Is it really a good idea to allow reversals though? It could increase your own costs and the point of having reputation in feedback is so that people can make educated decisions.
As of no i wont allow reversals in 99% of the cases but i am planning to build up a budget from the fees and offer that service maybe later. If someone was scammed and can proof and the scammer still has funds on his account a reversal is possible, but unlikely.. at least in the near future. I really want to take too many big risks right at the start, things will come later on i am sure, but not as of now.
But for security i am planning to introduce two more layers for "trust":
- Escrow
Dont have to say much about this, do I?
- User verification
I will start offering this service sometime next week. It is basically, although i know its a bad thing to compare to, the same mechanism as in GLBSE. I am planning to offer verification of users by accepting some credentials form them, like telephone number or snail mail address, Skype (..whatever, the exact things i have not yet decided on) and mark them as trusted users in addition to the ranking system. Chances are just better the more verified users are that they are more trusted. And before people ask: No i will neither store nor sell nor do anything beyond verifying the existence of users with private data. BUt I think i will just go so far as to verify phone, skype, snail mail and maybe some picture ID.. we will see about that. Still have to decide about that like i said.
One small feature to add to sendbitcoins is "Subscriptions" for recurring payments that get payed, like the paypal api offers, every so and so days interval until either stopped or the user having no mor emoney on his account.
Another thing i am thinking about is an accountless payment. Instead of logging in you get an address and pay it. IPN notification is withheld until the payment has confirmed 4 times and then gets verified.. still have to see if that somehow breaks APIs i test with.
