7 ms·

Selling Bitcoin / Litecoin on eBay, an eBay Live Help Transcript

23 points by hippich 13y ago

antonius 13y ago
I was reading the transcript and got increasingly worried that you were in a vicious circle of being passed on to the next eBay representative. Glad it worked out.
- bitmonster 13y ago
  Me too! I thought the post was about ebay dodging the bitcoin topic
jasonkolb 13y ago
Interesting way to buy and sell coins. I wonder what the markup will be compared to some of the other services out there once you factor in commissions and so on.
bnchdrff 13y ago
This reminds me of my highschool friend's "white envelope" eBay ticket scalping business: buy sports tickets and then sell them as free items inside very expensive white envelopes :)
hackerboos 13y ago
Wait for the inevitable influx in fraud regarding these USB sticks to see them reverse this 'loophole'.
- d0ugie 13y ago
  Sometimes look-the-other-way loopholes stick around if they suit both sides. For example, brown-paper-bagging a bottle of beer with your buddies on the corner of your block, not causing trouble, then the cops have, though reasonable suspicion, the option not to enforce a law prohibiting drinking on your street corner (if you don't give them a reason to), an unwritten understanding that to my knowledge has been pervasive. If you don't believe me, watch HBO's The Wire, it's in there.
  - fluidcruft 13y ago
    Yes, yes. Because what makes a good show in Hollywood is obviously accurate of reality.
changdizzle 13y ago
This presents an interesting dilemma - if you're shipping a physical USB drive - the drive + shipping is going to run you a minimum of ~$15 - that means IMO you'd probably want to sell at least 1.5-2 LTC per transaction, but losing a potential dispute would hurt much more, and eBay/Paypal are notoriously wishywashy about these types of things. I doubt when it comes down to it, citing "eBay rep 3: John" is really going to help. When I started selling BTC/LTC on eBay a few months ago when BTC was ~$150 and LTC was ~$3 - I only dealt in small chunks - 0.01-0.05BTC and 1LTC because there were so many frequent scammers that if I lost one or two disputes here and there it didn't really affect me. This does cover the case of the spammer though - most of these guys steal eBay/Paypal accounts and just charge with the credit cards, because they know once you send over the BTC/LTC, the actual person is going to see the weird transaction, dispute it, then win. Now, if you're sending to the actual address it's much harder to dispute.
- iancarroll 13y ago
  It would help to keep the private key, that way any chargeback-ers that don't withdraw money from the wallet can be easily fixed
- leokun 13y ago
  Did you lose any disputes with scammers?
  - changdizzle 13y ago
    Yeah, I had one painful experience losing 0.5 btc and I learned my lesson and moved to selling max 0.05 BTC per listing.
  - pizza234 13y ago
    For this reason (I assume you're talking about lack of protection of the seller), I stopped accepting paypal payment. I don't know how much I'm losing because of potential customers who expect paypal as payment form, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
- ye 13y ago
wafuru 13y ago
This seems interesting but very easy to take advantage of by either party. If I were the buyer, what if I transferred the coins somewhere and then claimed that the seller transferred the coins out before I had a chance to do it myself? And vice versa, if I were the seller, I could do exactly that but prove to eBay that the USB stick with 'free' wallet arrived correctly. Either way, one of the parties will get cheated, and as soon as this becomes a regular occurrence then I imagine eBay will take steps to forbid trading in digital wallets.
powertower 13y ago
So you send them an empty USB stick. Then what?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
lukifer 13y ago
Seems like it be a lot cheaper to sell paper wallets, which are then filled with "free" cryptocoins after the buyer confirms receipt and public payment key.
altoz 13y ago
ebay is not the problem. it's paypal.
- oijaf888 13y ago
  You know Paypal is owned by Ebay? I would bet a lot of their fraud policies related to physical goods are derived from their auction experiences.
  - altoz 13y ago
    I know all too well. But, as the Paypal compliance department has told me umpteen times, their policies are not the same and are under different laws. So, eBay will let you list any physical good you want that conforms to their policy (basically anything that's not guns or child porn and things like that). Paypal will not you accept payment for anything that they define which contains e-currency (bitcoins, litecoins, etc), including Casascius coins and the like.
