Bitcoin Forum

Edit: (Site issue -- now resolved.)

lulz, taking credit cards? i give you about 5 minuts before you get shutdown or someone cashes out a stolen cc... oh wait  ::)

Sorry for the delay. We are back online, and taking orders. (Google had disabled our account, for unknown reasons, but seems to have re-enabled it after a prompt review.)

*sigh*


I don't even know why I try anymore. You have not done your homework at all.

Listen "Mr Coins". I'm going to be as nice and direct as I possibly can on forum full of idiots. You're using GoogleCheckout, right? What do you think happens when either Google finds out you're selling digital currencies or everyone who buys from you keeps charging back?

Close your account of course. That's what they've been doing to everyone accepting credit cards for Bitcoins, or anything else considered a digital currency for that matter.

The part about you not doing your homework is true-- one of our very own, AccessCoin.com had worked very hard on keeping fraud to a minimum by using Facebook to confirm identities, and even he has been shutdown by Google Checkout and accounts frozen.

I am a serious business owner so I say this just on the long shot that you too might actually be a serious business owner and not just another 17 year old thinking that someone else didn't think of it because BITCOIN--- you'll be shutdown. It's only a matter of time. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, and I'm even more sorry that it had to come from a known troll.

Matthew

Offensive and uncalled for.


Fortunately we are not selling digital currency. We are selling Mt. Gox codes.

Kindly leave this thread for customers only.

Thanks,
Richard

Cute, but Mt. Gox codes are a stored value and Google will close your account and cease all contact with you simply for breaking their policy against "bulk selling" of currency. Good luck convincing Google there is a difference between money and money.



Oh I'll leave. And when everyone buying from you charges back, you'll come back to this thread, look at my avatar, and like the newbie you are you'll get angry at me for your own lapse in judgement.

Good luck, Richard. You apparently have no idea what you're getting into and are not smart enough to recognize advice when you see it.

any idea when the 10 bitcoin codes will be back? Im looking to buy around 112$ worth.

Actually they won't.  One of my regular customer's sole method of collecting payment is via Google Checkout.  While they don't like the chargebacks, he has found a way to combat them and its working very well.  Google isn't worried about stored value, after all, a store gift card is stored value.  Google is worried about chargebacks.

You've said repeatedly that you'd leave the thread alone, yet you continue to post in it.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. The reason why Accesscoin is no longer accepting credit cards is because Google Checkouts has made a judgement that selling bitcoins or even MtGox codes for Bitcoins would be considered selling currencies in bulk.

As far as chargebacks, if you're talking about using Visa ID, that's the only way you'll get it to work even remotely. Alas, that removes any form of anonymity. If you're going to be open and unanonymous, you might as well just buy bitcoins by credit card from memorydealers.com.


When and where have I said that?

Right there.

How do you know that? According to this  (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/checkout-merchants/thread?tid=3dd3aaeb58f9fd94&hl=en) thread they allow it. btcnow.net (http://www.btcnow.net/) is working (only for some customers though).

BTCnow makes you sign a paper saying that you want to buy the btc that way you can't claim fraud with your CC.

 ???

Corrected my statement.  Now you can leave the thread alone.

Matthew N. Wright - You must have nothing better to do than speak your "all-knowing" advice throughout the forum.  I guess you figure that everything that comes out of your mouth is a golden tidbit valuable information.  If the OP wants to take a crack at accepting credit cards by all means he has the right to post his service here.  At most all that was needed from you was a simple warning, good luck a maybe a :) .  I expected more for a veteran member like yourself but obviously it's easy to gain "Hero Member" status if all of your posts are as condescending as seen here today.

mr.coins - Good luck and be careful. :)

For further proof of this, please see Atlas/Ragnar/Immanuel Go/ALPHA. (http://Atlas/Ragnar/Immanuel Go/ALPHA.).

just bought the rest of the coupons, nice service :)

Bought 5 of the 5 coin coupons (there were no 10 coin coupons left when I got there).  Worked great.  Nice service.  I will use it and recommend it as long as it is up and running.  Now it looks like you are out of stock.  When will you reload your site?

Hi Burt,

Thanks for buying! We're glad you're happy with the service :)

I've just restocked the store.

(I will enable automatic restocking when our scritps leave the beta testing phase.)

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks for buying!

The 10 BTC codes won't be avaliable until we have finished testing our systems.

Presently we are only selling Mt. Gox codes for denominations of 5 BTC and 1 BTC.

Thanks,
Richard

Just bought more, this is a very nice service, thanks a ton, I think I might have had some issues on my last purchase, I'll pm you if I can't figure it out real quick..


