BitMarket.Eu has closed down

[phase]

'Fast' is obviously something very subjective here, fast to me is not "somewhere between 1 to 3 days". If you trade on a real financial exchange, 1 to 3 days delay is a lifetime. Furthermore I don't fancy the idea of refreshing my online banking interface a gazillion times per day to see if that transfer finally came through... With online eWallet services, at least you receive an e-mail notifying you of the incoming transfer.

With Moneybookers it never takes me more than a few hours (waiting for the buyer to respond) to complete a transaction. I don't have the patience to wait around for days to see if the buyer is actually going to buy or not. But, to each his own of course.

But what will happen with sharp price movements within one (or a few) days? I can already feel a bunch of cancellations coming up / buyers backing out, since at that point prices are moving so much faster than the transactions can be settled.

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[miernik]

@ ancow: Welcome
@ BitMarket admins: How would you feel about adding Neteller as a payment option?
@ BitMarket users: And how would the users feel about that, anyone here interested in using Neteller?

It works like Moneybookers, they're also popular with the poker crowd and also offer a prepaid MasterCard 'Net+' (higher ATM fee & FX rate, but no annual usage fee) to access the funds in the account. It does appear to be a bit more 'global' than Moneybookers. I couldn't find much about chargeback issues, looks promising. Lots of funding options for the account too, a lot more than any other system I've seen before.

Person-to-person transfer costs 1.9% min 1 USD - way too much to be much useful.
http://www.neteller.com/fees/

[DannyM]

Person-to-person transfer costs 1.9% min 1 USD - way too much to be much useful.
http://www.neteller.com/fees/

For some situations/amounts/banks, that could be cheaper than the $30-$40 wire transfer fees someone might have to pay.

Paypal costs 1.9% - 2.9% + $0.30 + cross border payment fee + conversion fee.

Some people say "no, paypal personal transfers are free". Well, paypal has cut myself and many others off from receiving "personal transfers" without fees.

Neteller accounts aren't available in the united states though.

[Stefanie Andrea]

I only used Bitmarket.eu for only Paypal 

[phase]

On a sidenote, everyone keeps saying how safe a wire/bank/SEPA transfer is... Paid or not paid, point finale. BUT, it can just as well be reversed! Although it is a tad more elaborate than charging back with Paypal. I first stumbled upon this when someone from Cote d'Ivoire was trying to scam me when I was selling my car, this person wanted to pay by wire transfer so I thought there was no risk of the money being taken back... Luckily, I discovered in time that it can be taken back! The reason for it is very simple, everything depends on the origin of the money that is used to execute the wire transfer.

You don't know how that money was deposited onto the account in question. If it was deposited with a (fraudulent) cheque/check on a previously empty account opened with fraudulent ID, then the bank will request your bank to charge back the transfer, as it was funded with an invalid cheque (thus non-existant funds). Though not very likely, I imagine it could also happen closer to our own beds, when I hear how relaxed banks are in some Eastern-European countries.

[DiamondPlus]

Once the offers are matched, both the seller and the buyer receive emails from admin at bitmarket dot eu asking them to contact each other, so you can be sure he got the message unless our email address is in his spam filter.

We can't allow anyone to cancel their offers manually after the transaction took place, because this way the buyer would have no warranty that they will get their coins in case the seller was going to cheat. You need to email us if you need the transaction cancelled and then we resolve it. I know it's not ideal, but that's the way it is for now.

We are working out the legal issues and once we have everything sorted we will allow transferring money into the exchange, so that the transactions within the exchange are instant. No point in allowing that now and then shutting the exchange down after some tax officer gets onto us. We want to do this right. Also, once we have the legal end of it sorted we are going (more than likely) to act as a limited company with proper terms and conditions so that everyone knows where their money is going.

I was thinking a messaging system within the exchange, but then again, the guy may say he never logged in to read the message so this doesn't really solve the issue.