    - kalleboo 13y ago
      > including Casascius coins Hmm, so the OP should be asking PayPal support, not eBay support.
brador 13y ago
You can tell from the quality of English that this rep was not from headquarters. Until you get an okay from those guys it's still up in the air. And don't think flashing a chat transcript will save your account.
EGreg 13y ago
Are we able to do a lottery this way? Or mystery box? Basically buy for a USB stick for $50 which contains a litecoin wallet with unspecified amount. One of which is $100,000?
- smtddr 13y ago
  Like this! ;) http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8 http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8 (Protip: The above link is probably a scam)
  - infruset 13y ago
    As far as scams go, this isn't the worst idea, but I think the amount of 0.05 (although clearly meant to attract as many buyers as possible) is too low to be plausible. We're talking around 10,000$ here. Also, 11.73268271 BTC is suspiciously precise. I wonder, if you lost the password to a wallet, can you easily know the amount in it?
EGreg 13y ago
Anyone thought about doing a bitcoin auction software? ThousandBitcoinHomePage.com? Hehe
guyht 13y ago
What happens when they want to return the item? Pretty sure you have to offer a 30 day return policy, I could take the 'free' litecoin, then return the USB stick and ask for a refund.
- asperous 13y ago
  I've sold on ebay, you have a choice whether to offer refunds, also how long after the sale to offer a refund, and whether you want the buyer or the seller to pay return shipping.
will_brown 13y ago
OP, Why not use an escrow service instead of ebay to mitigate potential exposure? What are the pros/cons to ebay instead of a escrow?
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  Ebay is a marketplace and gets tons of traffic and exposure.
  - chrisked 13y ago
    An escrow service can be on top of a marketplace. Actually you should use ebay for the reasons you mentioned (a) traffic, (b) exposure, but also (c) secure your transaction via an escrow service. Never use PayPal for that.
GhotiFish 13y ago
You can prove the transaction has occurred if the buyer posts his wallet address. The proof will be in the blockchain paper wallets and usb drives arn't proof of anything. Unfortunetly, to prove that you did send the coins to the right address, the buyer must publically provide his wallets address. At least as far as I can tell.
- Istof 13y ago
  if the buyer wants to claim that he didn't receive the coins, what is wrong with that?
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    The buyer can make a fraudulent claim and get his money back. There is no way to prove he got the money if he claims he doesn't own the wallet, and there's no way to prove he owns the wallet unless he ties that wallet to himself somehow. (which is possible but not reliable, and countermeasures exist anyway)
- kalleboo 13y ago
  The question here isn't what makes sense logically, but what makes sense to the claims department at PayPal/eBay. They won't listen to you explain how the blockchain works, they'll ask for a shipping tracking number, and when you can't provide one, they'll say "we don't offer seller protection on virtual goods".
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  How, exactly, do you propose the buyer receive bitcoins without sharing his wallet address?
  - dully 13y ago
    If the buyer is getting a wallet shipped on a USB drive then the seller doesn't need to know the buyer's wallet address.
    - 13y ago
United857 13y ago
Based on my previous experiences with such live chat help. I'm guessing they are just mindlessly going off a script/flowchart. I'm also guessing Sarah, Melissa, and John aren't their real names and they aren't native English speakers. So their words may not be authoritative.
TrevorJ 13y ago
For the record, it would be a bad idea to sell Bitcoin when Paypal is involved. Way too easy for the buyer to dispute the transaction, and Paypal typically sides with the buyer in these cases.
roasbeef 13y ago
Try out LocalBitcoins.
jameshart 13y ago
So... what guarantee does the buyer have that the seller didn't keep a copy? Or sell fifty identical copies of the wallet?
- bitmonster 13y ago
  I would transfer the bitcoins to another wallet immediately upon receiving the usb drives