EDIT: ok, i got it it's just be being stupid and not being able to read

Wait, I lied, I'm missing one 1BTC code.
edit: ok wow it just emailed it to me, google check out is just being wonky and it emailed it two me 15 minutes after my first one  8)



Review- great site, doesn't charge that much of a fee for his service, and everything works very smoothly (unless it gets weird, which is googles fault not his).

Thanks!

If there are any issues with delivery please email me ( gco.yandros@gmail.com ) and I'll re-send the codes.

We send both an email containing the codes and a series of Google Checkout messages containing the same, as backup. If both of these delivery methods fail (unlikely) I will manually send codes by SMS.

Cheers,
Richard

I suggest you add your service here:  http://www.thebitcoinreview.com

Then we can review it.

Yes, I'd be happy to review it.  ;)

Hi Burt,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I've listed it: http://www.thebitcoinreview.com/site.php?site_id=788

(I've tried adding contact details a couple of times to the listing but they keep coming up blank. Maybe there is a database delay? Will try again soon.)

Our first couple of days of trading have been quite successful dispite a few minor script bugs. A big thank-you to all Mr Coins customers!

I hope to expand the service in the near future and add additional fraud and chargeback prevention measures.

Cheers,
Richard

anyone can use the edit site button on the page listing.

these edits will be reviewed and then applied

if you own the site you should go to your dashboard and edit the site from there, that way changes will be apply right away

but don't bother, I'm the admin, so i will apply the changes you made using the public edit

Ok, thank you.

Just an update for our customers:

We have moved to PayPal for payment processing.

You can still pay by Credit Card. Simply select "Don't have a PayPal account" on the checkout page.

Thanks,
Richard

I lol'ed. Making absolutely all the beginner mistakes is quite rare.

This is where it becomes interesting.

Paypal will freeze your account. It is explicitly forbidden by their ToS to sell digital currency. "It's an MtGox code" does not work as an excuse.

Just like it doesn't work for google checkout. He isn't listening though, because even though we've run his very business model before ourselves, we just "don't get it".

Google Checkout's terms are not really clear. The only "official statement" was a post in their forum saying that it was allowed. However, they will close your account if you get lots of chargebacks. So, theoretically, you can use Google Checkout to sell bitcoins the way btcnow.net (http://btcnow.net) is using.
On the other hand, Paypal explicitly forbids selling currency, but they probably won't notice it until they receive the first chargeback...

Watching.

Ordered 5 BTC using PayPal.  Worked like a charm.  Got my Mt Gox code in seconds.  A bit on the expensive side but fun.  So far so good.  I have been able to order using VISA and PayPal.

Richard, Let us know what happens when you get your first charge back request from either a VISA or PayPal sale.  I am rooting for you.

After buying 1 of the 5 BTC coupons for $16.24 I realized that it was cheaper to by 5 of the 1 BTC coupons for only $16.20 so I did that to cost average my purchase  :D

Most of the time when you buy more you get a break.  I am sure it is just a rounding error - I am just giving you a hard time  ;D

Hi Burt,

Thanks. I'm trying to factor in the cost of charge-backs, etc. hence the slightly higher price. -- I haven't had any trouble yet.

I'll have a look at that rounding issue in a minute.

Incidentally, I've called PayPal to OK the business with them. They've said it's fine. But to quell the concerns raised above I will get this in writing from them.

In case anyone is wondering: Our Google Checkout account is still operational, but they have ruled for the moment that Mr Coins breaks their terms of service. I don't believe it does, but I have suspended accepting Google Checkout for the time being until this is resolved. Unfortunately their customer service is not very good (no callable phone number and email support takes weeks), so this may take some time. (In addition we have reached our monthly limit on Google Checkout.)

And restocking is now automatic (but not instant.)

Will keep you all updated as to our progress.

Cheers,
Richard

1 for 2.

I'll wait.

I think we can wait to see exactly what Google checkout customer service says/rules before we determine the final outcome.  Give him a chance to work it out with them.  Let's see what happens.

I have just called them again, and asked for a more specific written statement along the lines of "we authorize you to sell coupons redeemable for bitcoin using PayPal." This is now in the works. The PayPal agent claims he will get back to me within 24 hours.

Seems you'll be on <<Good Wife>> TV Show at CBS.  ;)

You should read up on what happened to coinpal.  They had permission from a Paypal customer service representative, yet Paypal shut them down anyway (and took $5k from the owner's Paypal acct.).

As I mentioned at the beginning of his thread, what he should be doing is his homework. He is apparently a total newb to the forums, has not done any research on the viability of this business, has ignored people on his thread warning him that his solutions are immature and not practical in the real world, and now not only has he lost his Google checkout account (which I warned would happen), he's going to lose his paypal one too (guaranteed).

Accesscoin.com has been through this before.

