[ANN] Purse.io - Bitcoin Amazon Marketplace - Save ~10-25% on Amazon Wishlist

[dlasher]

It really sucks that there are so many scammers out there. I can't even understand the mentality that makes people think stealing is a cool thing to do.

I agree. I hope that purse.io takes steps not only to protect against this type of abuse in the future, but getting BTC back for people scammed this way.

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[ebliever]

WARNING: AVOID AMAZON GIFT CARDS on PURSE.IO


If the "BUYER" uses fraudulant means to pay for your gift card, and Amazon processes the claim, they can and will cancel your gift card WELL after you've released escrow. They will remove the credit from your account, and if you have no gift-card balance, they will charge your credit-card on file. At this time (August 2014) Purse.io has no protection against this type of event, and no remedy in place to return your coin.

$(*#&^@$(*^$*&  This just happened to me. I sold two cards on Ebay and one of the buyers informed me Amazon had canceled it. I was skeptical (Ebay is full of scammers who claim this), but upon logging into my own account on Amazon I found they had zeroed out my own gift card balance!!! That included portions of 4 other gift cards, all obtained via Purse (from different buyers at Purse too, so far as I know).

I'm following up with Amazon now in hopes of some kind of resoluton but seeing that others are experiencing this, it doesn't look good. I do have a problem with Amazon canceling gift cards weeks or months after purchase (And note that they didn't even bother with a notification email or anything, they did it on Aug. 27). It's one thing to have an anti-fraud program in place to prevent fraudulent purchases, but then playing games with card funds after the fact winds up catching all kinds of innocent victims like myself and my Ebay buyers instead. (NOTE: I _will_ give refunds to my Ebay buyers if things pan out as I expect - they are innocent like myself and shouldn't be caught in this crap Amazon is dishing out. I'll just take the hit myself I guess. But Amazon is going to get an earful. If they'd just accept BTC this wouldn't be happening.)

Shame on Purse for not being more pro-active about this situation. What's especially damning is one of the Purse operators gave me a cryptic warning not to buy gift cards on their site a while back, but when I pressed them for an explanation they didn't divulge this problem. Nor have they posted about the issue on their site.  Looks like I'm going to be out ~$1000. If it looks too good to be true....

[ajw7989]

I would avoid buying amazon gift cards or anything digital that can be retracted from purse.io. There is no recourse on amazon's perspective since the item was gifted to you so to speak. Just buy physical items which I did many times and had no problems (though this was months ago when purse.io was new and probably not full of a lot of scammers)

[ranlo]

WARNING: AVOID AMAZON GIFT CARDS on PURSE.IO


If the "BUYER" uses fraudulant means to pay for your gift card, and Amazon processes the claim, they can and will cancel your gift card WELL after you've released escrow. They will remove the credit from your account, and if you have no gift-card balance, they will charge your credit-card on file. At this time (August 2014) Purse.io has no protection against this type of event, and no remedy in place to return your coin.

$(*#&^@$(*^$*&  This just happened to me. I sold two cards on Ebay and one of the buyers informed me Amazon had canceled it. I was skeptical (Ebay is full of scammers who claim this), but upon logging into my own account on Amazon I found they had zeroed out my own gift card balance!!! That included portions of 4 other gift cards, all obtained via Purse (from different buyers at Purse too, so far as I know).

I'm following up with Amazon now in hopes of some kind of resoluton but seeing that others are experiencing this, it doesn't look good. I do have a problem with Amazon canceling gift cards weeks or months after purchase (And note that they didn't even bother with a notification email or anything, they did it on Aug. 27). It's one thing to have an anti-fraud program in place to prevent fraudulent purchases, but then playing games with card funds after the fact winds up catching all kinds of innocent victims like myself and my Ebay buyers instead. (NOTE: I _will_ give refunds to my Ebay buyers if things pan out as I expect - they are innocent like myself and shouldn't be caught in this crap Amazon is dishing out. I'll just take the hit myself I guess. But Amazon is going to get an earful. If they'd just accept BTC this wouldn't be happening.)

Shame on Purse for not being more pro-active about this situation. What's especially damning is one of the Purse operators gave me a cryptic warning not to buy gift cards on their site a while back, but when I pressed them for an explanation they didn't divulge this problem. Nor have they posted about the issue on their site.  Looks like I'm going to be out ~$1000. If it looks too good to be true....

