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

[SebastianJu]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

[ebliever]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

The buyer pays the normal Amazon price with their credit card. They are then paid in bitcoins at a premium price level (the discount the bitcoin spender gets).

For example, if bitcoin is currently trading at $500, and you wanted to buy a $300 laptop using the service, you'd offer to pay maybe .5 bitcoins to whomever wanted bitcoin. The buyer pays for the $300 laptop, and then receives the .5 bitcoins (worth $250 in this example).

[SebastianJu]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

The buyer pays the normal Amazon price with their credit card. They are then paid in bitcoins at a premium price level (the discount the bitcoin spender gets).

For example, if bitcoin is currently trading at $500, and you wanted to buy a $300 laptop using the service, you'd offer to pay maybe .5 bitcoins to whomever wanted bitcoin. The buyer pays for the $300 laptop, and then receives the .5 bitcoins (worth $250 in this example).

So at the end the buyer has to pay for the discount. And the buyer has the advantage to being able to pay with a credit card to buy Bitcoins. I thought buying bitcoins with credit cards is pretty much standard nowadays. I didnt think people will pay a premium for it only for being able to buy with a credit card.

Thanks for the explaination. I think the service is interesting. The only thing im hesitating is that a scammer might pay with stolen credit cards. I once had a shop with gray area products and scams with credit card, paypal and so on happened pretty regularly. So if this would happen here then it would look like the person getting the goods payed them with a stolen credit card. So that it might mean a police raid for the suspection of being a hacker. Dunno if im overthinking that.

[LOBSTER]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

The buyer pays the normal Amazon price with their credit card. They are then paid in bitcoins at a premium price level (the discount the bitcoin spender gets).

For example, if bitcoin is currently trading at $500, and you wanted to buy a $300 laptop using the service, you'd offer to pay maybe .5 bitcoins to whomever wanted bitcoin. The buyer pays for the $300 laptop, and then receives the .5 bitcoins (worth $250 in this example).

So at the end the buyer has to pay for the discount. And the buyer has the advantage to being able to pay with a credit card to buy Bitcoins. I thought buying bitcoins with credit cards is pretty much standard nowadays. I didnt think people will pay a premium for it only for being able to buy with a credit card.

Thanks for the explaination. I think the service is interesting. The only thing im hesitating is that a scammer might pay with stolen credit cards. I once had a shop with gray area products and scams with credit card, paypal and so on happened pretty regularly. So if this would happen here then it would look like the person getting the goods payed them with a stolen credit card. So that it might mean a police raid for the suspection of being a hacker. Dunno if im overthinking that.

Yes, that's quite right and was also my question: isn't the system with no verification etc. the perfect base for fraud?

[ebliever]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

The buyer pays the normal Amazon price with their credit card. They are then paid in bitcoins at a premium price level (the discount the bitcoin spender gets).

For example, if bitcoin is currently trading at $500, and you wanted to buy a $300 laptop using the service, you'd offer to pay maybe .5 bitcoins to whomever wanted bitcoin. The buyer pays for the $300 laptop, and then receives the .5 bitcoins (worth $250 in this example).

So at the end the buyer has to pay for the discount. And the buyer has the advantage to being able to pay with a credit card to buy Bitcoins. I thought buying bitcoins with credit cards is pretty much standard nowadays. I didnt think people will pay a premium for it only for being able to buy with a credit card.

Thanks for the explaination. I think the service is interesting. The only thing im hesitating is that a scammer might pay with stolen credit cards. I once had a shop with gray area products and scams with credit card, paypal and so on happened pretty regularly. So if this would happen here then it would look like the person getting the goods payed them with a stolen credit card. So that it might mean a police raid for the suspection of being a hacker. Dunno if im overthinking that.

Yes, that's quite right and was also my question: isn't the system with no verification etc. the perfect base for fraud?

Apparently yes - see my thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=769529.0 for how I lost $650. The frustrating thing is that Amazon has been completely uncooperative and tight-lipped about it, so I can't actually confirm whether it was a case of credit card fraud, or whether it was a single case and they over-reacted or if every purchase I made through Purse really was made with with a fraudulent buyer purchasing the items. (They canceled at least 10 cards I'd purchased, including some up to almost 3 months after the fact, without notifying me even after the fact. I only noticed my own Amazon account had been sucked dry after an Ebay buyer complained that his initially-working card that he bought from me had been canceled.)

