[ANN] SMS2BTC.CO.UK: Purchase BTC instantly with SMS in the UK

[Herodes]

Dear community,

we're pleased to announce the availability of a mobile payment option at bitcoinmarket24.com.
We offer up to 55% cheaper prices than our competitors. The mobile payment feature works
with O2, Orange, Three, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone for the UK market.

Currently we are offering two different Coin Packs, the 5GBP Pack and the 10GBP Pack.

As a precaution, five purchase slots will be available pr. hour for the starting phase of this service.

Once payment is done with your cell phone by sending an SMS as described on the payment page,
delivery is instant to your bitcoin address.


To check out our new payment feature, please visit

https://bitcoinmarket24.com/BuyBitcoinsForSMS/

Sincerely,
The Bitcoinmarket24.com crew

[1713563310]

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[1713563310]

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[Herodes]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I'd just like to say thank you to the customers that already made purchases from us with the mobile payment feature.

For a limited offering, the following campaign will be run:

If you purchase one of our coinpacks within the next 7 days (until March 6th), you will receive a manual payout matching your purchase, so with the current prices of 5GBP for 0.78 BTC and 10GBP for 1.55 BTC (prices changes dynamically depending on market conditions), if you order say 1.55BTC for 10GBP, you will get an additional 1.55BTC paid to the same address that came with your order.

This campaign is limited to the first 5 customers.

Rules are:

1. Go to http://sms2btc.co.uk
2. Purchase one of the coinpacks (5GBP or 10GBP pack)
3. Make proof of the purchase, either through a PM to me, or as a post in this thread. Sufficient as a proof would be any information connected to your purchase, like the Order ID for the purchase,the BTC address for the payout or any other snippet of information that could uniquely identify your purchase. If I would need any additional information, I will ask about it.
4. Claim the bonus in this thread.
5. This is an introductory campaign, and it's limited to one bonus payout pr. customer.
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[realnowhereman]

This is an excellent idea for a service, but I think you should calculate the deal price for the customer so they know what premium they are paying for using mobile.

For example at time of writing

Code:

Pack01: £5.00 buys 0.78 BTC
Pack02: £10.00 buys 1.55 BTC

It would be nicer for the user if they could see the comparison numbers (Pack01, £6.41 per BTC; Pack02: £6.45 per BTC; Intersango.ASK = 3.28 per BTC).

Incidentally: it's a bit weird that it's cheaper to buy two £5 packs than one £10 pack, is that right?

[Herodes]

Thanks for the interest in our service realnowhereman. Your feedback is duly noted.

[Herodes]

Thanks for the interest in our service realnowhereman. Your feedback is duly noted.

A bit late update here, just wanted to let you know that the promotion period is now over.

We think we're still offering the best prices for SMS 2 BTC, so check us out here:

http://sms2btc.co.uk

[realnowhereman]

Amazing.  In all that time you couldn't have implemented PRICE divided by COINS display?

And still it's cheaper to buy two £5.00 packs than one £10 pack.

Here; I'll help your programmer...

0.79 BTC for £5.00 = £6.32911 per coin  (you see, I divided the price, £5 by the number of coins, 0.79)

1.57 BTC for £10.00 = £6.36942 per coin (that's 10 divided by 1.57)

Note that £6.36 is bigger than £6.32.  That means the price per coin is higher when you buy more of them.  I wonder, given that fact, how many £10 pack sales you're getting.



Actually, I doubt you're getting many sales at all; current Intersango price is 3.32 per coin.  Your markup is therefore £3 per coin.  I'm sure some people would be willing to pay a certain premium for the convenience of an SMS service, but a near 100% markup is excessive I think.

My suggestions then (not that I've got any say in anything you do):

• Lower your markup from 100%
• Show the price per coin, rather than the price per pack so the customer knows what they are buying
• Get the bulk discount the right way around... the price per coin should be lower for someone buying £10 worth instead of £5 worth

This is meant in the spirit of helpfulness.  I would like to see bitcoin businesses succeed.

[MacRohard]

[snip]
Actually, I doubt you're getting many sales at all; current Intersango price is 3.32 per coin.  Your markup is therefore £3 per coin.  I'm sure some people would be willing to pay a certain premium for the convenience of an SMS service, but a near 100% markup is excessive I think.

My suggestions then (not that I've got any say in anything you do):

• Lower your markup from 100%

This is meant in the spirit of helpfulness.  I would like to see bitcoin businesses succeed.

The phone companies charge very high transaction fees for SMS payments.. usually 40% to 50%.. there's no way to make it cheaper using this technology - unless the telcos slash their prices.

[Herodes]

The phone companies charge very high transaction fees for SMS payments.. usually 40% to 50%.. there's no way to make it cheaper using this technology - unless the telcos slash their prices.

Yes, unfortunately the phone companies charge high fees. Let's hope these fees decrease in the future, making mobile payments not only a quick and easy solution, but also a cheaper solution.

[realnowhereman]

[snip]
Actually, I doubt you're getting many sales at all; current Intersango price is 3.32 per coin.  Your markup is therefore £3 per coin.  I'm sure some people would be willing to pay a certain premium for the convenience of an SMS service, but a near 100% markup is excessive I think.

My suggestions then (not that I've got any say in anything you do):

• Lower your markup from 100%

This is meant in the spirit of helpfulness.  I would like to see bitcoin businesses succeed.

The phone companies charge very high transaction fees for SMS payments.. usually 40% to 50%.. there's no way to make it cheaper using this technology - unless the telcos slash their prices.

