Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Service Discussion => Topic started by: ReCat on April 17, 2013, 10:21:46 PM



Title: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 17, 2013, 10:21:46 PM
Hi, I found this site called BitSpend that allows people to buy things on common websites with bitcoins. They charge a small fee but it seems to be reasonable. It is this one. https://bitspend.net/

I'm just wondering if anyone here has personal experiences with bitspend, and if so, were they good? I just want to make sure this is a legitimate and good service before using it or advising any of my friends to use it.

Thanks. :3


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: just1nmc on April 17, 2013, 10:31:26 PM
I haven't used them myself yet, but plan on it.

Everything I've heard from feedback on reddit has been very positive.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: WikileaksDude on April 17, 2013, 10:32:05 PM
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitSpend/

should clear your mind.



Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: phorensic on April 17, 2013, 10:32:15 PM
I'm thinking of using it for the first time also.  Want to see more feedback, want to see it gain a solid reputation for a while.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 17, 2013, 10:53:14 PM
Seems good. Thanks! :3 I didn't even know there was a subreddit about this.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: Gab1159 on April 17, 2013, 11:38:39 PM
Everything is great about them.  Good customer service and rapid business.  My friend made over 20 purchases with them and I just bought a ticket for Amsterdam's awalening festival today.  I have NOTHING bad to say about them,  and neither do my friend.

I will always do business with them from now on.  Don't see any reason why not to :)


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: aesop on April 18, 2013, 06:36:54 AM
There's also BitSumo... we currently don't charge any fees.

Please give us a try:

http://bitsumo.com


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: Elwar on April 18, 2013, 06:41:35 AM
I just bought some organic dog food online yesterday with BitSpend. Quite cool.

I plan on making all of my online purchases with bitcoins from now on.

I like that they are planning on doing a subscription service.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: Elwar on April 18, 2013, 06:42:38 AM
There's also BitSumo... we currently don't charge any fees.

Please give us a try:

http://bitsumo.com

I will definitely check that out as well (I cannot access it from work).

I like the concept and am glad there will be more than one choice.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 18, 2013, 10:51:59 PM
There's also BitSumo... we currently don't charge any fees.

Please give us a try:

http://bitsumo.com

That seems quite nice, although, if there are no fees, then what is paying for the time and energy that is going into this? I kind of WANT to pay fees for something like this. :P


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: aesop on April 20, 2013, 10:31:38 AM
There's also BitSumo... we currently don't charge any fees.

Please give us a try:

http://bitsumo.com

That seems quite nice, although, if there are no fees, then what is paying for the time and energy that is going into this? I kind of WANT to pay fees for something like this. :P

We make enough profit on the exchange rate, but we'll eventually charge fees once the price stabilizes.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: bitdroid on April 20, 2013, 01:10:41 PM
https://bitspend.net is a far better service for a number of reasons:

1. Public identities and I can visit their office anytime in FL. (All I can tell about Bitsumo is their email is recr3ate@gmail.com and he states he lives in Switzerland. Do they have a business license?).
2. The order page is secured with https...Bitsumo is not.
3. Offers anon buying so want a VPN? No problem.
4. Has been around longer and has a long list of excellent feedback. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitspend



Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: joesmoe2012 on April 20, 2013, 05:26:51 PM
I also offer this service, though only for items $1000+.

Orders can be received with GPG encryption anonymously.



Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: aesop on April 20, 2013, 06:37:16 PM
https://bitspend.net is a far better service for a number of reasons:

1. Public identities and I can visit their office anytime in FL. (All I can tell about Bitsumo is their email is recr3ate@gmail.com and he states he lives in Switzerland. Do they have a business license?).
2. The order page is secured with https...Bitsumo is not.
3. Offers anon buying so want a VPN? No problem.
4. Has been around longer and has a long list of excellent feedback. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitspend



1. Our corporate & personal identity is publicly available on the website.
2. We're in Switzerland and a registered business.
3. Our email is support@bitsumo.com -- where did you get that other email from?
4. We've got SSL (https), except on the basic-order page, which is hosted by LanderApp and is only used for basic information.
5. Name, address & more is submitted on the payment page of BitPay, which uses SSL.
6. I don't know if they allow the purchase of VPNs, we don't because they could potentially be used for something illegal.
7. Yes... but, it's stupid to not give us a shot just because we're new.

Remember, we currently don't charge fees (yet).


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: BitSpend on April 20, 2013, 07:54:26 PM
Hey BitSumo :)  I see you have found another post about Bitspend that you can advertise on, congratulations hehe.

@phorensic: if you have any questions before your first order, feel free to contact justin@butspend.net, cade@bitspend.net, or support@bitspend.net and someone will gladly answer your questions.  You can also call our office if you would rather talk to someone.