The issue with gift cards -- and the reason why they can revoke them way after they are purchased -- is because people claim fraud. Just like my credit card could be stolen 6 months after I get it, so could the gift card. As such, they don't have a time limit on it, as they could be stolen at any time and they have no expiration.

What the scammers are doing is selling the cards, then claiming them as stolen. Just like if they were to sell you their credit card and then call their CC company to report it as stolen.

[ebliever]

The issue with gift cards -- and the reason why they can revoke them way after they are purchased -- is because people claim fraud. Just like my credit card could be stolen 6 months after I get it, so could the gift card. As such, they don't have a time limit on it, as they could be stolen at any time and they have no expiration.

What the scammers are doing is selling the cards, then claiming them as stolen. Just like if they were to sell you their credit card and then call their CC company to report it as stolen.

I initially thought the buyer of my card on Ebay may have been such a scammer - I followed all the rules on Ebay to protect against just such an occurrence. But Amazon has canceled all the gift cards that I had applied to my own personal account as well. So either (1) Amazon is being overzealous because of the one Ebay buyer doing something underhanded, or because (2) the bidders for BTC on Purse are scammers using stolen credit cards on a wide scale. I'll have to see how Amazon replies but I think the latter more likely now. (That said, I've also bought BTC on Purse (arbitraging the gift card funds I was gaining) so I know at least some Purse purchases are legit.)

I think Amazon's revoking of gift cards after the initial purchase is indefensible though. (And it makes a mockery of their statement on the gift card balance page, "Your balance will never expire." Yeah, but you never know when they'll cancel on you - so much for safe and secure!) Since the cards are bought and sold and given, you wind up with all kinds of innocent people down the line who get robbed by Amazon's policies.

Ironically, I'm in the same situation vis-a-vis my Ebay buyers as Amazon is to me. I could tell my two Ebay buyers "tough, I'm not going to be the bagholder here." But like me they were innocent buyers and should not be shortchanged because of a fraud committed by someone else. I briefly considered taking the hit to my 100% rep on my modestly active Ebay account, but it just isn't right.

The recent theft of Vericoin from Mintpal is another good case study to bring to bear here. I was a (minor) vericoin investor and supported the rollback of the blockchain to undo the theft. At first glance this seems directly analogous to what Amazon is doing. But here's the key difference: With vericoin there is a complete transaction history for the deleted blocks, and Mintpal publicly declared they would recompense everyone who lost funds because of the rollback.

This would be analogous to the credit card company or Amazon canceling the cards but paying those of us back who were not the guilty parties. I don't see that happening here, so it's wrong for Amazon to be shifting the burden of the thefts from themselves or the credit card companies onto a broad and innocent section of their customer base.

Do they understand the PR disaster they are potentially making? Think I'll be silent about it on Facebook and so forth if they wind up canceling $915 in my gift cards? (And there's more - come to think of it I have to warn my mom about a $50 birthday Amazon card I sent her.... this is ridiculous!) Trying to close the barn door after the horse was stolen is not the right thing to do here.

The irony is this whole mess could have been avoided by adopting bitcoin. (Merchants have nothing to fear from bitcoin scams so long as they keep their own account secure, making situations like this impossible.) I'm reminding Amazon of that.... repeatedly.  

UPDATE A response from Amazon says that the gift card held by the Ebay buyer was already redeemed. This is option (1) in my post above, not (2) as I was inclined to think. So it appears I've got a run-of-the-mill Ebay scammer to deal with, most likely. I'm going to ask Amazon about their policy for canceling gift cards post-purchase to see if I can get some clarity here. This does raise my hopes somewhat. Amazon will still need to explain why all my gift cards deposited in my own account are zeroed out though.

UPDATE 2 Further communications between Amazon and my Ebay buyer show that Amazon was misleading - the Ebay buyer does NOT appear to be a bad actor. It is Amazon that is the problem - scenario #2 in my post above. I'm going to be publishing my investigation/complaint as "An Open Letter to Amazon.com" here on Bitcointalk when I've compiled it, as the normal communication channels with Amazon are not working for a case of this complexity.