CoinPal has been through this before.

Mr.Coins is special! It won't happen to them!  ::)

Meh, on the other hand you can tone it down.  You've already said your piece. Richard is an adult; he can weigh your advice and make his own decision.

I'm not a troll, but I definitely have no respect for people who assume everyone is a troll who disagrees with what they do. I'll tone it down when people in our community stop being a total embarrassment to us and start following some standards.

Everything does not just magically work because "BITCOIN".

This is a risk I have already accepted. I am prepared to lose all the capital I have invested in this venture. And I am aware of Coinpal and previous failures -- this is why I did not start out accepting PayPal.

However, this said, my PayPal business account is five years old and in good standing, and has transacted a considerable amount of business every year since its creation. Based on my past experience with PayPal, I do not think they will simply close the account and take my money. If they do I may want to file a complaint against them in small claims court here in Brisbane, and this is why I want the written statement from them -- as admissible evidence for a court of law.

My entrepreneurial experience over the years has mostly been in high risk areas (particularly virtual goods) and I think I have some experience in dealing with these matters. Although Matthew would like you and everyone else to believe I'm a 'complete newb' this is not the case. I don't think this really needs to be pointed out, but: my post count on bitcointalk.org does not reflect my actual business experience or wisdom.

Something I have learned about high risk areas is that many who can't will attack those who can to cover their own failings. It may well be the case that it is simply 'impossible' to accept PayPal for bitcoin. But all we know for sure at the moment is that those who have tried -- incuding Matthew -- have failed. In otherwords we know Matthew has failed. He doesn't need to advertise the fact further, especially not on this thread. I don't want or need his 'help' and as I said orginally at the start of this thread, he should go mind his own 'serious business'.

Further, I have been in discussions with 'Maged', a Global Moderator here, and it seems bitcointalk protects its trolls, particularly those pestering honest business threads. To this end I have resolved to simply ignore all further trolling in my threads.

Mr. Coins has earned my respect. Failure, success, you have my admiration. Keep standing your ground.

Sounds like you have evaluated your risk. I wish you the best of luck.

Yea... you're no newb.... ::)

I'm having a hard time fathoming what you've 'invested' from looking at your website.

Please visit paypalsucks.com for more people who thought the same thing.

You know, when you posted the first time, you could have avoided me altogether by just answering honestly. Tip for the future.


I lol'ed. Why do you think I'd ever try this failed business idea? I have never tried selling bitcoins through paypal or google checkout. That would be business suicide.

At quite a few things in life, but not at swimming upstream and ignoring advice. That's you.

I believe the explanation you're looking for is "they don't remove posts I disagree with personally", and more power to them.

I mean this will all the sincerity in my heart: You are not special. You will need luck. Your attitude in dealing with people giving you advice and requiring 2 pages of posts just to break a moment of honesty tells me you are not likely to stand a chance in bitcoin businesses. Good luck-- really.

Let the whiteknighting-- begin!

Kudos for trying PayPal again.  The high-risk stuff is where all the fun is :-)  As you probably already know, I own CoinPal.  I just wanted to interject a couple extra data points to the discussion.  My business account was also several years old, in good standing and transacted business since it was created.  If PayPal considered those factors in their decision, they never mentioned it to me when freezing my account.

When requesting a written statement from PayPal, it might help to be sure you speak with the PayPal Compliance Department.  All other PayPal departments assured me that my business was acceptable.  However, the compliance department overturned all those earlier decisions with 5 minutes warning and a phone call.  Unfortunately, my earlier attempts to reach the compliance department failed and I naively assumed the rest of PayPal staff knew what they were doing.  I'd encourage you to persist until you reach Compliance.

Last point, PayPal removed no funds from my account.  They froze the account for 6 months prohibiting me from withdrawing.  Once the six months expired, they allowed me to withdraw all my funds.  The account is still restricted which prevents me from sending or withdrawing any additional funds.

Just to be clear, I wish you the best of luck in your venture.  I'm not trying to rain on your parade; just helping you know where to hold the umbrella :-)

Thanks for the clarification mndrix.

I am very sorry.  This rumor may have started with my failure to read one of your posts as carefully as I should have.  You said:


And upon my quick reading of this statement I incorrectly read that you were involved with AccessCoin.com and/or it was one of your businesses.

I now see that you were using "our" as in the Bitcoin community.

Sorry about that.  I will get new reading glasses and be more careful in the future.

Ain't no thang.

Mr.Coins, I suggest following the instructions listed here in the Acceptable Use Policy:
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_full&locale.x=en_US#Activities Requiring Approval (https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_full&locale.x=en_US#Activities Requiring Approval)

Based on the business type, you need to send contact information, business website URL and a brief business summary to compliance@paypal.com

Hi Mndrix,

Thanks for the information.