-DiamondPlus

[Flow]

No matter what we do, Paypal will never be a safe option for selling Bitcoins. The small percentage of the scammers is really using stolen Paypal accounts. But the nicest people in the world and with 100% positive E-Bay feedback proved to be scammers as well and even more often! And there is nothing we can do to stop them, because they use their own Paypal account and tell Paypal the transactions were not authorized by them. What can you do then - how can we prove that they are not right? And of course Paypal doesn't give a damn about sellers, otherwise they would have introduced some OTP mechanism and there would be no stolen passwords then and no excuses for dumb users who cannot guard their passwords properly or simply are thieves. Why don't they do it even though they are one of the biggest money processing companies in the world? I don't know, but that's pathetic and laughable.

First, let me say that PayPal has an OTP mechanism, at least in Germany, where you can sign in via on SMS OTP. And I am pretty sure that it's not just germany where you can do this. They also sold token generators, not sure if they still sell them. But I don't understand why the Paypal scams have to be the problem of the trading site? Why don't you tell your users that there is a high risk if they trade bitcoins against Paypal money? Everyone is free to choose what they accept as payment, including the pros and cons. A rating system will also likely reduce the amount of scam, while it sure can't prevent it entirely.
On the other hand, I don't like Paypal. Because of their handling with wikileaks, because they freeze money for no reasons (there are serveral cases her in germany), because of the cuban export control, because they are a monopolist, because of various other reasons. I try to avoid Paypal where possible and never used it with bitmarket. So I don't really care

Within two months BitMarket is going to be transformed into an exchange operating in a similar exchange as Mt. Gox, where users are able to transfer their money directly to us and then trade safely. There will also be a much more advanced login procedure in place (2-step authentication). BitMarket will also become an Irish limited company accepting: EUR, GBP, PLN, USD and CHF. There will also be small fees for using it; however, for our most loyal users that have been supporting us constantly trading will remain free of charge.

I'm an neutral on the first changes. But introducing a fee and excluding "the most loyal users" is plain wrong. You give gifts to the high volume traders who already make some money with the trading and scare away the low volume/one time traders, which are the clients of the high volume traders. How is this fair?
There are two primary reasons I use bitmarket to trade a low amount once in a while:

• I can use SEPA\local wire transfers
• It's free of charge

Please exclude at least SEPA/local wire transfer from the fees or keep the fees here at a minimum.

EDIT: When I get around to it I will post all email addresses that were used to scam people.

I also don't think that this is a good idea, because the accounts could be taken back by their owners giving them a bad reputation. It would be better to introduce a rating system.

Flow

[ancow]

But I don't understand why the Paypal scams are have to be the problem of the trading site? Why don't you tell your users that there is a high risk if they trade bitcoins against Paypal money? Everyone is free to choose what they accept as payment, including the pros and cons.

If you read the thread carefully, you'll notice that Mahkul mentioned that the scams were flooding their support system. Since they're free, they can't just throw money at the problem to make it go away...
It isn't ideal, but until they get the rating system implemented, this is probably the best solution.

[vv01f]

But I don't understand why the Paypal scams are have to be the problem of the trading site?

e.g. because of escrow service I'd say
and customers make their problems to the problems if traders all time... so avoiding them is a good way out

..also paypal is a competitor to bitcoin in many minds here

[miernik]

Anything that goes by the name "Sparkasse". I don't know about more expensive accounts, but basic ones tend to need three days, no matter where the transfer goes. (Obviously individual branches may have different rules, but most of them stick to the three-day-transfer rule, as that's how they make their money.)
As far as I know, most "common" banks (Volksbanken, Sparkassen, Landesbanken, ...) take that long. That's been my experience with incoming local transfers, anyway. Since I can't tell which bank the money came from, I don't know any more details, I'm afraid.

Between my accounts (and these are "common" Sparkassen/Landesbanken banks), if ordered before 19:50, they arrive in the other bank next day before 09:10, contrary to what other people say that they take 3 days. So I am interested in figuring out where exactly those mysterious transfers which hide in a black hole for 3 days come from, because I haven't witnessed one so far. Of course if someone orders a transfer on Monday at 21:00 and checks the other bank on Wednesday at 06:30, the transfer won't be there, and he might say "oh look, it takes three days - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday", but sorry, that's just not counting the days properly, and not knowing that for the bank, after cut-off time is like already next day, so that doesn't count.

