Bitcoin Forum

Scary place, this bitcoin marketplace.  My first purchase, I got screwed.  Merchant says he never saw the payment, but my wallet is depleted -- he uses some Mt.Gox storefront service, says contact Mt.Gox, he's not interested in my blockchain cite because the wallet is some Mt.Gox wallet that he knows nothing about.  If I paid with a check, I could stop payment; if a credit card, I could contest my bill.  Nobody's in charge here -- all fun and games until someone loses an eye.  So, serious question, to protect themselves in BTC deals, do people ever use recognized escrow services?  If so, who's highly regarded?  If not, someone please launch one!

Who was the merchant?

OP, have you tried using coinbase? It hooks right up to your bank account

http://coinbase.com

There is a lot of escrow services in this forum, most of them are even free :)

That is the merchants fault for choosing Mt Gox, when he should use his own bitcoind and not use 3rd party merchant tools.

Try dealing locally with localbitcoins.com and you get the bitcoin and pay cash directly to the sellers in your neighborhood.

Mike, I'd rather not burn the merchant because he has provided some followup information about others having the problem and his advice that I work with Mt.Gox did ultimately resolve the problem in the last 24 hours.  He seems like a nice guy filling a void through bitcoin where the evil RIAA's pressure on former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has created an untenable situation for credit card companies and PayPal with regard to U.S. citizens trading with members of the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems.  BTC to the rescue.  Now that I think of it, his new BTC tack skirting USTR trade interference would make a great story for Fortune.

As to my bitcoin problem, here's what happened, as best I can tell.  Remember, this is the newbies forum, so I have limited understanding of what I am looking at in blockchain.  The value of bitcoin fluctuated while Mt.Gox was processing the transaction and my BTC remittance for the advertised price in US dollars was in a BTC shortfall even accounting for included transaction fees.  Sending an additional $2 worth of BTC caused the transaction to complete and eventually a Mt.Gox refund of a little over a dollar (in BTC).  It is very frustrating that merchants who use Mt.Gox this way don't have any idea about the wallet numbers Mt.Gox presents to consumers for payment on their behalf.

In all this, I must say, I found Mt.Gox email response times remarkably good.  Here I was, going to the Mt.Gox front Web page and clicking on "Contact Us" and eventally presented with a Web mailform whose SUBJECT line was a drop-down menu of unrelated issues about using the site.  I expected I'd be in a long queue of people with password questions and what not and would wander a Japanese maze for days.  I also posted under Support, not finding any "Problem with Transaction" link.

Both of my submissions were responded to quickly, merged, and Mt.Gox appeared ready to assist, responded to my followup comments quickly.  While I have some questions in my mind about companies from Coinbase (using ACH) to Mt.Gox enjoying considerable "float" time interest revenue in these slow-to-complete transactions, I shrug it off as part of the cost of dong business in bitcoin.  Newbies should expect to be a little frustrated learning the BTC terrain, but I leave this particular lesson very satisfied with the speed of responsiveness of Mt.Gox.  Now, if I only had a clue how to do an international bank transfer to fund a Mt.Gox account...

Thanks, Xanis, you're completely correct. I should learn to say "address" instead of "wallet" in that context. Merchant didn't know anything about the BTC address provided by Mt.Gox.  Newbie stands corrected.