FastCash4Bitcoins Support Thread

[thirdlight]

Their outage in the Direct Pay system continues.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I expected Google to return pages of indignation, but nothing. Is there a status page?

This is what happened to Intersango - "system issues" with undefined resolution times that seemed to affect only their account.

Recommend keeping minimum cash in that account. Am I paranoid?

[TangibleCryptography]

Happy Thanksgiving Bitcoiners.  The staff at FC4B is going to take a well deserved break to spend time with families.  The site will still be up and running and someone will be online every few hours to ensure Dwolla & PayPal transactions go out but we will have very limited support by email & forum.  Remember 11/22 is a banking and postal holiday so there will be no outgoing Bank Transfers or shipments.  Any orders placed for these payment options will be pushed out early Friday.

We have a very large order to fulfill next week so to get an early jump on it (and someone <cough cough> over estimated demand for Dwolla at the expense of other payout options) FC4B will offer a 1% bonus on all sales paid out using Dwolla until Monday.  The bonus is automatic and will reflect on the Sales Order estimate.  Think of it as a reverse sale.  Prices are higher ... and that is a good thing!

Staff
Tangible Cryptography

[J.Socal]

Trying to sign up,tried adding my info and I broke the intertubes..  Try again in a couple days.

[TangibleCryptography]

Trying to sign up,tried adding my info and I broke the intertubes..  Try again in a couple days.

If you provide more details I will take a look at the logs.  Did you get an error when signing up?  When activating?  When logging in?  When updating profile?

[coinrolls2]

Tangible,

go enjoy your day off, you certainly earned it


CR

[J.Socal]

Yeh,when trying to add my addy to my profile..I got a blue screen that said that,along with Computer jargon  I don't understand...Looks like its working now though and my info. is there now..

[TangibleCryptography]

Yeh,when trying to add my addy to my profile..I got a blue screen that said that,along with Computer jargon  I don't understand...Looks like its working now though and my info. is there now..

Will take a look at that today and I will change the site error page to one that is less confusing.

[TangibleCryptography]

Update: 
Ran out of bank funds overnight.  More funds are available.

[TangibleCryptography]

Can people now redeem a Casascius coin through fastcash4bitcoins?

No.  That is something we will be implementing in the future but there are other higher priority tasks.

[TangibleCryptography]

Update:  BofA Direct Pay Outage Continues

The latest word we got from BofA is we will be unable to create new profiles until 11/27.  As a reminder this outage doesn't affect clients who have already received an ACH/Wire from us in the past, and doesn't affect any other payment options.  It only affects clients requesting an ACH/Wire for the first time.  We our working with an alternate provider to enable ACH & FedWire capabilities but it likely will not be active until at least Monday.

[TangibleCryptography]

This morning the site reflected no bank funds due to high sales volume.  The limit has been reset, and bank funds are available again.

[TangibleCryptography]

Since silver "cash" has been so popular we will have a new payment option coming soon (probably next week).

[TangibleCryptography]

I got a few requests for some shots of the Silver Maple Leafs.  I am no photography expert and even with custom white balance the color is a little off but these should provide some details.   All single coins include a custom fit air-tite.  The 25 coin mint tube does not but is sold at a ~$1 per coin discount (we currently are out).

To protect the coins and disguise their shape they are packed into safe-T mailers (corrugated cardboard in third shot) and then packed into a bubble mailer.   We limit orders (other than tubes) to 13 oz because that is the limit of what can fit in a flat rate envelope without being double stacked and anything above 13 oz needs to be shipped from Post Office counter which ... well who likes going to the Post Office.

[casascius]

There is a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box which I use all the time for Casascius Coins, is only 20 cents more to ship than the Flat Rate Envelope.  If I assume that these silver rounds are the same size as silver Casascius Coins, and used the same Safe-T-Mailers, I could easily fit 30+ coins in such a box with plenty of headroom for the box to get abused.

The 13 ounce limit "or else take it to the counter" only applies when you mail with stamps.  If you are able to use any kind of shipping like Stamps.com that prints barcoded labels, this limit is removed.

I have also had good results using Registered Mail to send high-value shipments within the US.  They are fully insured, locked in safes and cages with a paper chain of custody the whole way, they are the only method that I understand will insure PM's for their full value.  Sending one of those flat rate priority boxes Registered and insured to $1000 using stamps.com is $20.50, and insured to $5000 is $25.65 (all inclusive of postage).  A higher rate is charged if you show up to the counter and don't pre-print with stamps.com, as using stamps.com qualifies you to receive "commercial base rate" pricing for this service.  I consider it good value for peace of mind.  The only drawback is these must be taken to the counter, and also must be packaged a certain way (all seams covered with paper tape so they can put postmarks on all the seams for tamper detection, which they do in front of you while you watch).

[TangibleCryptography]

Hmm good points.  We use the small and medium flat rate boxes to ship the tubes, I just didn't consider them for smaller amounts of coins.  Thanks for the clarification on the "13 oz rule".

For anyone interested I should note that while I have no problem shipping by registered mail understand that time is money and getting stuck in the Post Office line (especially during the Holidays) to declare and register a package isn't my idea of fun.  We ship a lot of mail (99% by flat rate envelopes) and have only had one out of ~430 shipments end up lost.   Still if someone wants the security of registered mail the S&H would be $30 plus $1.50 per $1K (or fraction) in declared value.  The site doesn't support it (will add it in the next update) but if interested just place order using priority mail and send an email or PM and I will update the order.  Obviously it makes a lot more sense to send $10K by registered mail ($45 or ~0.5%) than it does $1K ($31.50 or >3%).   One thing I would point out is that registered mail requires signature and USPS indicates it can take longer (due to security procedures) than "normal" priority mail.

Casascius is correct in that USPS only insures precious metals when sent by registered mail which is why we don't offer it for "standard" mailings.  Anyone offering to send something by overnight or first class (non-registered) and offering insurance is just wasting your money.  FedEx and UPS also don't insure Precious Metals except when done under a special Precious Metals policy (only available to business accounts dealing in precious metals).  One reason we use flat rate envelopes is because a couple million of them get shipped every year and most just contain boring documents.

[casascius]

We ship a lot of mail (99% by flat rate envelopes) and have only had one out of ~430 shipments end up lost.

That sounds about right and similar to my experience: I haven't counted exactly, but my gut guess from experience is that lost shipments are less than 500:1.  Most things that get "lost" turn up months later.  On a cost average basis, insurance is a total waste of money on all but the most valuable shipments.

[TangibleCryptography]

Update:

Been a while since I have had to say this but we are out of funds on bank based payouts (checks, ACH, Wire, etc).  We should have more funds available in the morning.

[TangibleCryptography]

Update:

The issue which prevented us from adding new clients for bank transfer has been resolved.   New clients can submit sales paid by ACH or BankWire without delay.  To avoid this outage in the future we have signed a contract with an alternate provide in order to ensure we have the redundancy necessary.  We will strive to continually improve our service in order to bring the level of quality our clients have come to expect.   

Staff
Tangible Cryptography LLC

[vokain]

what happened to cash deposits 

[TangibleCryptography]

what happened to cash deposits 

Sorry, too time consuming.  We haven't offered cash deposits for months.