I am currently still trying to contact PayPal Australia at their AUP department. When I do, I'll ask how to contact compliance.

If I can get PayPal Australia to issue a written statement then they cannot simply 'overturn it.' As far as I am aware: Under the law of Agency it shouldn't matter which department or which employee's hand the statement comes from. If the agent acts as though they have the authority to make the statement, and sign it binding PayPal Australia, and the company is aware of the actions of its employee but does nothing to stop them, then the company is bound. I'll call the ACCC as well to make sure this is legally the case in Australia.

Cheers,
Richard

Two things that I noticed in the user agreement:

1) Any agreement you have with them goes out the window the first time you get a chargeback. And yes, you will get chargebacks. Once you get a chargeback, the user agreement allows them to re-evaluate the risk assessment for you.

2) The standard catch-all clause that allows them to terminate their business with you at any time:

My point here is that no agreement you make with them will legally protect you. The only way around this is to get a lawyer and amend the user agreement, etc. appropriately, then somehow get them to agree, in writing, to this new agreement.

Thanks for your points.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe in Australia the doctrine of Estoppel produces an automatic ammendment of contractual obligations based on the promisses and assurances of a party to the contract.

Here is a short article on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Australian_law

But I am hoping not to take them to court or any such drawn-out nonsense. If I can talk to them and get a water-tight written statement of permission to conduct this business from them, then I think this will be adequate. If not, I will look at finding another payment processor.

As an experienced 'high-risk' businessman, I have a hard time believing you haven't already prepared numerous processors, estimated their risk levels, and predicted their time-to-life.

Notice to our customers:

We have increased our rates and decreased our re-stock speed. This is to reduce our overall sales volume to give us time to better assess charge-back risk over the coming weeks.

Mr Coins is not presently intended for large volume sales. (If you want to buy large volumes of bitcoins, please seek out a seller here on bitcointalk.) We aim to provide liquidity for small bitcoin transactions (typically under 10 BTC.) That is: customers who need a small number of bitcoins for a transaction on short notice can obtain them at Mr Coins.

Depending on our success over the coming weeks in mitigating charge-back and fraud risk, we may increase volume and decrease rates.

Thank you for understanding.

-Richard

why don't you use your other usernames mr real coin? why hide?

Inappropriate post deleted.

Is this directed at me?

You can verify with any moderator that this is my first and only active account on bitcointalk.

This thread is not about Matthew. If you want his opinion on that, go elsewhere. Now, to keep things relevant, I'm going to pretend that you asked the community as a whole:

The MemoryDealers guys are NOT new to Bitcoin. In fact, they've been around for quite awhile. They are well aware of the risks, so they don't need to be warned. Plus, you can very easily tell that this isn't something they've rushed into. They very likely also have a lawyer who has read every single line of the PayPal agreements.

That's significantly different when it comes to PayPals risk assessment. It's the difference between selling stored value cards and exchanging money into a currency that's still in the legal grey area. Both require approval from PayPal, but with "stored value", that's something that PayPal already understands. To them, it's then no different than someone selling Amazon gift cards, for example.

Point taken.  Thanks for the information.

You could have fooled me. I've repeatedly asked you to remove him from my thread in private messages. It seems to me he can make any disingenuous, mean and ridiculous allegation he likes and have your full protection, but when anyone else tries to question him on this you delete their posts.

It is plain as day and everyone can see it: You are here to protect the trolls on bitcointalk.org. It's corrupt and ridiculous, but at least now it's public.

Insulting mods is never going to make anything better. Provide actual evidence of legal discussion and then they may be more inclined to support your cause.

Sigh. I don't think anything I could say or do will improve the quality of this forum or its loudest inhabitants.

From moderators who pathologically normalize abuse to users who insist on projecting their unwarranted and unwanted opinions onto a thread they have no connection with and no business being in, I have to say this is one of the worst administered forums I have ever used.

I have nothing more to say on the matter. I leave the thread to those who would claim it.

Customers may contact me as always at gco.yandros@gmail.com

Updates will be posted on mrcoins.org in future.

Thank you.

Let me just say I used Mr.Coins service, and it was excellent. 

1 warning should have been enough...

looks like the friendly advice giver was correct....

I'm not in a position to be the "I told you so" guy because I've made my fair share of business mistakes in the past 2 years especially, but goddamnit it's painful watching people ignore logic. You'd think people would learn how to use the search button before starting a business in bitcoin. Here, we have another anonymous bitcoiner claiming I don't know what I'm talking about and that "this time it will be different" stuff.  ::)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=211104

How long until CoinGator gives up on Paypal and offers an honest business model? The repeated history around here is depressing.