@recat:  There is a subreddit for everything ;D (we're giving away a 32GB Nexus 7 Tablet tomorrow on Reddit (http://"http://www.reddit.com/comments/1ca2eb/win_a_free_32gb_google_nexus_7_tablet_from/"))!  And yes, fees are important.  BTC does not always go up in value every day(and will hopefully somewhat stabilize one day), a company cannot survive by speculating the market and hoping to make money off incoming BTC while paying out USD.  We'll leave that to the actual speculators.  As a business with investors(we just finished another successful round of funding including the same group who invested in Bitpay, Coinlab, Tradehill, and Coinsetter) we have to have a plan to make profits that do not include "well, we will make money if the BTC value rises, but if not, well, you lose money".  

@gab1159
:  Enjoy the festival and tell your friend thanks for the business :)

@elwar:  Our subscription service will be ready soon, as well as our app for ordering things you find IRL, and this week we release our browser extensions for easy one click shopping without even visiting the Bitspend site!

@bitdroid
:  Thanks for posting that info, you rock good sir!  To clarify your #3, our entire site is covered by an EV SSL Cert, and we are Norton/Verisign Secured as well.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: bitdroid on April 21, 2013, 09:42:37 PM
Hey BitSumo :)  I see you have found another post about Bitspend that you can advertise on, congratulations hehe.

@phorensic: if you have any questions before your first order, feel free to contact justin@butspend.net, cade@bitspend.net, or support@bitspend.net and someone will gladly answer your questions.  You can also call our office if you would rather talk to someone.

@recat:  There is a subreddit for everything ;D (we're giving away a 32GB Nexus 7 Tablet tomorrow on Reddit (http://"http://www.reddit.com/comments/1ca2eb/win_a_free_32gb_google_nexus_7_tablet_from/"))!  And yes, fees are important.  BTC does not always go up in value every day(and will hopefully somewhat stabilize one day), a company cannot survive by speculating the market and hoping to make money off incoming BTC while paying out USD.  We'll leave that to the actual speculators.  As a business with investors(we just finished another successful round of funding including the same group who invested in Bitpay, Coinlab, Tradehill, and Coinsetter) we have to have a plan to make profits that do not include "well, we will make money if the BTC value rises, but if not, well, you lose money".  

@gab1159
:  Enjoy the festival and tell your friend thanks for the business :)

@elwar:  Our subscription service will be ready soon, as well as our app for ordering things you find IRL, and this week we release our browser extensions for easy one click shopping without even visiting the Bitspend site!

@bitdroid
:  Thanks for posting that info, you rock good sir!  To clarify your #3, our entire site is covered by an EV SSL Cert, and we are Norton/Verisign Secured as well.

Your welcome. Bitcoin needs your business to grow if its going to go mainstream. Oh and it's #2 but who's counting.

BTW. You may want to fix your Apply now button (here: https://bitspend.net/about#).


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 24, 2013, 09:41:27 PM
There's also BitSumo... we currently don't charge any fees.

Please give us a try:

http://bitsumo.com

That seems quite nice, although, if there are no fees, then what is paying for the time and energy that is going into this? I kind of WANT to pay fees for something like this. :P

We make enough profit on the exchange rate, but we'll eventually charge fees once the price stabilizes.

I see. Makes sense. You should probably clarify that on the site. A business that does not mention how it does business seems fishy to me. ;)

Anyways. I have bought something with BitSpend and BitSumo. Both of the services seem indeed very nice, and both carried out the responses equally fast. I am very happy with both of them.

I just recieved my item that I bought with BitSumo as well, although that is only because I bought one item from the US and the other from overseas. I definitely recommend doing business with them!


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 24, 2013, 09:49:14 PM
https://bitspend.net is a far better service for a number of reasons:

1. Public identities and I can visit their office anytime in FL. (All I can tell about Bitsumo is their email is recr3ate@gmail.com and he states he lives in Switzerland. Do they have a business license?).
2. The order page is secured with https...Bitsumo is not.
3. Offers anon buying so want a VPN? No problem.
4. Has been around longer and has a long list of excellent feedback. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitspend


How did you get that email? That is my email address. O_o


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: seleme on April 24, 2013, 10:30:16 PM
I also offer this service, though only for items $1000+.

Orders can be received with GPG encryption anonymously.



Not sure if there are few of you with same avatar but if it's all you that I cought these days than I doubt there is any service under the sun you haven't offered here.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: ReCat on April 24, 2013, 10:35:34 PM
Really? So that means I can buy a bj using bitcoins? xD


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: GenTarkin on April 25, 2013, 09:48:44 PM
I just wanna give props to bitspend.net
I used them the first time last week to order some new PC hardware from newegg. The process was painless and my questions promptly answered. Another side benefit is you get 2day free shipping w/ them through newegg.

The only downside I gotta say is they use btc-e conversion rate which is often less valuable than gox's
But anyways! amazing service!