23 points by hippich 13y ago

I was reading the transcript and got increasingly worried that you were in a vicious circle of being passed on to the next eBay representative. Glad it worked out.

bitmonster 13y ago
Me too! I thought the post was about ebay dodging the bitcoin topic

jasonkolb 13y ago

Interesting way to buy and sell coins. I wonder what the markup will be compared to some of the other services out there once you factor in commissions and so on.

bnchdrff 13y ago

This reminds me of my highschool friend's "white envelope" eBay ticket scalping business: buy sports tickets and then sell them as free items inside very expensive white envelopes :)

hackerboos 13y ago

Wait for the inevitable influx in fraud regarding these USB sticks to see them reverse this 'loophole'.

d0ugie 13y ago
Sometimes look-the-other-way loopholes stick around if they suit both sides. For example, brown-paper-bagging a bottle of beer with your buddies on the corner of your block, not causing trouble, then the cops have, though reasonable suspicion, the option not to enforce a law prohibiting drinking on your street corner (if you don't give them a reason to), an unwritten understanding that to my knowledge has been pervasive. If you don't believe me, watch HBO's The Wire, it's in there.
- fluidcruft 13y ago
  Yes, yes. Because what makes a good show in Hollywood is obviously accurate of reality.

changdizzle 13y ago

This presents an interesting dilemma - if you're shipping a physical USB drive - the drive + shipping is going to run you a minimum of ~$15 - that means IMO you'd probably want to sell at least 1.5-2 LTC per transaction, but losing a potential dispute would hurt much more, and eBay/Paypal are notoriously wishywashy about these types of things. I doubt when it comes down to it, citing "eBay rep 3: John" is really going to help. When I started selling BTC/LTC on eBay a few months ago when BTC was ~$150 and LTC was ~$3 - I only dealt in small chunks - 0.01-0.05BTC and 1LTC because there were so many frequent scammers that if I lost one or two disputes here and there it didn't really affect me. This does cover the case of the spammer though - most of these guys steal eBay/Paypal accounts and just charge with the credit cards, because they know once you send over the BTC/LTC, the actual person is going to see the weird transaction, dispute it, then win. Now, if you're sending to the actual address it's much harder to dispute.

iancarroll 13y ago
It would help to keep the private key, that way any chargeback-ers that don't withdraw money from the wallet can be easily fixed
leokun 13y ago
Did you lose any disputes with scammers?
- changdizzle 13y ago
  Yeah, I had one painful experience losing 0.5 btc and I learned my lesson and moved to selling max 0.05 BTC per listing.
- pizza234 13y ago
  For this reason (I assume you're talking about lack of protection of the seller), I stopped accepting paypal payment. I don't know how much I'm losing because of potential customers who expect paypal as payment form, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
ye 13y ago

wafuru 13y ago

This seems interesting but very easy to take advantage of by either party. If I were the buyer, what if I transferred the coins somewhere and then claimed that the seller transferred the coins out before I had a chance to do it myself? And vice versa, if I were the seller, I could do exactly that but prove to eBay that the USB stick with 'free' wallet arrived correctly. Either way, one of the parties will get cheated, and as soon as this becomes a regular occurrence then I imagine eBay will take steps to forbid trading in digital wallets.

powertower 13y ago

So you send them an empty USB stick. Then what?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

lukifer 13y ago

Seems like it be a lot cheaper to sell paper wallets, which are then filled with "free" cryptocoins after the buyer confirms receipt and public payment key.

altoz 13y ago

ebay is not the problem. it's paypal.

oijaf888 13y ago
You know Paypal is owned by Ebay? I would bet a lot of their fraud policies related to physical goods are derived from their auction experiences.
- altoz 13y ago
  I know all too well. But, as the Paypal compliance department has told me umpteen times, their policies are not the same and are under different laws. So, eBay will let you list any physical good you want that conforms to their policy (basically anything that's not guns or child porn and things like that). Paypal will not you accept payment for anything that they define which contains e-currency (bitcoins, litecoins, etc), including Casascius coins and the like.
  - kalleboo 13y ago
    > including Casascius coins Hmm, so the OP should be asking PayPal support, not eBay support.

brador 13y ago

You can tell from the quality of English that this rep was not from headquarters. Until you get an okay from those guys it's still up in the air. And don't think flashing a chat transcript will save your account.

