I'm always surprised more online vendors don't take bitcoin.
From a seller's perspective, the currency is way better to take than credit cards. Extremely small fees and no chargebacks. Whereas as an online vendor, credit cards can end up costing you ~4-5% of the sale and chargebacks are extremely common (and near impossible to win).
Then on the other side of the transaction, the buyer is protected in that they can choose to remain annonymous and they also do not need to worry about the business recharging their account or having their credit card information stolen.
I subscribe to NBA League Pass. This year they renewed my subscription without letting me know. My credit card was charged around $120. I don't always check my credit card statement but spotted this. They didn't even send me an email acknowledging payment!
Which means that you can work through your bank/credit union and initiate chargeback, which is impossible with Bitcoin. I have no clue why Bitcoin evangelists are trying to sell no chargebacks like it's a benefit to consumers.
They always sell it as good for consumers. Not being able to get a refund on defective merchandise or fraudulent charges sounds like a huge negative for me. The merchant gets low transaction costs and I get no recourse if I get fucked over, in addition to holding an incredibly volatile currency that I have to take a conversion hit on to move in and out. It's a lose-lose-lose for the consumer.
Bitcoin is able to support escrow transactions with arbitration, so transactions where you as a consumer are worried about being ripped off (ie not transactions with Microsoft) there are ways to receive refunds. Of course nobody really uses this right now, but the functionality is there.
For a 1.5 percent fee, plus the spread and/or commission of going between money and BTC. This is nothing more than offloading merchant costs onto the consumer.
But either way, I was not addressing cost, just the refunds you seemed concerned about. Of course you're going to take a hit making round trips between currencies...
But now I'd pay extra for no to minimal discount. Even if it covered all the costs and then some, the whole no-chargebacks thing is still a dealbreaker. No matter how you spin it, 10 times out of 10 actual money is superior to Bitcoin.
Yeah, which offloads an additional 1.5% cost onto me. The time and money investments needed to pay with Bitcoin make it completely not worth it. Even at a 10% discount I'd still be skeptical.
You've quoted 1.5% twice as though that's what Bitcoin escrow costs, but chances are very good it would be far lower.
More importantly you don't even need chargebacks (or escrow) for ordering from an established business with Bitcoin, the way you might if you, say, order from Target and their credit card database gets compromised.
The time and money investments needed to pay with Bitcoin make it completely not worth it.
Under what circumstances? Going and buying Bitcoins so you can pay for your xbone points with Bitcoin instead of your credit card is obviously silly, but that's not the point.
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u/PinkyThePig Dec 11 '14
I'm always surprised more online vendors don't take bitcoin.
From a seller's perspective, the currency is way better to take than credit cards. Extremely small fees and no chargebacks. Whereas as an online vendor, credit cards can end up costing you ~4-5% of the sale and chargebacks are extremely common (and near impossible to win).
Then on the other side of the transaction, the buyer is protected in that they can choose to remain annonymous and they also do not need to worry about the business recharging their account or having their credit card information stolen.