Given Amazon's refusal to communicate I'm thinking that they are on shaky ground (that some of the cards they canceled were legit), and that not all the card purchases were made fraudulently. I know that I played both sides of the fence, as have others on purse, so at least some of the purchases there are genuine. But the bottom line is you absolutely should not purchase gift cards for Amazon on Purse, since they are liable to be canceled without warning at any time thereafter. You can find other examples if you go back in this thread a page or two. I've not heard of any problems with physical item purchases though.

[SebastianJu]

I dont understand the discount-point yet. Where does the discount come from? As far as i read you potentially can set up a discount of 45% too. Though i dont get where the percents are taken from? The buyer pays less with his credit card, the seller pays less bitcoins. So amazon is the one giving the discount? Is it because of some discount coupons the buyer might have or where does it come from?

The buyer pays the normal Amazon price with their credit card. They are then paid in bitcoins at a premium price level (the discount the bitcoin spender gets).

For example, if bitcoin is currently trading at $500, and you wanted to buy a $300 laptop using the service, you'd offer to pay maybe .5 bitcoins to whomever wanted bitcoin. The buyer pays for the $300 laptop, and then receives the .5 bitcoins (worth $250 in this example).

So at the end the buyer has to pay for the discount. And the buyer has the advantage to being able to pay with a credit card to buy Bitcoins. I thought buying bitcoins with credit cards is pretty much standard nowadays. I didnt think people will pay a premium for it only for being able to buy with a credit card.

Thanks for the explaination. I think the service is interesting. The only thing im hesitating is that a scammer might pay with stolen credit cards. I once had a shop with gray area products and scams with credit card, paypal and so on happened pretty regularly. So if this would happen here then it would look like the person getting the goods payed them with a stolen credit card. So that it might mean a police raid for the suspection of being a hacker. Dunno if im overthinking that.

Yes, that's quite right and was also my question: isn't the system with no verification etc. the perfect base for fraud?

Apparently yes - see my thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=769529.0 for how I lost $650. The frustrating thing is that Amazon has been completely uncooperative and tight-lipped about it, so I can't actually confirm whether it was a case of credit card fraud, or whether it was a single case and they over-reacted or if every purchase I made through Purse really was made with with a fraudulent buyer purchasing the items. (They canceled at least 10 cards I'd purchased, including some up to almost 3 months after the fact, without notifying me even after the fact. I only noticed my own Amazon account had been sucked dry after an Ebay buyer complained that his initially-working card that he bought from me had been canceled.)

Given Amazon's refusal to communicate I'm thinking that they are on shaky ground (that some of the cards they canceled were legit), and that not all the card purchases were made fraudulently. I know that I played both sides of the fence, as have others on purse, so at least some of the purchases there are genuine. But the bottom line is you absolutely should not purchase gift cards for Amazon on Purse, since they are liable to be canceled without warning at any time thereafter. You can find other examples if you go back in this thread a page or two. I've not heard of any problems with physical item purchases though.

I didnt read your full thread yet but as far as i read in this thread here the scams were with coupon codes and similar things. You bought them, gave bitcoins for them, and the seller claimed the codes were stolen. Thats something people tried with my old shop too once in a while. Though thats not about stolen credit cards yet or is it?

What i meant is someone is using one of the hacks to get his hands on stolen debit card details so that he can pay products on purse.io and get bitcoins in exchange. But once the real owner of the credit card checks his card he will book everything back. And you will lose money. This didnt happen on purse.io yet?

[KleptocraticSurveillance]

What i meant is someone is using one of the hacks to get his hands on stolen debit card details so that he can pay products on purse.io and get bitcoins in exchange. But once the real owner of the credit card checks his card he will book everything back. And you will lose money. This didnt happen on purse.io yet?

This exactly happened to me when purchasing an Amazon gift card. Amazon removed the balance from the gift card because the purchaser claimed the purchase was fraudulent, and I had to go back and forth with Purse.IO's slow and bumbling customer support over and over and over to get my btc refunded, which needless to say was incredibly frustrating. Thank goodness I did finally get my refund for a worthless Amazon gift card with no balance. So they aren't entirely inept, but goodness that was a pain in the neck.

One thing I want to mention is that Purse.IO reuses the same deposit address, which is bad  :

"When recycling is bad

Perhaps they’ll have to agree to disagree, but there’s another issue at stake: reused bitcoin addresses.

Many sites that add material into the block chain, like SatoshiDice, reuse bitcoin addresses, and many developers, Dashjr and Maxwell included, consider this to be a bad thing. After all, reused addresses were what allowed Dashjr to block certain sites.