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: Mattster28 on April 29, 2013, 04:05:11 AM
Purchased two RC Helicopters through Bitspend last week. Great service. Wished they still used MtGox weighted average instead of BTC-E, but oh well. Will be using their sevice again soon.


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: UPENtXF on May 30, 2013, 03:48:37 PM
My first experience is not so good. Paid the invoice 8 days ago, but the merchant cancelled the order due to their internal policy of not selling firearms through shopping services like Bitspend. So, I asked Bitspend to instead get me a gift certificate from that same merchant, and I would order using that myself.

Today is 5 days since Bitspend said they would. Since then no answer to repeated emails and phone calls, and no gift certificate.

It seems that Bitspend is not the shysters we have seen in Bitcoin world before. However, they do seem to be the usual pathetic Bitcoin shoe-string start-up, which bit off way more than it can chew. So annoying to keep dealing with these undercapitalized start-ups, which decide to open no matter how bad their service may have to be before they "bootstrap" themselves to greatness. I think I might eventually get the now classic MtGoxy response "Sorry, we are so behind. We are victims of our own success..."

A purchase that even with the problems would have been resolved and done in a matter of a couple of days with a credit card, is now in its 9th day, with no resolution in sight, and complete silence from bitspend.

Considering the exchange fluctuations since I paid the invoice, the fee I paid Bitspend is about 45 USD. So much for the low cost and speed of buying with bitcoin! All these kind of lame start-ups are doing is making Bitcoin look like a convoluted, unnecessary, expensive  hassle...  >:(


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: UPENtXF on May 30, 2013, 07:46:39 PM
My first experience is not so good. Paid the invoice 8 days ago, but the merchant cancelled the order due to their internal policy of not selling firearms through shopping services like Bitspend. So, I asked Bitspend to instead get me a gift certificate from that same merchant, and I would order using that myself.

Today is 5 days since Bitspend said they would. Since then no answer to repeated emails and phone calls, and no gift certificate.

It seems that Bitspend is not the shysters we have seen in Bitcoin world before. However, they do seem to be the usual pathetic Bitcoin shoe-string start-up, which bit off way more than it can chew. So annoying to keep dealing with these undercapitalized start-ups, which decide to open no matter how bad their service may have to be before they "bootstrap" themselves to greatness. I think I might eventually get the now classic MtGoxy response "Sorry, we are so behind. We are victims of our own success..."

A purchase that even with the problems would have been resolved and done in a matter of a couple of days with a credit card, is now in its 9th day, with no resolution in sight, and complete silence from bitspend.

Considering the exchange fluctuations since I paid the invoice, the fee I paid Bitspend is about 45 USD. So much for the low cost and speed of buying with bitcoin! All these kind of lame start-ups are doing is making Bitcoin look like a convoluted, unnecessary, expensive  hassle...  >:(

Turned out they were just ignoring my emails and calls, because they "have been swamped with Memorial Day, and some new ideas and improvements we have coming down the pipeline". In the mean time, they were waiting for the merchant, bud's gun shop (http://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/index.php), to send them a confirmation that they weren't doing anything illegal by buying a GIFT CERTIFICATE for me.

Instead of new ideas and improvements, they should focus on more basic capabilities, such as having enough staff to answer inquiries in a timely manner...

Remember, this whole mess could have been avoided, the purchase done much cheaper, the same day and been perfectly legal, if I had just used a credit card, and avoided bitcoin and Bitspend.

Would not recommend this service, because it's the kind for which charge-backs were invented!

 


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: UPENtXF on May 30, 2013, 10:11:53 PM
Turned out they were just ignoring my emails and calls, because they "have been swamped with Memorial Day, and some new ideas and improvements we have coming down the pipeline". In the mean time, they were waiting for the merchant, bud's gun shop (http://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/index.php), to send them a confirmation that they weren't doing anything illegal by buying a GIFT CERTIFICATE for me.

Instead of new ideas and improvements, they should focus on more basic capabilities, such as having enough staff to answer inquiries in a timely manner...

Remember, this whole mess could have been avoided, the purchase done much cheaper, the same day and been perfectly legal, if I had just used a credit card, and avoided bitcoin and Bitspend.

Would not recommend this service, because it's the kind for which charge-backs were invented!
So I finally just got my gift certificate code from Bitspend. However, the item is now Out of Stock, 9 days after I placed the order, and 5 days after the genius Bitspend assigned to handle it decided it would be "circumspect" to ignore my  repeated contact attempts, while waiting to confirm that it's legal to buy someone a GIFT CERTIFICATE!!!  >:(

I've never appreciated my credit card and charge-backs as much as I do right now!


Title: Re: Opinions on BitSpend?
Post by: justusranvier on May 31, 2013, 05:02:08 AM
Successfully bought a Nexus 4 phone from Google Play store.