[ranlo]

//Tons'o'stuff here

I completely get your second point about the gift cards ALL being zeroed out. That is wrong. My argument was for them wiping out the one that was reported stolen. Unless every card was reported as such by their original owners (which I strongly disbelieve to be the case here), there is no logical reason for Amazon to zero out everything.

I'd definitely push for the clarification as to why they would do that.

[ebliever]

I'm still trying to get clarification. The Ebay buyer in question straightforwardly responded to me that the card I sent them was initially accepted by Amazon, and it was only 10 days later that it was canceled. But Amazon has not been forthcoming as to why they have canceled at least 3 of my cards plus this other one. I've asked them again about it tonight.

UPDATE As noted above in my Update 2, Amazon appears to be the problem and not the Ebay buyer. Amazon is refusing to explain why they are cancelling their card, and I expect the same response to my own. They are handling this very poorly. Total value of the cards that I have paid for and believe to be at risk (or already canceled) are over $950.

[dlasher]

WARNING: AVOID AMAZON GIFT CARDS on PURSE.IO


If the "BUYER" uses fraudulant means to pay for your gift card, and Amazon processes the claim, they can and will cancel your gift card WELL after you've released escrow. They will remove the credit from your account, and if you have no gift-card balance, they will charge your credit-card on file. At this time (August 2014) Purse.io has no protection against this type of event, and no remedy in place to return your coin.

........ and now I know Amazon can cancel them OVER 30 days out.. I logged into Amazon today to buy birthday presents, and .....  giftcard balance at $0. Turns out a card I bought even earlier, and thought was OK, got yanked as well.

September 2, 2014   Balance withheld   $-408.30
.
.
August 1, 2014   Gift card claim (claim code xxxx-xxxxxx-VEMK)   $500.00

Purse.io really needs to do something about canceled gift cards. Easy answer would be refuse to list gift-cards for sale.. harder answer would be to require 45 day hold (or more?) on Escrow for gift card sales.

...so steamed... and scrambling for upcoming birthdays now!!

[dlasher]

I'm still trying to get clarification. The Ebay buyer in question straightforwardly responded to me that the card I sent them was initially accepted by Amazon, and it was only 10 days later that it was canceled. But Amazon has not been forthcoming as to why they have canceled at least 3 of my cards plus this other one. I've asked them again about it tonight.

UPDATE As noted above in my Update 2, Amazon appears to be the problem and not the Ebay buyer. Amazon is refusing to explain why they are cancelling their card, and I expect the same response to my own. They are handling this very poorly. Total value of the cards that I have paid for and believe to be at risk (or already canceled) are over $950.

From : https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3122091

4. Fraud.
We will have the right to close customer accounts and bill alternative forms of payment if a fraudulently obtained Gift Card is redeemed and/or used to make purchases on Amazon.com or any of its affiliated websites set forth above.

So we get left holding the bag.

[ebliever]

I'm still trying to get clarification. The Ebay buyer in question straightforwardly responded to me that the card I sent them was initially accepted by Amazon, and it was only 10 days later that it was canceled. But Amazon has not been forthcoming as to why they have canceled at least 3 of my cards plus this other one. I've asked them again about it tonight.

UPDATE As noted above in my Update 2, Amazon appears to be the problem and not the Ebay buyer. Amazon is refusing to explain why they are cancelling their card, and I expect the same response to my own. They are handling this very poorly. Total value of the cards that I have paid for and believe to be at risk (or already canceled) are over $950.

From : https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3122091

4. Fraud.
We will have the right to close customer accounts and bill alternative forms of payment if a fraudulently obtained Gift Card is redeemed and/or used to make purchases on Amazon.com or any of its affiliated websites set forth above.

So we get left holding the bag.

Have you gotten any response at all from Amazon? Despite repeated submissions to their customer service I've gotten NOTHING on why they canceled the cards in my own account. All I have is the feedback from my Ebay buyer, in which Amazon tersely said there was a problem with the original purchaser's account, of an unspecified nature. I'll try calling them next and see if that gets me anywhere.

Open Letter to Amazon:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=769529.0

[dlasher]

Have you gotten any response at all from Amazon? Despite repeated submissions to their customer service I've gotten NOTHING on why they canceled the cards in my own account. All I have is the feedback from my Ebay buyer, in which Amazon tersely said there was a problem with the original purchaser's account, of an unspecified nature. I'll try calling them next and see if that gets me anywhere.