If you say so; I don't know anything about the business. (but http://www.textvertising.co.uk/sms-services/sms-competitions/text-raffles.htm is interesting: £20 a month)

It seems odd though; as what you say would suggest that every premium text service should cost more than £3.00.  From memory, I've never seen one that cost more than £1 per text.  I would therefore have reasoned that your service should be "price of bitcoins + £1 + VAT" (I'm almost certain you'd have to sell the coins with VAT).  It also seems odd that the markup is in bitcoins, not in pounds.  If the phone company is charging you X for the £5 pack; why is it charging you 2X for the £10 pack?

However, if that is the case, can I suggest you state that the high fees are the phone companies fault.  People will be a lot more forgiving of your high prices if they see that you are being shafted by the phone company as much as they are.

[Herodes]

We have with immediate effect lowered our prices for SMS purchases with ~6%.

I'm afraid that buying bitcoins with SMS can't be done with no fees or very low fees for a long time to come. In most countries the telephone companies charge high fees for delivering this service. So if any company wanted to deliver a SMS 2 BTC service that had no overhead, they'd need to subsidize the sales.

As for VAT, when a purchase is done, a receipt is available with all details, just select 'Show my receipt' from the page that loads after payment has been done. Our service follows standard rules in regards to VAT.

So basically, SMS purchase of bitcoin would be ideal in the event you would need a smaller amount of coins very quickly. The delivery is immediate upon receiving the payment.

In the event anyone finds a cheaper service for buying bitcoins over SMS in the UK, let me know, as I'm not aware of any lower priced services at the moment.

http://sms2btc.co.uk/

[zerokwel]

something broke ?. Thought I would give it a go (dont pay my mobile bill anyway).

entered text the code to the number but will not let you click continue. also never got any reply texts to say I was charged.

[Herodes]

something broke ?. Thought I would give it a go (dont pay my mobile bill anyway).

entered text the code to the number but will not let you click continue. also never got any reply texts to say I was charged.

Hi Zerokwel,

thanks for your feedback. The service have been tested not long ago, and everything worked fine then. To find out what
happened in your particular case, I'd need to talk with you. I've send you a pm, so I hope we can get to the bottom of this.

Thanks for notifying us.

If there's anything wrong with the service, I will get back to it in this thread, so everyone can see that we're working to
fix the issue.

[Herodes]

First off, I will just say thank you to Zerkowel for bringing this problem to our attention. I sent him 1 BTC as a thank you (TxID: ca3d7535cb9c34293bbfd596dcfda67b5749338d71e74b2c9ad67a0b44438a3d).

Lately we've had lot's of orders stuck at 'pending' so I asked for it to be tested, and the test showed that the problem is that the text that's supposed to be sent to the payment provider
has changed. It used to be Text PAYNOW-XXXX to NNNNNNNNNNN but it was changed to Text XXXX to NNNNNNNNNNN. Since we receive this data from a payment processor,
we didn't spot this error until zerokwel made us aware of it.

Immediately upon learning about the issue, I asked for a test to be issued on our side, and the test was, just as Zerkowel experienced, unsuccessful, however by adding the prefix 'PAYNOW-'
it worked again. Since it's a requirement from the Payment Processor that we use the data provided from them for the PayforIT-form, we've contacted them, and they usually respond promptly, so the issue will most likely be fixed very soon.

In the meantime, just add the prefix 'PAYNOW-' in front of the 4 char alphanumeric code to make a successful purchase.

Since most customers probably have been charged the price for a standard rate SMS (usually less than 20 pence) with their unsuccessful purchase attempt, we're willing to pay back their expenses in that regard. Please note that the standard rate SMS used to send the initial payment message is charged solely by your phone company.

We apologize sincerely for this problem, and will take proper actions to reduce the likelihood of similar problems in the future.

[zerokwel]

Thanks for that. Did not expect anything and tbh thought the error was at my side.

Just tested with the above info and its working 100%. coins got paid instant

[Herodes]

Thanks for that. Did not expect anything and tbh thought the error was at my side.

Just tested with the above info and its working 100%. coins got paid instant

Hi zerokwel, I guess I should've checked here before I sent you a pm. However, I was wondering whether you used the prefix 'PAYNOW-' or not ? Ideally we want the service to work without that prefix, as it's not shown on the payment information screen. We're talking with the payment provider to have this fixed, however it would be nice if you could shed some light as to whether you used the prefix or not for your purchase.

Thanks.

[MacRohard]

[snip]
Actually, I doubt you're getting many sales at all; current Intersango price is 3.32 per coin.  Your markup is therefore £3 per coin.  I'm sure some people would be willing to pay a certain premium for the convenience of an SMS service, but a near 100% markup is excessive I think.

My suggestions then (not that I've got any say in anything you do):

• Lower your markup from 100%

This is meant in the spirit of helpfulness.  I would like to see bitcoin businesses succeed.

The phone companies charge very high transaction fees for SMS payments.. usually 40% to 50%.. there's no way to make it cheaper using this technology - unless the telcos slash their prices.

If you say so; I don't know anything about the business. (but http://www.textvertising.co.uk/sms-services/sms-competitions/text-raffles.htm is interesting: £20 a month)
snipped

There isn't much info and I don't know for sure but I'd guess that they are charging £20/month *AND* a 40-50% per transaction fee.

[zerokwel]

Aye I had to add the extra PAYNOW-CODE for it to work.

[realnowhereman]

There isn't much info and I don't know for sure but I'd guess that they are charging £20/month *AND* a 40-50% per transaction fee.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're absolutely right.  Still makes the 100% markup seem a little steep.  Maybe it's a question of volume for them.  Anyway, their pricing is none of my business; but I do wonder how many people are going to be put off by it.

[Herodes]

Service is now working 100%.

http:/sms2btc.co.uk/

[terrytibbs]

I like this service