EGreg 13y ago

Are we able to do a lottery this way? Or mystery box? Basically buy for a USB stick for $50 which contains a litecoin wallet with unspecified amount. One of which is $100,000?

smtddr 13y ago
Like this! ;) http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8 http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8 (Protip: The above link is probably a scam)
- infruset 13y ago
  As far as scams go, this isn't the worst idea, but I think the amount of 0.05 (although clearly meant to attract as many buyers as possible) is too low to be plausible. We're talking around 10,000$ here. Also, 11.73268271 BTC is suspiciously precise. I wonder, if you lost the password to a wallet, can you easily know the amount in it?

EGreg 13y ago

Anyone thought about doing a bitcoin auction software? ThousandBitcoinHomePage.com? Hehe

guyht 13y ago

What happens when they want to return the item? Pretty sure you have to offer a 30 day return policy, I could take the 'free' litecoin, then return the USB stick and ask for a refund.

asperous 13y ago
I've sold on ebay, you have a choice whether to offer refunds, also how long after the sale to offer a refund, and whether you want the buyer or the seller to pay return shipping.

will_brown 13y ago

OP, Why not use an escrow service instead of ebay to mitigate potential exposure? What are the pros/cons to ebay instead of a escrow?

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
Ebay is a marketplace and gets tons of traffic and exposure.
- chrisked 13y ago
  An escrow service can be on top of a marketplace. Actually you should use ebay for the reasons you mentioned (a) traffic, (b) exposure, but also (c) secure your transaction via an escrow service. Never use PayPal for that.

GhotiFish 13y ago

You can prove the transaction has occurred if the buyer posts his wallet address. The proof will be in the blockchain paper wallets and usb drives arn't proof of anything. Unfortunetly, to prove that you did send the coins to the right address, the buyer must publically provide his wallets address. At least as far as I can tell.

Istof 13y ago
if the buyer wants to claim that he didn't receive the coins, what is wrong with that?
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  The buyer can make a fraudulent claim and get his money back. There is no way to prove he got the money if he claims he doesn't own the wallet, and there's no way to prove he owns the wallet unless he ties that wallet to himself somehow. (which is possible but not reliable, and countermeasures exist anyway)
kalleboo 13y ago
The question here isn't what makes sense logically, but what makes sense to the claims department at PayPal/eBay. They won't listen to you explain how the blockchain works, they'll ask for a shipping tracking number, and when you can't provide one, they'll say "we don't offer seller protection on virtual goods".
sliverstorm 13y ago
How, exactly, do you propose the buyer receive bitcoins without sharing his wallet address?
- dully 13y ago
  If the buyer is getting a wallet shipped on a USB drive then the seller doesn't need to know the buyer's wallet address.
  - 13y ago

United857 13y ago

Based on my previous experiences with such live chat help. I'm guessing they are just mindlessly going off a script/flowchart. I'm also guessing Sarah, Melissa, and John aren't their real names and they aren't native English speakers. So their words may not be authoritative.

TrevorJ 13y ago

For the record, it would be a bad idea to sell Bitcoin when Paypal is involved. Way too easy for the buyer to dispute the transaction, and Paypal typically sides with the buyer in these cases.

roasbeef 13y ago

Try out LocalBitcoins.

jameshart 13y ago

So... what guarantee does the buyer have that the seller didn't keep a copy? Or sell fifty identical copies of the wallet?

bitmonster 13y ago
I would transfer the bitcoins to another wallet immediately upon receiving the usb drives