If an organisation or individual continually reuses a bitcoin address, then it makes them more easily identifiable on the network, and also makes it easier to identify people transacting with them.

That can lead to all kinds of problems, Maxwell warns, including censorship. After all, that’s how Dashjr identified the sites to blacklist in the first place.

If address reuse proliferates among bitcoiners, then censorship by patches like Dashjr’s will be the least of their worries, warns Maxwell.

He explained:

    “If people use bitcoin in a lazy, easily censorable way where they are reusing addresses – which were always intended to be one-time in the design of the system – then this creates a serious systemic risk in that someone might try to order nodes, developers, and/or miners to censor the system.”"

http://www.coindesk.com/blacklist-debate-ok-meddle-bitcoins-code/

[SebastianJu]

What i meant is someone is using one of the hacks to get his hands on stolen debit card details so that he can pay products on purse.io and get bitcoins in exchange. But once the real owner of the credit card checks his card he will book everything back. And you will lose money. This didnt happen on purse.io yet?

This exactly happened to me when purchasing an Amazon gift card. Amazon removed the balance from the gift card because the purchaser claimed the purchase was fraudulent, and I had to go back and forth with Purse.IO's slow and bumbling customer support over and over and over to get my btc refunded, which needless to say was incredibly frustrating. Thank goodness I did finally get my refund for a worthless Amazon gift card with no balance. So they aren't entirely inept, but goodness that was a pain in the neck.

So you bought an amazon gift card with bitcoins. The buyer bought the card with his credit card. He got your coins. Later he claimed the credit card payment was fraudulent and he kept the coins and your gift card was cancelled while he became the gift card back?
Doesnt have to do with a stolen credit card. Might be he only claimed the transactions wasnt done by him and cancelled it. But its a risk in any way. You might get something bought with a stolen credit card or the owner cancels a transaction. Similar like its possible with paypal.

[ebliever]

What i meant is someone is using one of the hacks to get his hands on stolen debit card details so that he can pay products on purse.io and get bitcoins in exchange. But once the real owner of the credit card checks his card he will book everything back. And you will lose money. This didnt happen on purse.io yet?

This exactly happened to me when purchasing an Amazon gift card. Amazon removed the balance from the gift card because the purchaser claimed the purchase was fraudulent, and I had to go back and forth with Purse.IO's slow and bumbling customer support over and over and over to get my btc refunded, which needless to say was incredibly frustrating. Thank goodness I did finally get my refund for a worthless Amazon gift card with no balance. So they aren't entirely inept, but goodness that was a pain in the neck.

So you bought an amazon gift card with bitcoins. The buyer bought the card with his credit card. He got your coins. Later he claimed the credit card payment was fraudulent and he kept the coins and your gift card was cancelled while he became the gift card back?
Doesnt have to do with a stolen credit card. Might be he only claimed the transactions wasnt done by him and cancelled it. But its a risk in any way. You might get something bought with a stolen credit card or the owner cancels a transaction. Similar like its possible with paypal.

That's an interesting point. I've assumed in the past that my losses were due to stolen credit card usage, but as you point out it would be easy enough for someone to just call Amazon or their CC company and CLAIM the charge was fraudulent; with the order going to a different address, the company would tend to believe them. It's hard to say since Amazon was so completely secretive/unhelpful about the issue in my case.

At least in this case there might be some opportunity for investigation - would it be possible to trace the IP address of whomever placed the bid on Purse.io, for example, and match it up with the person who is claiming their CC was charged without their knowledge?

Someone up above also mentioned being recompensed by Purse. I'm sure the wait was frustrating, but it's great to know that they are at least trying to do the right thing for people suffering losses. They asked for a screenshot of my Amazon account a while back when I brought my own losses to their attention. I'll have to follow up and see what comes of it.

[ranlo]

It's hard to say since Amazon was so completely secretive/unhelpful about the issue in my case.

You have to understand what's going on from a business perspective. If I suspect you of fraud, the last thing I would do (as it'd be stupid to do so) would be to give you the details on how I caught you and everything I have against you. That 1) prepares you for potential investigations that might be going on so you can work on thwarting it and 2) lets you know my methods so you can avoid detection better in the future.

[ebliever]

It's hard to say since Amazon was so completely secretive/unhelpful about the issue in my case.

