a startup and launch in increments. Sorry but this pretending to be the big guy made this a failed launch in my eyes.

Edit: I just tried the reddit gold thingy and the calculated fee was *minus* 1%.

Hey man,

Look, I understand you are frustrated, but relax for a second.

You have all my contact information, if there is an outstanding issue email me directly

We did a soft launch, we found issues that everyone helped us. Some of your transfers went thru, others didnt.

Were dealing with your Chilean provider and figuring out why some credits went thru and others didnt.

If you are still owed BTC, just send me a PM

We are moving forward with the hard launch once these issues are fixed

Charlie

Bitcoin requires trust since transactions cannot be reversed and escrow services generally aren't used.

The only recourse against seller fraud is reputation.

This guy, Yankee/Charlie, stole money from me and did not acknowledge my issue.  From this thread it's pretty obvious that he's stealing bitcoins from others.  He's dishonest, so further appealing to him is just a waste of keystrokes.

The only thing one can do is to call him out in public for it so that he can't scam others.

Interested in your product. I can't tell from the site but will you cover Denmark?  Right now getting coins here is like pulling teeth.

And do you have a newletter or something to know when the hard roll out happens?

I agree with you on one part:
In a Bitcoin economy where the buyer doesn't have to strip naked and proof he's trustworthy, the seller has to strip naked to get the trust needed to conduct business. That is much more efficient as you don't need a rating of all customers but only of the much fewer businesses. I like that. People vet the business and tell their results.

I don't agree that Charlie stole your money. I mean I don't like that he treated me and apparently you like a troll that's damaging his business rather than taking the issue serious within hours. That is not professional and yes, we both consider public communication of a services issue important of the vetting process which in turn Charlie seams to find unprofessional. He never was pro-active trying to settle my issues but in my case it was settled. He repaid me the full amount I had sent towards his business.

I see bitcoinwireless as a powerful tool to introduce friends to bitcoin and therefore it has a tremendous value that will not immediately nullified by some payment issues. I'm keeping an eye on this and as soon as it runs smooth, I will tell every Chilean with a prepaid phone about it but there's a long way to go unfortunately. The whole process would have to take no more than 5 minutes reliably and not charge some surprise fees.

Do you have plans for adding other operators for countries? Specifically the other two besides Vodafone in Turkey. 

Of course!

Ok I placed an order on Feb 9 trying to puchase minutes for a cellphone in Jamaica. And the transaction was never completed despite my attempts to contact customer support.

Transaction ID for the bitcoins i sent - 902d32bdf107401b222850f0dd2c64088bc5c0f9b7cad080d46686274fd27934

Please send my coins back as no minutes have been sent.

Ok, checking it out now.