[miernik]

You don't know how that money was deposited onto the account in question. If it was deposited with a (fraudulent) cheque/check on a previously empty account opened with fraudulent ID, then the bank will request your bank to charge back the transfer, as it was funded with an invalid cheque (thus non-existant funds). Though not very likely, I imagine it could also happen closer to our own beds, when I hear how relaxed banks are in some Eastern-European countries.

This won't happen in Eastern-European countries for the very simple reason, that in most accounts there you can't deposit a check, and in those you can, the bank will put the money in your account only after several weeks after you give them the check, during which they will actually receive the money from the bank which issued the check, and only after that happens, they'll credit your account. So you can't deposit a fraudulent check and then transfer the money to someone.

Anyway its hard to believe that anywhere a wire can be reversed because it came from an account where a fraudulent check was deposited. Where did you get such advice from? Are you sure the person who told you this, really fully knows what he is talking about?

I'd imagine in such situation, the bank where the fraudulent check was deposited would have to try to trace the person who deposited it, and if they can't find him, the bank would have to eat the loss. No way I can imagine that someone else can get money from his account grabbed just because he happened to receive a transfer from that account. If that would happen here, he could sue the bank, and would win in any court. At least any European court.

Also: why would the fraudster wire the money from the check to someone, if it would be much simpler for him just to withdraw it from the account in cash and walk away with the cash? If he can make a wire, he can as well just withdraw it. So the story doesn't make sense to me.

[phase]

It's been a couple of years so I can't recall exactly where I found out about this, but even online car auction sites mention that one should beware for foreign money transfers, so there must be some truth to it and it must have happened before.

[miernik]

It's been a couple of years so I can't recall exactly where I found out about this, but even online car auction sites mention that one should beware for foreign money transfers, so there must be some truth to it and it must have happened before.

But maybe it was warning against something like the buyer sending a scan of some confirmation of sending the transfer, and tricking the seller into releasing the good just based on that confirmation of the wire, which of course can be forged. Anyway I never seen a car website warning against INCOMING wire transfer risk for the seller.

I tried to Google "wire transfer scam", and I found this: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum22/3377.htm which is a long discussion which concludes that its safe and there are no reversals.

About warnings for online car sellers I found this: http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/consumerprotection/scamnet/Scams/Online_car_sales_sca.html
which is only about accepting Paypal, including the buyer sending more then the price of the item by Paypal, and requesting the seller to send back the rest by wire transfer - so then the buyer will reverse the Paypal, and the seller... won't be able to reverse the wire.

I'm reasonably confident that a wire which appeared in my bank account will not disappear from there and would accept such payment for Bitcoins from a stranger without fear, perhaps waiting three days to make sure the bank doesn't contact me about something strange if the transfer was especially large, like several thousand dollars.

[phase]

No, I was very surprised that it is even possible, and I remember explicitly reading that this is the way it works: An account is opened with forged/fake/stolen ID, stolen/fake cheques are deposited and these funds are then used to make wire transfers. There are banks that deposit cheque funds immediately with a later value date, and they always reserve the right to debit the account in the event that the cheque is fraudulent, indefinitely. If they can't find the actual account owner, it wouldn't surprise me that they will request the money back from the target bank. True, since SEPA entered into action, the bank is always responsible unless the client was severely negligent, so chances of it still happening these days and in the EU... Just pointing out that it's not holy.

Btw, there are still a bunch of buy orders with Paypal only cluttering up the orderbook, some even without payment option, is it possible to remove these?

[miernik]

No, I was very surprised that it is even possible, and I remember explicitly reading that this is the way it works: An account is opened with forged/fake/stolen ID, stolen/fake cheques are deposited and these funds are then used to make wire transfers. There are banks that deposit cheque funds immediately with a later value date, and they always reserve the right to debit the account in the event that the cheque is fraudulent, indefinitely. If they can't find the actual account owner, it wouldn't surprise me that they will request the money back from the target bank.

Again: why would the scammer wire the funds anywhere, instead of just withdrawing it from the account in cash?

