[RESOLVED] MyBitcoin problem

[hippich]

Update 3/31/2011

Resolved issue by creating throw away account at mybitcoin.com and contacting support via their internal messaging system. Their email did not work so far. So if you need to contact them, best chances is to contact through their internal messaging system.

Original:
=======================================================
I decided to try BiddingPond once and won some item. Proceed to payment page and clicked "Pay with MyBitcoin" button. Followed instructions on MyBitcoin.com gateway to pay for item and after successful payment got 404 Error on biddingpond website.

Payment was lost and then I found that there is "NOT WORK YET" across MyBitcoin pay button on biddingpond.com website. Yes, I agree - this is my fault, but this is something that could be easily fixed, since there should be tracks of this payment.

So to fix this issue and finally pay seller I wrote to biddingpond.com support. They told me they did not receive payment at all and contacted MyBitcoin.com for transaction reversal. No answer for several days.

I wrote directly to MyBitcoin.com with the same question and info - no response so far.

here is log of transaction from my side:

pavel@MS-7593:~/miners/poclbm$ bitcoind sendtoaddress 1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv 12
4296cda25f6a009c1fe0087578b4ff6b558e7a8442da11e63488d73a4a2f9ec6

So my questions is - who is the owner of MyBitcoin.com. So far I was not able to find out who is behind this service, but for some reason a lot of merchants and users feel safe about it.

And I believe biddingpond.com stuff should remove all non working functions from their website leading to lost payments too.

[jgarzik]

I have no clue what is wrong with the biddingpond folks, but I have been bugging them for a simple, working payment method for well over six months...

MyBitcoin people usually respond to my support emails within 2-3 days.

[hippich]

I have no clue what is wrong with the biddingpond folks, but I have been bugging them for a simple, working payment method for well over six months...

MyBitcoin people usually respond to my support emails within 2-3 days.

I sent email to mybitcoin guys 5 days ago. That's a reason for this post.

[hippich]

From this http://blockexplorer.com/address/1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv I can see that money was received and then sent somewhere else...

[jgarzik]

From this http://blockexplorer.com/address/1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv I can see that money was received and then sent somewhere else...

FWIW that may be an automated transfer, so I wouldn't build any assumptions from that.

[hippich]

Ok. So I went through block chain and found "final recipient" address with a lot of transactions http://blockexplorer.com/address/1PWQqkQMvZgNzk81hv46bxFuqkmMErMbbx . Not sure if this is mybitcoin address, or biddingpond or someones else. Do anyone have this address in their address book may be?

[theymos]

The address will belong to some random person who uses MyBitcoin. It's not helpful to follow it.

[semyazza]

Regarding the situation in this post by Hippich:

Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:11 PM
BiddingPond was notified of a situation in which a user stated that they (disregarded)/(did not see) the do not use this feature message.

Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:39 PM
BiddingPond responded to the user notifying them that they would contact mybitcoin.com to see if they received the transaction and could handle the situation.

Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:54 PM
Contacted mybitcoin.com about a couple of account issues we have been having regarding access to mybitcoin.com account as well as this issue.

Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:52 PM
BiddingPond Was sent information about a bitcoin transaction that does not belong to the biddingpond.com wallet and has no way of confirming if payment was indeed sent.
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv

With the suggestion that we remove the link completely instead of placing in bold before the submit button not to use the payment feature .

Tue, Mar 8 about an hour after suggestion
All non-functioning payment methods removed and a message stating to contact the seller placed on the site.  It should be noted that over 100 auctions have closed since the payment methods were non-functional and this is the only situation that has been reported.  This is also the reason why it was not changed as there have been no issues, complaints, and/or suggestions to change it.

Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 9:06 AM
BiddingPond contacted about the status of the situation

Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 10:24 PM

BiddingPond responds regarding status of the situation.


With Regard to mybitcoin.com:
No Response from mybitcoin.com . We have been trying to resolve an account related issues with them since:
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:15:56

We used the contact information available on their website. We sent both an encrypted(PGP) and unencrypted message to them.

I have no clue what is wrong with the biddingpond folks, but I have been bugging them for a simple, working payment method for well over six months...

MyBitcoin people usually respond to my support emails within 2-3 days.

Time had been the biggest constraint for implementation of a stable and secure payment method. We originally were going to use an outside payment processor(Mybitcoin SCI, mtgox, etc.) but trust became an issue.  Specifically, we do not trust anyone to handle payments on behalf of our customers besides us and the customer themselves.

