Apology letter from Jordan:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_ro...
The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
91–100 of 136 posts
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There is a huge opportunity in cutting the costs and fees associated with trade finance with bitcoin. Why is there an opportunity with bitcoin? Aren't the costs and fees paying for the legal agreements, risk management, arbitration and things like that? Bitcoin might possibly reduce the cost of moving the dollars around but I suspect this is a very small fraction of the cost of this type of service.
Trade finance isn't a transparent market. The costs are higher because the way it works atm is you work with your favorite bank or call 2 or 3 others. There is no real price discovery. There are also high costs in settlement, and a barrier of entry for financing that wouldn't have to exist if you could sell tranches in a distributed way online - similar to kickstarter. An m-of-n transaction with a decent and trusted…
>An m-of-n transaction with a decent and trusted intermediary (or multiple less trusted intermediaries) could also replace bank guarantees, which is the simplest form of trade finance. There are also other opportunities in using bitcoin as proof of ownership or proof that you hold a product.
So let's replace banks with... banks?
The overhead costs that bitcoin will save are just the wire transfer fees. Beyond that, there's still lawyer time, intermediary escrow fees, etc. Those will not change.
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#93Apology letter from Jordan: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_ro...
Discussing this apology without discussing the Reddit comment it replaced only tells half the story:
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#94"Just so we're perfectly aligned, I want you to understand the relationship that Robocoin has with our manufacturer. We are actually just a reseller of their kiosks with our software." I've heard this from smaller retailers of all kinds of products and, as pointed out in Andrew's reply, it's complete bullshit. The company that took your money is the company you formed a contract with. Any nonsense about "yeah, but th…
I really think that it's not even a smokescreen as much as it's really what they think. "Why should I assume any risk when I'm just a reseller?" is a common thought among many new companies. They don't really see themselves as a business with its own risk as much as a subsidiary of the company.
It's just a sign of naiveté among many new entrepreneurs.
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#95Jordan Kelley has posted his response on Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_ro... Judging from the replies, it seems to have backfired probably because he did not acknowledge the errors on his side (shipping a lemon, unresponsive over email and not having provided a refund yet). Worse, he doesn't seem to realise that the name-and-shame was a result of his and ultimately RoboCoin's action…
Reddit threads sometimes provide nice extra context but the armchair lawyering from angsty 22 yeAr olds is unfun.
HN isn't immune to armchairing either.
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#96Full refund processing.
"Hey [omitted], http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_ro...
It was really poorly handled. I take full accountability." -Jordan
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#97I've helped work on Project Skyhook, which is a $1000 Bitcoin ATM: http://projectskyhook.com Orders ship within 2-3 weeks. Shipping to Canada is no problem, customs is no problem. Assembly is in Portland, Oregon, so it's a quick ship to Vancouver. We've shipped hundreds of units. Setup is completely on the owner's end. Owners don't need the company to configure the unit, and the company doesn't need to run servers fo…
The physical security on units such as these, or the majority of newly manufactured Bitcoin ATMs, is a joke. There's a good reason to build a large, heavy safe into an ATM, and all but the very strongest and most expensive can be broken into trivially. Bitcoin ATMs are even worse than cash ATMs from this perspective because physical compromise of the machine potentially nets you private keys.
Small/cheap units like this also don't support industry standard features like Mas locks or other one-time-combination locks to allow third party security and cash replenishment organizations to service them. [0] A used Mas lock (or its equivalent) will run you at least $500 and newer units are easily over $1,000 [1]
I'm speaking as a former ATM technician.
0 - http://www.kaba-mas.com/kaba-brand/products/366024/cencon.ht... 1 - http://www.jmacsupply.com/Kaba_Mas_X09SRD00FZJEZ1A_p/KABA-MA...
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#98Jordan Kelley has posted his response on Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_ro... Judging from the replies, it seems to have backfired probably because he did not acknowledge the errors on his side (shipping a lemon, unresponsive over email and not having provided a refund yet). Worse, he doesn't seem to realise that the name-and-shame was a result of his and ultimately RoboCoin's action…
Annnnnnd he deleted it.
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#99The fraud level in the Bitcoin world is so high that it makes South Florida look good. There's a working Robocoin ATM at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, CA. Nobody uses it. Nor should they. 15% bid/ask spread, 5% fee. Incidentally, the retail price for an ordinary ATM machine is $2,000 to $4,500, depending on the features ordered. A standard through-the-wall bank ATM is about $9,500. Even if you order every option from…
There's a big difference between an "ordinary ATM" machine and the NCR/Diebold machines that the large American banks deploy. Sure, you can get a Hyosung/Triton/Wincor/$whatever machine and it will technically function for the usual customer operations . . . but I would never order those machines if I were in a purchasing capacity because of physical security concerns. I've worked with enough damaged/compromised machines to see what is physically possible in a very short amount of time, and the cheaper machines aren't worth it.
I've found you get what you pay for in the ATM world when it comes to hardware. Software is another story altogether, but there's no cheap and easy solution for physical security. The bad thing about Bitcoin ATMs is that they have the same physical security problems but an extra set of information security problems, with none of the established and well tested solutions that have existed in the banking world for 30 years.
Forget Bitcoin ATMs for consumers - if you want to actually make money you should build a regular banking ATM network that uses Bitcoin/altcoins in the background for transaction processing. That would actually disrupt the industry and allow you to undercut the other networks' pricing models.
Re: The Great Robocoin Rip-off: How We Lost $25,000 Buying a Robocoin ATM
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Incidentally, the retail price for an ordinary ATM machine is $2,000 to $4,500" But, but.... those banks know nothing about bitcoin, it's the future... And of course, the markup is moot, because you didn't get the product.
That's the dumbest argument ever. You are comparing one of the most expensive bitcoin ATMs with the cheapest traditional ATMs. "But, but" is the core of your argument.
What's dumb is not knowing the price level of a product and paying the full amount without any warranty.