
Selling Bitcoin / Litecoin on eBay, an eBay Live Help Transcript - hippich
http://clickedphoto.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/selling-bitcoinlitecoin-on-ebay-ebay.html
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United857
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.

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wafuru
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.

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changdizzle
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.

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leokun
Did you lose any disputes with scammers?

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pizza234
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.

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lukifer
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.

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TrevorJ
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.

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GhotiFish
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.

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sliverstorm
How, exactly, do you propose the buyer receive bitcoins without sharing his
wallet address?

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dully
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.

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GhotiFish
Also, the seller could just transfer the coins out of the wallet after he
ships them. I can't see a way to prevent the seller from doing this.

The USB drives and the paper wallets are meaningless. Only the transactions
can be trusted.

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guyht
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.

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asperous
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.

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powertower
So you send them an empty USB stick.

Then what?

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brador
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.

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bnchdrff
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 :)

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antonius
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.

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

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will_brown
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?

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ChrisNorstrom
Ebay is a marketplace and gets tons of traffic and exposure.

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chrisked
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.

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jasonkolb
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.

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EGreg
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?

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smtddr
Like this! ;)

[http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8](http://satoshibox.com/5229a1864c347bfd2b0041a8)

(Protip: The above link is probably a scam)

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infruset
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?

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

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

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

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d0ugie
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.

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fluidcruft
Yes, yes. Because what makes a good show in Hollywood is obviously accurate of
reality.

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EGreg
Anyone thought about doing a bitcoin auction software?

ThousandBitcoinHomePage.com?

Hehe

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roasbeef
Try out LocalBitcoins.

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altoz
ebay is not the problem. it's paypal.

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oijaf888
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.

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altoz
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.

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kalleboo
> including Casascius coins

Hmm, so the OP should be asking PayPal support, not eBay support.