I am not talking about cashing the cheque - I am talking about depositing the cheque into the account, and then withdrawing the cash from the account. If the bank will allow a wire, they will allow to withdraw too. Funds on the account are either available or unavailable, they can't be just available for wire, but not available to withdraw - that wouldn't make any sense, and I never seen a situation like that. So the whole story doesn't make sense, as its much simpler for the scammer just to withdraw the cash from the account.

Anyway if forged cheques are deposited on the account, that's just the risk of the bank which carelessly accepted such deposit, and that bank will have to eat the loss - nobody else. Or maybe the employee who accepted the cheque. The bank might contact the bank receiving the wire to ask the receiver of the wire some questions, which might help him finding the person who deposited the cheque, buy they'd have to sue me and prove in court that I was the person who deposited the cheque or acted in cooperation with him with prior knowledge that I was willingly participating in a scam. That's what can happen. But money from the wire just disappearing from the account? Any bank which would do that could be sued by the account holder and I'm confident the customer would win, unless the bank has some proof I was knowingly involved in the scam, for example a video recording of me depositing the forged cheque at the other bank.

[phase]

I don't know my dear friend, even though you may think I invented this... I just read it somewhere that this kind of thing is possible, since 2 years ago I was utmost suspicious of some Cote d'Ivoire'ian who wanted to *wire* me through 3000 EUR for a car barely worth half that... (Yes, to my bank account). Why don't you ask the scammers in Africa? I'm sure they are more knowledgeable on the subject... But according to your logic: Why are scammers active at all on the car market? I mean, they could just deposit all of their stolen cheques on a 'fakename' bank account and then cash it/withdraw it before they discover the fake/hijacked ID used to open the account, right? Maybe the banks would recognize their face after showing up for the gazillionth time, and there are only so many banks in the neighborhood?

Btw2: How about those invalid orders clogging up the orderbook?

[miernik]

I don't know my dear friend, even though you may think I invented this shit, I just read it somewhere that this is possible, because 2 years ago I was utmost suspicious of some Cote d'Ivoire'ian who wanted to *wire* me through 3000 EUR for a car barely worth half that... (Yes, to my bank account).

I'm pretty sure, that if you agreed to the deal, he wouldn't really send you a wire. He'd send you a faked scan of confirmation of sending a wire, and try to make you release the goods based just on that fake JPG/PDF or something like that. A wire would never appear on your account.

[phase]

I'm pretty sure, that if you agreed to the deal, he wouldn't really send you a wire. He'd send you a faked scan of confirmation of sending a wire, and try to make you release the goods based just on that fake JPG/PDF or something like that. A wire would never appear on your account.

Excellent call. But that doesn't change the fact that I clearly remember reading about this very technique on a car auction site. Belgian car auction sites warn for foreign money transfers to this day, though they don't clearly state why. But please, as I've said several times already, I'm merely reproducing info that I read on some anti-fraud site a couple of years ago. What you think of it, well that's up to you.

[Jokah]

I'm hoping some here could help me.

I'm looking to make my first BTC sale on Bitcoin market. I have been verified and have deposited 30 BTC into my account. I am ready to make an offer but there is one thing I am unsure of.

What do I do about my payment details/bank details?

Am I supposed to put my banks name and my account number in the the following section in my account page "Message sent when someone buys your BTC". Or do I create the offer and then send my details once my offer has been accepted?

[miernik]

What do I do about my payment details/bank details?

Am I supposed to put my banks name and my account number in the the following section in my account page "Message sent when someone buys your BTC". Or do I create the offer and then send my details once my offer has been accepted?

Of course your put your account number in the "Message sent when someone buys your BTC". I have there (below the standard text "Please pay {TOTAL} ...":

Account owner:
Firstname Lastname

Bank IBAN (with spaces):
XX 11 2222 3333 0000 0000 5555 9999

Bank IBAN (without spaces):
XX11222233330000000055559999

BIC (bank SWIFT code):
XXXXAAZZ

Bank name:
MY BANK NAME



I repeat the IBAN account number both with spaces and without, first version is easier for people who type it in by hand, second is easier for people who select, cut & paste it.