11–20 of 34 posts
If merchants were doing sales and returns using Bitcoin it seems like you could make money on the volatility by returning items when the value of Bitcoins went up within the return window. You'd have to be willing to keep items you bought if the value of Bitcoin went down, but if you systematically made all your regular purchases that way you ought to come out ahead. Is this a real risk for merchants, or am I missing…
Frankly, I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't offer this service. Just take the money out from my bank, offer me the same protections as a credit card, and we split the credit card fee: 1% for you and 1% for me :-).
Used to be that violated their credit card agreement to charge more for credit card purchases, but looks like that's not the case since Jan 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/as-ru...
And assuming they'll be OK with having ZERO chargeback rights in case the purchase turns out to be not-as-advertised and/or defective.
That second article (explaining why consumers would want to do this) best be a doozy, because so far consumers have had to swallow a requirement for them to provide a "mobile wallet", lower rewards, AND increased vulnerability to fraud all to save the merchant 0.375%.
I use my credit card all the time for 2 reasons: 1) fraud protection and 2) reward points.
Interchange fees paid by the merchant are essentially being passed to the consumer via reward points. Why would people switch from credit cards to bitcoin en masse?
If merchants were doing sales and returns using Bitcoin it seems like you could make money on the volatility by returning items when the value of Bitcoins went up within the return window. You'd have to be willing to keep items you bought if the value of Bitcoin went down, but if you systematically made all your regular purchases that way you ought to come out ahead. Is this a real risk for merchants, or am I missing…
Merchants could simply return the $ value of the product
If merchants were doing sales and returns using Bitcoin it seems like you could make money on the volatility by returning items when the value of Bitcoins went up within the return window. You'd have to be willing to keep items you bought if the value of Bitcoin went down, but if you systematically made all your regular purchases that way you ought to come out ahead. Is this a real risk for merchants, or am I missing…
If merchants were doing sales and returns using Bitcoin it seems like you could make money on the volatility by returning items when the value of Bitcoins went up within the return window. You'd have to be willing to keep items you bought if the value of Bitcoin went down, but if you systematically made all your regular purchases that way you ought to come out ahead. Is this a real risk for merchants, or am I missing…
If that were a profitable scheme then why don't people do it with other currency pairs and goods?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Merchants could simply return the $ value of the product
That sounds shady. Unless that was explicitly agreed to before the purchase I don't think that would fly.
"Assuming consumers will be ok with only 0.5% in rewards" And assuming they'll be OK with having ZERO chargeback rights in case the purchase turns out to be not-as-advertised and/or defective. That second article (explaining why consumers would want to do this) best be a doozy, because so far consumers have had to swallow a requirement for them to provide a "mobile wallet", lower rewards, AND increased vulnerability…
It's also possible that merchant reputation will become key, which isn't exactly a bad thing.
Most of these savings could be accomplished by having the merchant withdraw the payment from your bank account rather than a credit card. Frankly, I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't offer this service. Just take the money out from my bank, offer me the same protections as a credit card, and we split the credit card fee: 1% for you and 1% for me :-). Used to be that violated their credit card agreement to charge more f…
Bitcoin is "push" based which eliminates the ability to fraudulently pull charges from the sender's account. Banks also charge a fee, and add transfer times to transactions that are basically non-existant with bitcoin