You have to understand what's going on from a business perspective. If I suspect you of fraud, the last thing I would do (as it'd be stupid to do so) would be to give you the details on how I caught you and everything I have against you. That 1) prepares you for potential investigations that might be going on so you can work on thwarting it and 2) lets you know my methods so you can avoid detection better in the future.

Maybe, but it's miserable from a customer-service and trust standpoint. I've been as transparent as possible to them and will continue to be if they have any further questions, but have had the door shut in my face, so to speak, in return. I think they could at least share some general information about the status of investigation or answer my questions about why they canceled all my cards and not just some, without divulging any details requiring discretion.

Meanwhile I notice this morning that someone is buying lots of Amazon gift cards on Purse again. Clueless, or has someone figured out a way around the gift card issues?

[bitcool]

Watch out, many scammers will "buy" your order with a fake order ID.

[ebliever]

I'm pleased to report that Kent Liu has responded to my case with a refund offer, so it looks like I'll be getting my BTC back. (Of course BTC value has plummeted since August, but he can't do much about that ;-)  - Thanks to Purse for their great customer service.

[KingOfSports]

Reading this I would be extremely worried that I would get my item ordered, the buyer use a stolen credit card, I receive the item and when the chargeback comes in Amazon sends my debt under my SSN, to collections and then I get in trouble for fraud I didn't commit...8% discount for all that stress no thank you.

[andrealandia]

The sellers of this site are all safe?

[ebliever]

Reading this I would be extremely worried that I would get my item ordered, the buyer use a stolen credit card, I receive the item and when the chargeback comes in Amazon sends my debt under my SSN, to collections and then I get in trouble for fraud I didn't commit...8% discount for all that stress no thank you.

I haven't had any problems with physical item orders, going back to June. Nor with gift cards purchased on Amazon via Purse for other vendors (i.e., Subway). Purse did give me a full refund in the case I mentioned above, so they've earned a thumbs up for me in all this; Amazon not so much due to their lack of transparency.

Purse has been advertising to people with unused Amazon gift cards as a way of monetizing the gift card funds (for people who have no plans to use Amazon to buy something for themselves). Typically you only get ~65 cents on the dollar reselling gift cards, so a ~20% discount at Purse for bitcoins is a good deal by comparison.

[ranlo]

Reading this I would be extremely worried that I would get my item ordered, the buyer use a stolen credit card, I receive the item and when the chargeback comes in Amazon sends my debt under my SSN, to collections and then I get in trouble for fraud I didn't commit...8% discount for all that stress no thank you.

I haven't had any problems with physical item orders, going back to June. Nor with gift cards purchased on Amazon via Purse for other vendors (i.e., Subway). Purse did give me a full refund in the case I mentioned above, so they've earned a thumbs up for me in all this; Amazon not so much due to their lack of transparency.

Purse has been advertising to people with unused Amazon gift cards as a way of monetizing the gift card funds (for people who have no plans to use Amazon to buy something for themselves). Typically you only get ~65 cents on the dollar reselling gift cards, so a ~20% discount at Purse for bitcoins is a good deal by comparison.

Yeah, I think the deal is more than fair. And as long as you're using the service safely (not accepting virtual items, like downloadable games or gift cards), you should be good to go. Even if something's bought using a stolen card, I highly doubt the person getting the items would be in legal trouble. Otherwise people could use that as a way to troll others by hitting up random lists and using stolen credit cards.

[DiceChain]

This is bullshit, my friend is waiting for over 1.2 bitcoins to be let go from the escrow. The items were delivered and marked as delivered by amazon with all the tracking info but the users are not releasing the funds that are in the escrow.. Also Kent is not responding to messages.

EDIT:
I will also ask for prof and post it here if required.

[ebliever]

This is bullshit, my friend is waiting for over 1.2 bitcoins to be let go from the escrow. The items were delivered and marked as delivered by amazon with all the tracking info but the users are not releasing the funds that are in the escrow.. Also Kent is not responding to messages.

EDIT:
I will also ask for prof and post it here if required.

How long has it been since the delivery occurred? Has the recipient responded one way or another?

Purse is having some problems with their website right now; I received an item yesterday and when I click on the transaction link it went to a blank screen, making it impossible for me to confirm the transaction. I had to go to their support line three times before they said they were manually completing the transaction. So it might just be something like that. My experience has been very good with them apart from glitches like this, so hopefully they'll get things straightened out for you too.

[SebastianJu]

Yes, the new layout brought them a lot problems. Wasnt the best idea to start the design on black friday too.