CoinCard - Buying Amazon $ and gift cards with Bitcoin

[mndrix]

CoinCard now has an API.  It lets you programmatically place orders for converting your Bitcoins into gift cards or PayPal payments.  See the documentation for more details.

Thanks for suggestions all the suggestions offered above.  I'll add some features and gift cards as time permits.

[mndrix]

A customer sold a large batch of Bitcoins through CoinCard last night but entered an invalid email address for his PayPal account.  Emails to the customer bounce and PayPal reports the payment as unclaimed.  I was curious what happens in this case, so I thought I'd post it here in case others are interested too.

PayPal holds the Mass Pay payment for 30 days.  If it remains unclaimed after that time, the money is refunded to the payer.  Of course, once that happens, I'll resend the payment to the rightful owner, but there's nothing I can do until then.

This highlights one more way in which Bitcoin is superior to other payment methods: one can easily verify that a recipient's address is valid before sending payment.

[Syke]

I have an Amazon Prime membership. An Amazon card would be really nice option.

[theGECK]

A customer sold a large batch of Bitcoins through CoinCard last night but entered an invalid email address for his PayPal account.  Emails to the customer bounce and PayPal reports the payment as unclaimed.  I was curious what happens in this case, so I thought I'd post it here in case others are interested too.

PayPal holds the Mass Pay payment for 30 days.  If it remains unclaimed after that time, the money is refunded to the payer.  Of course, once that happens, I'll resend the payment to the rightful owner, but there's nothing I can do until then.

This highlights one more way in which Bitcoin is superior to other payment methods: one can easily verify that a recipient's address is valid before sending payment.

How does one go about verifying that the address is valid?

[mndrix]

How does one go about verifying that the address is valid?

The Bitcoin JSON API provides the `validateaddress` method which you can use from the command line like this:

Code:

$ bitcoin validateaddress 1J4ymLi5tVSutKQqGqXjM4rTahryKaU171
{
    "isvalid" : true,
    "address" : "1J4ymLi5tVSutKQqGqXjM4rTahryKaU171",
    "ismine" : true,
    "account" : ""
}

Of course, this doesn't prove that the address belongs to anyone in particular

[theGECK]

How does one go about verifying that the address is valid?

The Bitcoin JSON API provides the `validateaddress` method which you can use from the command line like this:

Code:

$ bitcoin validateaddress 1J4ymLi5tVSutKQqGqXjM4rTahryKaU171
{
    "isvalid" : true,
    "address" : "1J4ymLi5tVSutKQqGqXjM4rTahryKaU171",
    "ismine" : true,
    "account" : ""
}

Of course, this doesn't prove that the belongs to anyone in particular

Ah, so it isn't something that anybody could easily do to make sure they didn't type in an address that was not valid.

[theymos]

Ah, so it isn't something that anybody could easily do to make sure they didn't type in an address that was not valid.

You can use this to do the same thing:
http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress

[error]

Ah, so it isn't something that anybody could easily do to make sure they didn't type in an address that was not valid.

You can use this to do the same thing:
http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress

Yes, anybody can do this, and any halfway decent Bitcoin service will already do it.

This particular case was someone who entered an incorrect PayPal address, not an incorrect Bitcoin address.

[mndrix]

I've updated the API so that it includes error codes along with the error messages.  This should make it easier for your code to handle errors without having to parse English

[mndrix]

I've finished preliminary support for buying Newegg gift cards through CoinCard.  The biggest problem is that Newegg takes 24-48 hours to process the gift cards on their side before emailing the gift card code to the buyer.

For those of you interested in Newegg, would you still buy the gift cards even with this delay?

[MDKing]

I've finished preliminary support for buying Newegg gift cards through CoinCard.  The biggest problem is that Newegg takes 24-48 hours to process the gift cards on their side before emailing the gift card code to the buyer.

For those of you interested in Newegg, would you still buy the gift cards even with this delay?

Is there an option for Newegg Canada or is it strictly gift cards for Newegg US?

[Littleshop]

I've finished preliminary support for buying Newegg gift cards through CoinCard.  The biggest problem is that Newegg takes 24-48 hours to process the gift cards on their side before emailing the gift card code to the buyer.

For those of you interested in Newegg, would you still buy the gift cards even with this delay?

Yes, the delay sucks but cutting out paypal would be great!  I would use the newegg option.

[mndrix]

Is there an option for Newegg Canada or is it strictly gift cards for Newegg US?

The cards can only be used for Newegg US.  At least that's what I understand from reading the terms of service on the test cards I've purchased.

[mndrix]

Response so far has been positive both here and in OTC, so I'll proceed with the final implementation details for Newegg.  Thanks for the feedback!

[jkminkov]

can I make them ship goods outside US with those cards

[MDKing]

Is there an option for Newegg Canada or is it strictly gift cards for Newegg US?

The cards can only be used for Newegg US.  At least that's what I understand from reading the terms of service on the test cards I've purchased.

Yes that's correct. Even Newegg Canada has a separate Canadian giftcard center available here, https://secure.newegg.ca/GiftCertificate/GiftCardStep1.aspx

Do you think CoinCard could support both US and Canadian cards?

[mndrix]

Do you think CoinCard could support both US and Canadian cards?

Without looking into it at all, it should be able to support Newegg Canada.  I'll see how popular Newegg US gift cards first.

[jgarzik]

Feature request:  "sendmany" for CoinCard.

[Tycho]'s use of coincard's paypal API is pretty neat, and I was thinking of doing something similar.  However, if I have a queue of paypal payments to make, it would be much more useful to send a single, large BTC transaction to coincard, and specify multiple (address, amount) pairs for paypal recipients.

Bonus points if this can be done entirely via JSON  

[nster]

Feature request:  "sendmany" for CoinCard.

[Tycho]'s use of coincard's paypal API is pretty neat, and I was thinking of doing something similar.  However, if I have a queue of paypal payments to make, it would be much more useful to send a single BTC transaction to coincard, and specify multiple (email address, amount) pairs for paypal recipients.

Bonus points if this can be done entirely via JSON 

off-topic, but when you had 1337 posts, it changed to Leet lol

[mndrix]

Feature request:  "sendmany" for CoinCard.

That's a good idea.  I'll think about how to implement it on my side.  The PayPal API supports it since Mass Pay is designed for creating one transaction that sends to many recipients.

One side effect could be lower PayPal payouts for "sendmany" customers.  Since I determine the exchange rate based on market depth, a large CoinCard order combined with thin Mt Gox bids could produce a lower exchange rate than placing several small orders spaced 15 minutes apart (giving bots time to fill in the order book again).