It's pretty obvious that I'm a n00b and had no idea about this whole "right time" stuff - that also shouldnt factor into anything, because the point here is the amount taken for fees was changed AFTER I PRESSED CONFIRM. All I was looking to do was buy some BTC to send to someone so I could buy some (legal) goods. I even made a thread here the first day I was trying to figure out how to make this happen. I didnt get any clear responses.

So i asked him what i should do. He suggested i open an account with Coinbase. So i did that.

Then he suggested I use Bitpay to send it to him. Seeing that day the fee was $30 to send to bitpay (i didnt send it) i tried to find a cheaper solution on my 2nd BTC purchase. I saw we could buy directly with Bitpay (like I explained) and seeing as how this was - at least on my end - a single step transaction, it should be cheaper.

At WORST, they would charge me the $30 (but they werent going to, as the prompt told me $9.57), but would let me know first, because, uh, thats how business works. You tell the customer first what the price is, you don't steal whatever amount the mood feels like after your customer has committed to buying, with a set fee charge. You cant suddenly, out of nowhere after he has paid, change the transaction after the fact. Businesses could never work like this, it's brazen theft. I cant tell you a product is $249, for example, with a $1 fee to process the payment, then after you give me your money, i tell you oh, I took $249 for the fee. You've only paid $1.00, so you owe $248 more if you want your item.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2558243.0

I don't think you're reading my posts properly.

This is what I would have done, albeit I likely would have skipped using bitcoin altogether for the purchase, since the discount on the vendor's site was only for about a week.

The only fee that was indicated to me was $9.57, which I obviously had no problem with, or else I wouldn't have hit "confirm" and gone ahead with my purchase of the bitcoin.

The remainder was essentially stolen, since there was no disclosure or agreement on my end for any additional amount being taken.

I never even got to the point of being able to purchase the product, because of weekly Coinbase limits staying at 250 (based on what i had read, it seemed like they increased the limits one week after your first buy) and then the fallout of this hidden fee disaster.

Over a week ago i noticed Coinbase charging 28 dollars for me to transfer my own money sitting there to my Bitpay wallet, so I thought maybe if I made my purchase with the Bitpay wallet, i'd be able to avoid that, or at worst I pay another 28.

When I put in my buy amount on bitpay, it displayed $9.57 as being the fee. $249.40 was my total. Happy with that, I hit confirm.

Then it sat in pending for over an hour.

Eventually I saw the confirmation that I've "successfully sent $164.27"

At which point I was utterly confused, because according to the prompt when I hit confirm, it SHOULD be $239.83.

Even at worst, if I wasnt able to avoid that ~28 dollar charge (which still would be theft, mind you, for not disclosing this first) itd be less that amount, not triple.

So now ive got money sitting in coinbase from the first buy of btc i did over a week ago, and money sitting in my bitpay wallet (which says 160 is too low of an amount to make a transaction with)

This is all after doing two bitcoin buys of 250 (total $500) within about 8 days. Im nowehere nearer to getting the item i was supposed to buy, and now also the bitcoin value has tanked while all of this happened, which annoys me further because i never bought this to buy and hold to begin with.

I even discussed sending in 2 payments to the vendor when all this started because I wanted to avoid the risk of holding on to any BTC, which he was ok with and was kind enough to make arrangements for, but all these unpredictable hidden fees have been absolutely devastating and prevented me from doing anything at all.

I have no idea what's going to happen to all that money i put in.

I meant that she asked for my name/email address to bring up my file, then she placed me on hold or mute, never came back and then disconnected the call several seconds later. She definitely did it on purpose. I have to wonder if it was just something she didnt want to deal with, or if hanging up on customers who want their money back in these situations is encouraged by the owners. In order to keep making money, they can't be giving stolen money back to their customers, now can they?

I tried calling again shortly after and waited for 2 hours this time, unable to reach anyone.

Update:

So I had tried calling Coinbase yesterday, was on hold waiting for a rep for over 1 hour 15 minutes before i gave up and just hung up.

I tried again today, and it was 1 hour 40 minutes before someone answered. I was a bit surprised, naturally, to get a hold of someone. Just to clarify, it was definitely Coinbase that i called. Its the toll free number listed on their site, has all the automated welcomes and prompts mentioning coinbase and the rep answered "thanks for calling coinbase".

I point this out because there's another number listed which i believe is fraudulent. When you dial that number, there's no automated voice greeting. Someone answers the call immediately and there's no mention of it being Coinbase, until you ask, then the person says "yes, this is Coinbase". I have some history working in the fraud department for banks, and this definitely is suspicious behavior, so watch out for that, regardless of what business you're dealing with. It's similar to email phishing scams.

Anyways, when I quickly explained my dilemma to the Coinbase rep, she asked me for my email address to look into it further and just hung up on me. I wasnt rude or anything, probably a bit too calm and patient if anything.

Not exactly the type of service you'd expect after having money stolen from you and waiting for almost 2 hours to speak to someone to deal with it.

Time to take these crooks down.

Bought $250 worth of bitcoin via Bitpay (to buy a product, not as speculative investment) and was informed the fee would be ~$10.

Turns out they charged $86. I wasnt notified beforehand about any additional fees being taken. It was charged and taken without my permission. Had this been disclosed to me first, I wouldnt have placed my order.

Worse yet, the amount remaining in my wallet ($160) is apparently too small to make a transaction.

This is insane.

Might have to get my bank's fraud department involved, though i have concerns they may not be able to do anything.

I had only decided to use bitcoin because this particular vendor offered a discount for people purchasing with btc. Little did I know the nightmare I was in store for. It's been almost 2 weeks, $500 (two transfers of $250 each), potentially close to half of that eaten up by fees, and Im nowhere closer to getting the item. I should've just opted for a direct credit card purchase. Lesson learned.

Does anyone know what I can do to get my money back? This has been a total disaster. I still have my other $250 sitting with Coinbase. If i transfer that to my bitpay wallet, i'll probably be out another ~$90+ in transfer fees.

I want to have all of these reversed so I can just buy the damn item with my credit card.

Does anyone know? There's gotta be someone who does, considering how popular it's purported to be.

Maybe no one knows. *shrug*

I guess i'll have to try again when cryptocurrencies are more common and theres more infrastructure for it. It's not as straightforward as I thought it would be.

So it sounds like I have to find a live human to buy the bitcoin from? Is there no way that its automated? Like i cant just go to an exchange, enter the amount of BTC i want, purchase with my credit card, receive the key, and then use it to buy the item i want?

This is all very alien to me.

The person/business im buying from is fairly reputable, so I have no trust issues there.

Unless, of course, you mean to say Im the scammer.  

Id be saving ~180 bucks by purchasing with bitcoin because of the sale. I like saving money.  

Hi all,

I'm totally new to Bitcoin, and am really only looking to buy it to use as a medium of exchange for a product Im interested in, and there's a deep discount being offered for people who buy in bitcoin.

The particulars are as follows:

Tomorrow (December 10th, 2017) is the last day for this sale.
I do not want to use photo ID to create a wallet.
I do not want to use a bank account.
I will be using my credit card to buy the bitcoin.

Basically, im buying enough bitcoin just to pay for the item, which is approximately 400 USD. I have no interest at this time in holding on to any. Do i still need a wallet?

I'll admit, not being familiar with cryptos and trying to figure out how to do this has been confusing, but i suspect it is possible? I read something about paper wallets, but Im not sure if I still would need a piece of identification to make a purchase from an exchange? Does that even make sense? Halp!

I figured I should ask you experts to help me out. Thanks guys/gals.