AU, you are funny!!!
Tomatocage, I agree for most of the part, it's BTC Holder's Market if you can afford to hold onto the coins instead of cashing it out for needs.
posormo, I could have picked a better wording... but when I posted this BTC was going from $390 into $290.
BTC & Money Pack and Reloadit are all UNREVERSABLE Transactions. At least BTC, we can see where the coins went on the blockchain.
For MP, Reloadit or any other cards, we do offer pictures of the actual cards and activation receipts via e-mail, as long as the buyer provide us the e-mail contact info. When the buyer wants to remain anonymous, there is not much we can do for them other than providing the text version of the codes.
I wouldn't say our rate is an angel...
Our rate is not the BUY Rate as we cater to someone who wants to cash out the coins to buy something small.
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$130 Money Pack request became 4-digit USD cash-out requests and then from Money Pack, requests changed to Reloadit cards that has $500 Limit per card = More physical card purchases on us. $5 per card + need to get to the store, wait in the line and wait for the cashier repeat the card reloads again and again. (Not to mention the risk of carrying that much cash in person) <== if the buyer is willing to pay for the effort, sure, but when the buyer wants all of this for free on top of it, wanted us to honor the BUY Rate when the OP was clearly wanted to cash out his coins.
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Localbitcoins.com Buy Price can be $346 while sell price is $269 in Cash or immidiate FIAT Same-day Deposit. Even at the localbitcoins, many dealers have Newbee price (High), Small amount price (high), Face-Face (high), FIAT DEPOSIT (Low), Previous Customer Rate (low). Also, setting up a meet can be easy or can be an A$$ as one side could flake out. Oh, and cellphone# exchange = kind of sharing your facebook and private info exchange. (Dealer could be your boss or co-worker or neighbors)
Sell Price is to cater who want Cash and Buy Price is to cater who wants coin.
If I have $3460 USD in MtGox Account and I want to cash out in this senario, I have to go buy 10 coins at Buy Price of $346.
Then, transfer it to FIAT Friendly Market such as BitStamp. Pay the transaction fees for this. Then wait for the coin to be transfered from MtGox to BitStamp.
After that, Wait Bitstamp to approve your bitcoin deposit. You have to wait till they approve you to Sell Bitcoin to exchange into USD.
Here, I have to use the Sell Price of $280 as MtGox is the highest price while other markets where you can cash out to FIAT are trading a lot lower. Now I will have $2800 instead of $3460.
Now I can withdraw my USD balance to my bank. There, there is 0.5% ($14) fee + $50 FIAT Fee + Bank's incoming wire fee ($15-$45 depends on the bank) that will net me $2,721 USD in about 5-7 days later. (Total 6-30 days later depends on how long the MtGox Delay could be)
The math would get worse for someone who has for example 0.5 coins in the account. $173 @ Gox, $137 @ BitStamp, after FIAT Withdraw to the bank, you get $60-$75 USD in hand... (Many days later)
Trade Gap between Buy/Sell are high in Bitcoin and it's just the nature of the beast. (Like Apple Stock in the market)
At least with the stock market, if you are a day trader, your money is immediately available for you at the end of the day. With the Bitcoin, depends on where you live and what market you trade your coins, it can take a few days to 30 days before you can see your cash while the MARKET CAN BE VOLATILE.