How do I buy Bitcoin?

[Gullanian]

New user here, I'm in the UK and have been following BC with interest (and regret) ever since I saw it at $0.70.  Between now and then I've wanted to buy ~£1k worth of BC, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to buy a bunch safely.

On MtGox, the Euro bank transfer sucks because I have to send in EUR which is tricky for me, also with those there will be extortinoate bank fees involved.

Britcoin seems too expensive, and too new for me to trust.  Example is, £1k GBP will get me 81.4 BC, but at the same time 81.4 BC on MtGox will cost me $1,398 USD which is ~£860, so using britcoin I've just lost 14% of the transaction somehow.

I'm not too keen on sending first to people on this forum either, I'm not familiar with it and I'm well aware of the scams around.

Is there any way I can easily, safely and fairly buy BC with GBP?

[Jaime Frontero]

tried here?

https://www.tradehill.com/

[Gullanian]

Thanks another site I wasn't aware of but they cant fill a 10BC order, only a 5BC order at £114 which is ridiculous (double the current mt gox price)

[Gullanian]

Thanks for link again, I have no way of verifying my account with them in all their trusted methods, and it's also incredibly illiquid for GBP.

[Sukrim]

If you put up orders for 1k GBP on either bitmarket.eu or tradehill at your desired rate, I guess you could get some people to sell you BTC, if that rate roughly matches the USD rate converted to GBP...

What might also work out is to contact Vladimir from this forum --> he sells mining contracts. Maybe he would be willing to either sell you BTC or escrow a trade.

[D.H.]

On MtGox, the Euro bank transfer sucks because I have to send in EUR which is tricky for me, also with those there will be extortinoate bank fees involved.

Are you sure about that? The UK is part of SEPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area) and when I did a SEPA transfer from Sweden to MtGox there were no big fees. I could simply choose "SEPA transfer" in my internet bank, specify that it should be in euro and send it.

[TonyHoyle]

I've done a number of transfers from mtgox to gbp via eur and not anything significant in charges (you don't get a the best exchange rate, but meh.)

Other way around is I believe about £9 per transaction, depending on the bank of course.