Also, a payment procedure that people would like to use, that is better than just listing a payment address in an auction, and is as convenient had to be though of and tested.
The BiddingPond development site has solved that problem.  All auctions will have their own bitcoin addresses auto-generated.  If the seller provides a forwarding address, payment will be immediately forwarded to their address after 5 confirmations.  

If the seller does not provide an address, Bitcoins will be held in a wallet that can be withdrawn at a later date and/or transfered to another user.

We also DO NOT REQUIRE the seller to only accept payment this way as people have varying levels of trust and we also do not wish to interfere with how buyers and sellers wish to pay for their items.  If the seller would like to include different payment instructions in the listing they may do so.  This feature make payment tracking easier though as it will auto mark items as paid after 5 confirmations are received.

The biddingpond development site is scheduled to go live on 03/25/2011 notification has been given on the site here:
http://biddingpond.com/viewnew.php?id=5


Back to Hippich Situation:
Even though payment methods were clearly marked do not use and we have no way of confirming that payment was ever even sent to BiddingPond or that this situation is even legitimate(we do believe it is and DO trust Hippich).

As an act of good faith, and the fact that we do consider Hippich as a trusted community member, we are willing to reimburse hippich 50% of the lost bitcoins and give him a 300% listing credit on the website.  If and when mybitcoin.com resolves the issue on their end we will send the remaining 50%.

As always BiddingPond strives to provide the best customer service possible.  Most questions and concerns are answered within 48 hours of receipt.  If you do have a problem we ask that you contact us at contact@biddingpond.com .  We request that you contact us first before posting in the forums and that you allow us to resolve the situation to your liking.  Not doing this causes us to have to perform double the work to resolve the issue as we then have to make multiple responses and handle additional inquires.

[hippich]

To make it clear - support  from biddingpond was very prompt. (edited header, to make sure there is no misunderstandings). And no need for reimburse or something like this - this is my fault.

But still question about credibility of someone who stands behind MyBitcoin.com. As I understand there is no even user on this forum registered who is connected with mybitcoin.com. So trust for mybitcoin service is very and very questionable. This can backfire, since for all new members mybitcoin.com is offered as easy and trustly service to store their coins...

[idev]

To make it clear - support  from biddingpond was very prompt. (edited header, to make sure there is no misunderstandings). And no need for reimburse or something like this - this is my fault.

But still question about credibility of someone who stands behind MyBitcoin.com. As I understand there is no even user on this forum registered who is connected with mybitcoin.com. So trust for mybitcoin service is very and very questionable. This can backfire, since for all new members mybitcoin.com is offered as easy and trustly service to store their coins...

I have been in touch with Mybitcoin twice but it did take
quite of bit of time to get a reply back from someone there.

[Stephen Gornick]

here is log of transaction from my side:

pavel@MS-7593:~/miners/poclbm$ bitcoind sendtoaddress 1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv 12
4296cda25f6a009c1fe0087578b4ff6b558e7a8442da11e63488d73a4a2f9ec6

I'm not sure I follow.  If I understand this correctly, I'm assuming that you read somewhere that you were to remit 12 BTC to this address?
  1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv

That doesn't appear to be a MyBitcoin address however.  I believe I can detect that by sending a transaction for an amount less than 0.01 from my account with MyBitcoin to that address.

If MyBitcoin accepts that transaction, then I know the target address is an address for another account within MyBitcoin.  If instead I get the error message "Payment amount is too small for a Bitcoin P2P payment!" then the transaction won't happen and I know the target address is for some wallet outside of MyBitcoin.

I tried sending 0.001 to 1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv and got the error.  So it appears that address is not a MyBitcoin address.  

I could be mistaken however, as maybe MyBitcoin uses a different wallet for their SCI payments and thus the transaction uses the Bitcoin network.

Would you remember the source where you learned of the address: 1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv ?
[edited for clarity]

[hippich]

I used their gateway and they showed me this address once I entered captcha. I believe they use one address per one payment for identification purposes.

[theymos]

I tried sending 0.001 to 1FcPBRy8JY5tTbG39hDHkubqTU82kN28cv and got the error.  So it appears that address is not a MyBitcoin address. 

Micro-payments are possible through MyBitcoin because they keep a separate database for account balances. Since that address was created for the merchant interface, it does not belong to a MyBitcoin account, and sub-cent payments will fail regardless of whether the same wallet is used.

