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Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

blog.coinbase.com

21–30 of 88 posts

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#21

I've wondered about starting a service to sell bitcoins via credit card but the catch is he service holds your coin for you for 6 months or whatever the period for chargebacks is. Is that a viable idea?

Credit card companies and Paypal will shut you down for being "high risk" or whatever. I wouldn't bother trying.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#22
post #14

To be honest, it's kind of creepy. I just identified myself, and they somehow knew what month and year I purchased my car, a list of names I may or may not have been 'associated' with, a list of counties I may or may not have lived in, and stuff like that. I'm not particularly comfortable with a company knowing that much about me, but it's already complete so... horse, meet barn door? I wish they would at least tell…

Same as everyone else - credit report companies. Experian, Equifax and others. Those already know all your previous billing addresses, credit lines, card numbers, etc.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#23
post #14

To be honest, it's kind of creepy. I just identified myself, and they somehow knew what month and year I purchased my car, a list of names I may or may not have been 'associated' with, a list of counties I may or may not have lived in, and stuff like that. I'm not particularly comfortable with a company knowing that much about me, but it's already complete so... horse, meet barn door? I wish they would at least tell…

That's actually pretty simple. Equifax is the biggest provider of these types Q&A's. I'm not even sure that the company itself is exposed to the actual answers - I believe the credit bureau just responds with a pass/fail. Admittedly, it would be less creepy and more welcoming if they sent you to the Equifax website to do the verification. That way you would know that no one else actually has or will receive your pers…

They did have a blurb that said this was all "public information", but if I pop my name and car into $search_engine (for example) nothing relevant comes up.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#24

I've wondered about starting a service to sell bitcoins via credit card but the catch is he service holds your coin for you for 6 months or whatever the period for chargebacks is. Is that a viable idea?

Virwox.com does this. They hold for a few days and charge high fees, but they certainly don't ask for lots of information like Coinbase is now doing.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#25
post #14

To be honest, it's kind of creepy. I just identified myself, and they somehow knew what month and year I purchased my car, a list of names I may or may not have been 'associated' with, a list of counties I may or may not have lived in, and stuff like that. I'm not particularly comfortable with a company knowing that much about me, but it's already complete so... horse, meet barn door? I wish they would at least tell…

That's actually pretty simple. Equifax is the biggest provider of these types Q&A's. I'm not even sure that the company itself is exposed to the actual answers - I believe the credit bureau just responds with a pass/fail. Admittedly, it would be less creepy and more welcoming if they sent you to the Equifax website to do the verification. That way you would know that no one else actually has or will receive your pers…

I'm not sure I believe that talking to credit report companies directly would be more welcoming. They'd probably try to charge you for the privilege of using them. In the UK they're quite known for giving out free reports, then sending you followups + charge you from the next month with no easy way to stop it (in some cases you need to sue them to stop). Not sure who I trust more - Coinbase or Experian...

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#27
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually pretty simple. Equifax is the biggest provider of these types Q&A's. I'm not even sure that the company itself is exposed to the actual answers - I believe the credit bureau just responds with a pass/fail. Admittedly, it would be less creepy and more welcoming if they sent you to the Equifax website to do the verification. That way you would know that no one else actually has or will receive your pers…

They did have a blurb that said this was all "public information", but if I pop my name and car into $search_engine (for example) nothing relevant comes up.

Search engines haven't indexed everything yet. There are lots of public records that aren't indexed by google, unless they make the news or get the attention of some blogger. This includes civil judgements, tax liens and bankruptcy to name a few.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#28
post #14

To be honest, it's kind of creepy. I just identified myself, and they somehow knew what month and year I purchased my car, a list of names I may or may not have been 'associated' with, a list of counties I may or may not have lived in, and stuff like that. I'm not particularly comfortable with a company knowing that much about me, but it's already complete so... horse, meet barn door? I wish they would at least tell…

Our team at Startup Weekend actually worked on "Identity Verification for Developers." So I'm pretty familiar with this. These kind of questions are called "wallet questions." You can get a lot of them from county records, which are public.

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#29

Someone credible is finally trying to compensate for the abysmal failure that is Bitinstant (see http://bitinstantscam.com and basically any Bitcoin forum). That is fantastic. However, let's not get carried away. This is not instant for first-time users. You still have to go through verification and wait at least 4 business days for your first purchase to go through before reaching the qualifications for instant purc…

Isn't that like most credit cards, bank accounts with online banks and creating a 'link' between bank accounts you own already at this point?

Re: Instant Bitcoin Purchases at Coinbase

#30

I've wondered about starting a service to sell bitcoins via credit card but the catch is he service holds your coin for you for 6 months or whatever the period for chargebacks is. Is that a viable idea?

Also, if you happen to live in the land of the free you can expect to pay a few hundred grand procuring the proper money transmitter licences.
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