Anyone Ever Bought Bitcoin on eBay? Did You Actually Receive it?
I do some eBay selling so just for the heck of it was searching "Bitcoin" on eBay to see what would pop up. I expected to see t-shirts and physical coins and mining equipment, and even expected to see people selling small trivial amounts of Bitcoin like 0.001 Bitcoins or something like that but really didn't expect to see full coins.
Just a heads up for anyone thinking about trying this. Your pretty much asking to be ripped off. Not only are you violating eBay and Paypal policy, but if someone claims their account was hacked or item not received you will automatically lose the case and lose your cash and your Bitcoin.
Most of the people selling are again selling small amounts at ridiculous prices. Giving you like $15 worth of Bitcoin for $60.
That said I see people selling 1 Bitcion for anywhere from $1500 to $2500 both of which are obviously well under the true price. I'm wondering if there's a scam or gimmick or why they would be doing this?
I'm almost tempted to buy as at the end of the day if I use a credit card and Paypal worst case scenario if I'm not given my coin I have Paypal to open a claim and even if that doesn't work I can do a credit card chargeback.
Just curious if anyone else has been curious and tried buying?
Back in 2013 I bought some Infinite coin on there and actually got it.
I see a couple cats selling IOTA on eBay.
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STOPI have never done it but as you pointed out it is pretty much an autowin and return of money if they don't give you your bitcoin.
While trying to think of what the scam could be I did think of a possible legit reason. If one wanted to change bitcoin to fiat without going through an exchange with KYC rules this could be a way of pulling it off.
You bring up a good point. One thing that confuses me is some people seem to be willing to sell so low that why would you take a 50% haircut to avoid maybe 30% taxes? Maybe illegal activity?
Anyhow, I was thinking the same thing as you and expected to see throwaway accounts with 10 feedback but many of these accounts have 4500 feedback, I think one was for a guy with a tee shirt shop, etc so Paypal already has his social security number of EIN.
Yeah, I definitely meant for illegal activity but that doesn't seem to be the case. I took a look at some auctions and saw that one guy listed them cheaper so that he could list more as he has a 5k limit but it only impacts the starting price and not the final sale price.
Oh and the one I looked at was specifically the one you are showing.
Not all machines support two-way operations, many still only allow to buy bitcoins, however according Bitcoin ATM Charts about 40% of all installed Bitcoin ATMs actually support sell operations
There are not ATMs in my country, but I would never sell at under 50% of current price lol...
I wouldn't do it. Other than "trusted" exchanges, I would only buy or sell BTC in person.
Selling is understandable but if buying with a credit card or any other type of fraud protected mechanism why not buy from anywhere. Assuming of course the credit card info is going through a company like ebay or paypal. I certainly wouldn't hand over my credit card number to someone selling underpriced bitcoins.
After digging into the TOS, it seems e-Bay allows the sale of Bitcoin and other digital currency. As buyer protection goes, if the seller cannot furnish proof of paying the buyer's address (public blockchain transaction) the transaction could be challenged and refunded. If the seller can prove the transaction, then reversal should be denied by the credit company.
PayPal prohibits the purchase or sale of Bitcoin with their service under two of their rules, therefore your purchase would not be protected if you used PayPal for payment.
Can you link to the rule that says Bitcoin sales are allowed? eBay has a lot of grey areas where technically something isn't allowed but they allow it because they want the fees, but they will slowly kill off whomever rises to the top as the top seller. I've seen several posts of people who spoke with eBay support and say they were specifically told it's not allowed.
It's under Virtual Currency in the TOS
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/currstamps.html
"Virtual currency must be listed in the Classified Ad format in the Coins & Paper Money > Virtual Currency category. These requirements apply regardless of whether the virtual currency is digitally or physically delivered. Examples of items subject to this policy include Bitcoins, Litecoins and other similar cryptocurrencies."
Thanks for posting. I did see that the other day. I guess my point being that it wasn't allowed on traditional eBay. I think with eBay most of us think about auctions and buy it now listings. Classifieds is something completely different if I'm not mistaken right?
That I don't know
Agree everything is pretty safe through Paypal, the seller is the one at risk seeing as how they will automatically lose a case if the buyer decides to say they didn't get them. No questions asked buyer would get their money back. It's very risky.