Using Gyft.com As A Proxy For International Remittance

[Siegfried]

A friend of mine wants to send money home. He is planning on using Western Union, but I would like to offer to do the transaction free of charge by taking his local currency and using bitcoin to buy a Gyft.com Amazon gift card to give to the intended receiver of his funds. So if I buy the gift card and the gift card is sent to my email, will I be able to forward the email to the intended receiver for him to spend? Has anyone done this before?

[Littleshop]

A friend of mine wants to send money home. He is planning on using Western Union, but I would like to offer to do the transaction free of charge by taking his local currency and using bitcoin to buy a Gyft.com Amazon gift card to give to the intended receiver of his funds. So if I buy the gift card and the gift card is sent to my email, will I be able to forward the email to the intended receiver for him to spend? Has anyone done this before?

It should work if the gift card is going to be emailed.  It may not be entirely secure though as emails are often transmitted in plaintext.  Most gift cards are a credit card style number and a pin. 

[dominicwin]

Well not the same as cash, and I sell Amazon gift codes and they are territorial. Gift codes for amazon.com can only be used on amazon.com for example, .ca or .co.uk, etc.

[Siegfried]

A friend of mine wants to send money home. He is planning on using Western Union, but I would like to offer to do the transaction free of charge by taking his local currency and using bitcoin to buy a Gyft.com Amazon gift card to give to the intended receiver of his funds. So if I buy the gift card and the gift card is sent to my email, will I be able to forward the email to the intended receiver for him to spend? Has anyone done this before?

It should work if the gift card is going to be emailed.  It may not be entirely secure though as emails are often transmitted in plaintext.  Most gift cards are a credit card style number and a pin. 

If I took a screenshot of the card number and pin and sent it as an image file, would that reduce the risk?

[uhnonamiss]

you could always use simple encryption if your really worried


http://mywhisper.net/

[cypherdoc]

or PGP email.

interesting idea.  let us know if it works.

[uhnonamiss]

or PGP email.

interesting idea.  let us know if it works.

yah i would go with pgp , but it will take slightly longer to set up    although if hes using gyft he could just get the friend to set up gyft and through gyft send him the card it would be in his account within seconds then he could just use the card.

[cypherdoc]

or PGP email.

interesting idea.  let us know if it works.

yah i would go with pgp , but it will take slightly longer to set up    although if hes using gyft he could just get the friend to set up gyft and through gyft send him the card it would be in his account within seconds then he could just use the card.

yep.  this sounds like the best idea.

just buy the gyft card in his name and email.  they could just send it to him directly.

[ruggedman_dan]

Gyft is pretty easy to use. You could even send it to him via Facebook. Or just give him your log in info and let him pull up the gc code himself and use it.

[cypherdoc]

A friend of mine wants to send money home. He is planning on using Western Union, but I would like to offer to do the transaction free of charge by taking his local currency and using bitcoin to buy a Gyft.com Amazon gift card to give to the intended receiver of his funds. So if I buy the gift card and the gift card is sent to my email, will I be able to forward the email to the intended receiver for him to spend? Has anyone done this before?

It should work if the gift card is going to be emailed.  It may not be entirely secure though as emails are often transmitted in plaintext.  Most gift cards are a credit card style number and a pin. 

If I took a screenshot of the card number and pin and sent it as an image file, would that reduce the risk?

i'm no security expert but i did hear the other day that image files are much less likely to be hacked.  not sure why but maybe it's b/c most malware don't hunt for them?