Britcoin / Intersango

[beep]

Just wondering if anybody has any good / bad recent experience with these.

I am looking for an easy way of buying a small amount of bitcoin (£50) with GBP to get me started.

What seems a little odd is that I have to transfer money to a different company (Interteni LTD) which when I look them up find was only incorporated a couple of months ago.

Why would that be?  Britcoin/Intersango has been going longer - why wouldn't I just be transferring money to them to exchange for bitcoins?

Just a bit paranoid after reading about bitcoin7 disappearing, people not being able to get their money out of Tradehill recently. 

What other options are there for converting GBP -> BTC

[jake262144]

What other options are there for converting GBP -> BTC

MtGox, obviously.

[Dinkytoyz]

Intersango is ran by genji and some other who are frequenting the forums here and are more transparant then other exchanges in my opinion so I wouldnt worry to much about them closing shop and leaving with our money.

[beep]

I see from other threads that they have difficulties with their bank - for the 3rd time in a few months.

Also note that other banks have had issues with transferring money to them.

Joining this site and reading more has been a bit of an eye opener.  I think maybe BTCs are more "underground" than I had appreciated.  I kinda got the principal but had presumed it was easy to just exchange money for bitcoins.

MtGox can do it though?  I will take a look.

[jake262144]

Instead of "underground" I'd say "unprecedented".

Yeah, Intersango has had some rough time lately.
The concept of crypto-currencies has been well known and extensively discussed at academic-level. Bitcoin is the first implementation to actually gain traction in the real world.
Some banks have a hard time coming to terms with that, hence the knee-jerk reactions towards exchanges.

Until recently, the internet barely changed things for the banks and credit card institutions, merely allowing them to operate easier and faster.
They well deserve what's coming to them

[codymanix]

If you use the big exchanges like Intersango, Tradehill or MtGox you always have to store (deposit) money on and intermediate bank account first.

If you do not like that and want to deal directly with other users you can use bitmarket.eu instead. You also do not have fees there, but for daily trading it is absolutely overkill since you have to take lots of steps for every trade again and you must trust the users with you deal with.

Also, it is gererally recommended that you transfer your coins/money right after the deal to your local wallet on your pc, so you minimize your risk.

[cyphur]

I have been using Intersango and previously britcoin since it started and its been nothing but great. The couple of times I have had delayed deposits or somesuch, the guys have been extremely friendly and helpful and remedied the situation pretty rapidly.

I prefer it to MTGOX for GBP buys and theres no fees so its a winner in my book

[phantomcircuit]

We've just talked with the bank and confirmed this is a technical glitch.

hopefully this will be resolved soon.