Silk Road forums
Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: LupercuS on November 10, 2012, 02:09 am
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So I've been hiding under a rock and am complete Noob when it comes to bitcoins and SR - I've lurked (drooling) on SR for a few days, read the FAQ's and some Wikis and have decided drugs to my front door is a new type of heaven. Now I just need to buy some bitcoins, and that's when the adventure starts :-)
Small problem, for reasons I won't bore you with I can't get to a bank, a shop or post office of any kind, period. No problem, I'll just buy them online, right? So after a few nights of checking every single possible site it's just not going to happen. No one takes Paypal or credit cards due to chargebacks and general fraud (account theft) no one takes simple bank transfers, E-interac or online WU / MG transfers because in order to do so you must validate your account with a crazy amount of documents which is the last thing anyone wants. Even sites that used to take Western Union have stopped recently or started taking validating really seriously - otherwise they loose their merchant account. Btinstant was the last big hopeful on my list but their system keeps going up and down and I've heard they are having some legal problems. So my noob are dreams of easily buying bitcoin online looked crushed: After a few days I came across two different methods, and used both and both really suck:
Method 1) Use cashU to buy BTC from the nordic bitcoin site - but buying cashU certificates isn't easy because they mostly sell in shops. Enter: www.pcgamesupply.com who sell them online and then email you the codes. So 1) open a cashU account 2) open a pcgamesupply account (with telephone confirmation nightmare) buy cashU card - buy bitcoin from nordicbitcoin. But! Wait for it - pcgamesupply only allows you to buy $60 in a 24 hour period - and you are charged a $7 handling fee. So for $57.00 you get a total 3.48 BTC. How am I going to buy an AK47 and some crack with BTC 3.47?
Method 2) Enter Virwox, my savior? Just buy SLL (linden dollars) and convert them to Bitcoin! No problem, here we go. 1) create a stupid second life account because virwox won't let you register without one 2) Create account with Virwox and confirm 3)Buy SLL (linden dollars) transfer to Bitcoin! Great!? No, Not great. Virwox will only let you spend $52.00 a day on Linden dollars AND charge a fee to buy Linden AND charge a fee to transfer to BTC AND charge a withdrawal fee AND only sell full BTC / SLL no decimals so I can't get rid of the remaining Linden dollars in my account or the USD change (every penny counts) total 3 BTC for $52.00 and all that fucking around.
Bottom line, no one sells BTC online using a reasonable method - the sites that did are closed or have stopped due to chargebacks and fraud. It's even impossible to use online Westernunion cause the BTC vendors want your drivers license and proof of address and take like a week to do it. And who the fuck wants to give this shit to bitcoin merchants? You must be joking. Most want counter to counter WU / MG transfers and if you are going to do that you may as well just go deposit cash at a bank which is still the best option (not for me)
So I'm going to cave in and am now going to register with CaVirtex and will send them my ID and stuff (after draining my chequing account - just in case) so I can buy via their online bill payment system (great exchange rate as well). So how does this end? I'll spend the rest of the weekend reading and like most NooBs do jump off the deep end and start selling BTC myself - I've hatched a great way to sell them via paypal with no chargebacks but need to do some more research.
I hope at least one noob reads this before spending anytime trying to buy BTC online only with a little anonymity - not going to happen.
LuperCus
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You do realize that buying and selling bitcoins is legal right? Plus even if you had to give mtgox or whoever i.d. Information you could still then send your coins through a fogger and get rid of the link between your coin wallet and your sr account therefore creating that anonymity you're looking for. i know you said you can't but if you could find a way to just get a ride to your nearest Walmart you can go to the customer service desk and use bitinstant to do a walmart to mtgox. I did one today no problem. 62 dollars later i have six btc sitting in my mtgox account seconds after leaving walmart just waiting for sr to start working again so i can use them.