Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: longbeach20f on October 27, 2012, 06:58 am
-
I am curious. You cant buy bitcoins with credit cards(directly). This is, from what i know, because websites who sell bitcoins, end up getting slammed with stolen cc details and they thus lose their merchant account for processing credit card payments, and money(?).
However, what happens if you open up a site that sells a product different from bitcoins(but relatable, maybe some other kind of currency, or valuable item) and then, after the 3rd party CC processing company has approved your site and given you a checkout feature, you add bitcoins to your product list?
I mean... the problem is chargebacks, right? Because you sent out items that you cant retrieve(bitcoins).
What i dont really understand, and excuse me if this seems stupid, but how can a merchant be accountable for the fact that people used stolen credit cards on there website? If I as a merchant send out a product, whether its bitcoin or not, how am i responsible for whether or not credit cards used to buy my product were stolen or not? To me, it just appears as a sale, and thus i send the product out?
I mean sure, maybe you'd lose access to using that 3rd party CC processing company, but they cant take your money just because some people, possibly a minority or maybe not, used stolen info, can they? And once its transferred from the CC processor to your bank account, its fully in the clear?
Sorry if this sounds stupid, I just dont understand how the whole world can simply deny the sale of a product via legitimate means?
-
What i dont really understand, and excuse me if this seems stupid, but how can a merchant be accountable for the fact that people used stolen credit cards on there website?
Its called monopoly. Visa/Mastercard can stick it to small business because Visa/Mastercard can. One day when cash has been outlawed you will have to sacrifice a goat in Visa/Mastercards name if you want to continue doing business.
-
It's because you can't physically ship the coins to the cardholders address, which is the basic rule for online card payments.
Credit card companies can indeed take money back out of a bank account by means of chargeback and the business would quickly go bust rather than lose their merchant account.
I've been looking into merchant accounts recently and there's no rule to stop you selling bitcoins and taking card payments, you'd just be stupid to do it without other safeguards in place :)
-
How does physically not sending items stop you? E-books account for billions of dollars a year in sales, so does online music, so does many other 'E' objects. None of those companies or products are taken off the market/not accepted by CC.
And what if you send bitcoins with a physical item, like a paper clip? Buy one paper clip at the price of 140USD and get 10 bitcoins free! Sort of thing.
-
How does physically not sending items stop you? E-books account for billions of dollars a year in sales, so does online music, so does many other 'E' objects. None of those companies or products are taken off the market/not accepted by CC.
And what if you send bitcoins with a physical item, like a paper clip? Buy one paper clip at the price of 140USD and get 10 bitcoins free! Sort of thing.
Nothing at all to stop you doing that, most "cardholder not present" sales require shipping to the cardholders address, for non physical items you usually have to have an account before you can buy with a credit card.