I've contacted Amazon several times, including today.. Their response is to "Contact the seller, or have them contact us so we can resolve the issue"

EDIT: Contacted Amazon again today. No progress.  They've named to me, both gift card buyers, but that doesn't help. They've indicated both accounts are suspended, pending requests for information from the account holders. Amazon will hold the funds as 'revoked' until they hear from the buyers.. which will likely never happen at this point.

We're still screwed. Everybody, including purse.io, gets their money, except us.

[ajolly]

hmm, I think I'll cancel my gift card orders on purse.io :/

[ebliever]

I still don't see anything on the Purse website warning against (or prohibiting) the purchase of gift cards. If they knew of this problem at "X" date, then beyond that point I'm starting to think they bear some responsibility.

[dlasher]

hmm, I think I'll cancel my gift card orders on purse.io :/

I would. Immediately. Purse.io is not taking any active steps to prevent this fraud.

I still don't see anything on the Purse website warning against (or prohibiting) the purchase of gift cards. If they knew of this problem at "X" date, then beyond that point I'm starting to think they bear some responsibility.

I absolutely agree. I've reached out to purse.io and encouraged them to block gift card sales, or escrow them for longer (30-60 days), and their response was "don't buy giftcards".

[ebliever]

One of the Purse managers asked me for a screenshot of my gift card account the other day; I've not heard further. It's possible they are cooperating with Amazon somehow because I had a talk with an Amazon rep yesterday that made it sound like they'd be reinstating the cards in my own account. (Unless I'm hallucinating, the rep was saying they "would" do this, not "could", the only question being whether they'd be able to do it directly, or would have to call me back and give me a brand new claim code that I'd use to reinstate the revoked funds.)

Today I called Amazon again with the claim #/serial # for the gift card I sold on Ebay, and he said everything (the ebay'd card and my own) was "still under investigation" and seemed more reticent, so I don't really know how things will pan out at this point. But I'm expecting to hear back from them tomorrow.  I'm just glad my ebay buyer is being patient through it all.

[ebliever]

Well, I'm back to square one (losing everything). Overnight I got another email from Amazon informing me that they had revoked not four but TEN gift cards on my account - that's the first time in all of this that I was informed of that! It's just that the funds from the other cards had been spent.

I've cross-matched the list, and it includes EVERY card I purchased through Purse for my own account. So if anyone out there is still using Purse, I don't know how to paint a bigger red flag than this - assuming Amazon is on the up-and-up, this is a 100% fail rate. It included cards going back to a June 23 deposit date.

Amazon should realize that they are not helping themselves by failing to notify customers for almost 3 months of fraudulent activity. It creates a big risk that innocent parties will continue to transact with a fraudulent actor, leading to greater losses for the innocent parties as well as customer service headaches for Amazon.

The Amazon email just suggested I contact the buyer of the cards for further resolution, and repeated their refusal to provide any information whatsoever on the reason(s) they have for revoking the cards. In other words "just trust us, and no, we're not going to help you investigate on your end." They are covering themselves by shifting the financial losses from themselves to us, but making an absolute mockery of their repetitious "most customer-centric company on earth" mantra in their emails/web communications.

PURSE.IO - if you are reading this - the ball is in your court to salvage the situation. What can you offer in the way of contact with bidders or anything else to recompense those of us who have spent our BTC for revoked gift cards?

[AndreasH]

Hello,

I have done a order an purse.io after the person has recived Purse has disabled my account. The asked me for a ID, I have send them a picture but since them no reply from the support?

Can anyone tell me a phone number of purse.io I have to speek with them!
Has anyone the same problem with purse?

yours

[seef]

So far I have one good and one bad experience. If its goes smooth every thing is great. But if the buyer is a scammer than its bad. Because there is zero customer support. I send a dozen of messeages to them regarding a guy or gal who claims that he or she bought the item but the item is still in the wishlist and no delivery. The coins sitting in escrow. Great!

[seef]

Had a chat with Kent. Lets see. I hope this resolves. Because I like the service

[seef]

Ok, they canceled the order and released the funds of escrow. Now its relisted again. I hope I will find an honest buyer.