[Cryptoman]

I had some issues with Mybitcoin.com about a month ago and never got a reply to my email.  I realize it is a free service, and you get what you pay for, but yet I still see people on this forum recommending them to merchants.  They either need to get their act together (and start charging fees if necessary to make it worth their while), or we need another, similar service.

[BioMike]

Didn't MtGox have a similar service?

[hippich]

still no answer from mybitcoin guys =/

[mizerydearia]

well, there goes my interest in asking MyBitcoin to participate in the charity system I established...

[gsnetwork]

Have not had any payment issues but whenever I had questions (SCI programming related), I email the support and don't hear from them for almost a week or so.

[Intermediary]

Join the club.  Expect nothing from mybitcoin.  I emailed them on the 9th of March and got this back 10 days later:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  mybitcoin@i2pmail.org
    SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>:
    host b.mx.i2pmail.org [188.40.181.33]: 450 4.2.0 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>:
    Recipient address rejected: Greylisted, see http://postgrey.schweikert.ch/help/i2pmail.org.html:
    retry timeout exceeded

I think I'll just close my account with them.  If they can't run their email accounts, then why trust them with money transactions?

Have not had any payment issues but whenever I had questions (SCI programming related), I email the support and don't hear from them for almost a week or so.

[kseistrup]

Join the club.  Expect nothing from mybitcoin.  I emailed them on the 9th of March and got this back 10 days later:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  mybitcoin@i2pmail.org
    SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>:
    host b.mx.i2pmail.org [188.40.181.33]: 450 4.2.0 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>:
    Recipient address rejected: Greylisted, see http://postgrey.schweikert.ch/help/i2pmail.org.html:
    retry timeout exceeded

Which smtp-server did you send your email through?  The 450 answer above is not a permanent error, it's a temporary one.  If the smtp-server you're sending through has a lot of different outgoing IP addresses, it may never get through the greylisting barrier.

I tried talking directly to i2pmail.org's MX (“>>>” is me, “<<<” is them):

Code:

# i2pmail.org is handled (pri=1): a.mx.i2pmail.org
# i2pmail.org is handled (pri=1): b.mx.i2pmail.org
# Connecting to: a.mx.i2pmail.org.
# Connected to : a.mx.i2pmail.org.
<<< 220 b.mx.i2pmail.org ESMTP (Postfix MTA)
>>> HELO dude
<<< 250 b.mx.i2pmail.org
>>> MAIL FROM:<>
<<< 250 Ok
>>> RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>
<<< 450 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted for 300 seconds
>>> RSET
<<< 250 Ok
>>> MAIL FROM:<postmaster@example.com>
<<< 250 Ok
>>> RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>
<<< 450 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted for 300 seconds
>>> RSET
<<< 250 Ok
>>> QUIT
<<< 221 Bye
# Connecting to: b.mx.i2pmail.org.
# Connected to : b.mx.i2pmail.org.
<<< 220 gandalf.srv.welterde.de ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)
>>> HELO dude
<<< 250 gandalf.srv.welterde.de
>>> MAIL FROM:<>
<<< 250 2.1.0 Ok
>>> RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>
<<< 450 4.2.0 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted, see http://postgrey.schweikert.ch/help/i2pmail.org.html
>>> RSET
<<< 250 2.0.0 Ok
>>> MAIL FROM:<postmaster@example.com>
<<< 250 2.1.0 Ok
>>> RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>
<<< 450 4.2.0 <mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>: Recipient address rejected: Greylisted, see http://postgrey.schweikert.ch/help/i2pmail.org.html
>>> RSET
<<< 250 2.0.0 Ok
>>> QUIT
<<< 221 2.0.0 Bye

Ok, so I waited 300 seconds and tried again:

Code:

# i2pmail.org is handled (pri=1): a.mx.i2pmail.org
# i2pmail.org is handled (pri=1): b.mx.i2pmail.org
# Connecting to: a.mx.i2pmail.org.
# Connected to : a.mx.i2pmail.org.
<<< 220 b.mx.i2pmail.org ESMTP (Postfix MTA)
>>> HELO dude
<<< 250 b.mx.i2pmail.org
>>> MAIL FROM:<>
<<< 250 Ok
>>> RCPT TO:<mybitcoin@i2pmail.org>
<<< 250 Ok
>>> RSET
<<< 250 Ok
>>> QUIT
<<< 221 Bye

And since I'm no longer greylisted, everything's cool — the temporary error has disappeared.  That said, I didn't send an actual email to mybitcoin@i2pmail.org — all I did was testing if i2pmail.org's MXes would accept an email.

Cheers,