Topic: CoinPal beta - Buying bitcoins with PayPal - page 17. (Read 170543 times)

I just fixed a bug on CoinPal which caused some customers to see an error about a "malformed email address" during PayPal checkout. If you got this message, you might have better luck now.

The server ran out of coins on Sunday, but I've restocked now.  I'll try to keep it stocked all week.  I'm away from the computer on Sundays and since anti-fraud changes are still in early testing, I'm hesitant to carry large inventories when I'm away. Hopefully this restriction will only last a couple more weeks.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm definitely interested in implementing a service along those lines. It'd be a perfect complement to CoinPal.

Incidentally, all this anti-fraud effort on CoinPal has reminded me how important Bitcoin is.  I can't imagine how many thousands of hours of productive effort is currently wasted on fraud prevention for credit card and PayPal payments.

mndrix: a suggestion for you
you should also offer to buy bitcoin in exchange for paypal.
no risk for you, plus way to refill your bitcoin stock.

there has been some talk on #bitcoin-otc about demand for ability to sell bitcoins at a fixed price without having to deal with forex trading on the markets.

I finished some more changes, so CoinPal is open to the public again.  I'll try to keep it stocked and open for the next couple days.  Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

If you see the "out of stock" message, try back after 1500 UTC, which is usually when I replenish the server's bitcoins.

Bitcoin values have shot up since I posted these ideas. I wonder if speculators are betting that ease of buying bitcoins through coinpal is going to result in lots more people trying to buy them. What have I DONE??

I'm taking credit for the jump, whether or not I had anything to do with it

This forum account was not created for anonymity, nor was the corresponding freenode IRC nick, "knotwork".

WHOIS knotwork.com and WHOIS knotwork.net are also not intended to be anonymity tools.

Until I develop a means for hosting to pay for itself neither of these domains are actually hosted. I registered them through, and keep them at, networksolutions mainly because it seemed to be the direct descendant of the original NIC and I figured if it actually is CIA NSA etc crony then at least maybe it inherits classic U.S. freedom of speech traditions as well as the military backing of the U.S. Marine Corp.

The PayPal address I use for making money purposes is at a subdomain of knotwork.com thus does not actually work for email, but PayPal, happily, does still allow it to work for PayPal transactions.

I might have some e-gold rotting (storage fees) in an e-gold account if it hasn't already rotted to nothing but PayPal balances might rot faster due to inflation so this thread came to my attention in the process of wondering whether I might be better off moving my seldom used PayPal balance(s) over to BitCoin. So figured I might as well at least start toward such a potential future by introducing myself.

-MarkM-

And once again my attempt at sarcasm goes completely unnoticed... I really suck at this!

So I believe he means that rudimentary form of communication of old, back from when fog prevented efficient communication using smoke signals, or background noise degraded the quality of whistle based conversations... I think they call it "snail mail", probably because it leaves a trail of goo or something

The reason for mailing something is to get seller protection from paypal, as well as ensure that the paypal account hasn't been hijacked.

The suggestion was for the seller to mail a password to the buyer who would then communicate it to the seller to receive the bitcoins. That was fairly clear, don't see how you missed that.

Are you suggesting people would email their paypal password to the coinpal maintainer? I doubt you'd find anyone willing to do this.

Brief update: this weekend's tests went well.  They turned up a couple bugs in my new code which I've fixed.  I'll keep working on anti-fraud measures so I can open to the public again.  Thanks for your patience.

Thanks.


Thanks for the suggestions.  I have one beta tester testing an address verification system similar to what you suggest for the middle level.  If testing goes well, this will be available more widely.  I'll definitely consider implementing something like the highest level.

I love this service. So much easier than any other way to get BTC.

Suggestion: Have three-tiers of purchasing

Lowest level: Can only purchase a very small number of BTC, using your current structure.

Middle level: Can purchase more once you send them a letter containing a password to their confirmed paypal address. For the cost of a stamp, you can prove that a paypal account is not stolen. This could even be automated using a mailing service like l-mail.com

Highest level: Can purchase large quantities of bitcoins, which are "shipped" to the confirmed address using a password inside a USPS padded envelope (with additional padding to make it is just large enough to qualify for a tracking number). Shipping with a tracking number qualifies the shipper for seller protection in case of fraud. People sell gold all the time using Paypal, so I would imagine that selling BTC should be possible too. Note that you have to get signature verification on shipments worth more than $250.

The biggest risk is that fraud will occur on the highest-level tier, and PayPal will investigate and decide that you are breaking their user agreement somehow and shut you down.

You might be able to get additional protection by doing more of your communication through paypal (for instance, if the buyer gives you their bitcoin address through paypal, you could then prove that you transferred the bitcoins to the address they provided). However, that would rely on the support folks at PayPal not being lazy and incompetent, which may not be a good bet based on some things I have read.

Since you are building a reputation for honesty, you could probably also offer to buy bitcoins using paypal, making it easier for people to sell them as well.

I was saving this idea for possibly using it myself someday, but I decided to give it away to whoever wants it. Hopefully this information won't push up the value of bitcoins too quickly, since I haven't finished buying the ones I want yet. If anyone benefits from this idea, feel free (but not obligated) to tip me here: 19hMEAaRMbEhfSkeU4GT8mgSuyR4t4M6TH

The test is going well so far.  I'll leave it open until the coins run out.  That'll probably happen later tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on order sizes.

CoinPal is open to everyone again for the next hour.  If you've been waiting to buy some Bitcoins with PayPal now's your chance.  I'm about half-way done with anti-fraud changes I want to make to the site and thought it was a good point to open up again for a little while.

Fascinating.  I don't know if he was involved, but it seems this sort of thing is far more common than I had imagined.  Thanks for sharing.

Was this your scammer?
  http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showthread.php?p=2441858

Scary stuff.

Could I get in on this as well? I've only got a couple bucks so it'd be a small order but I'd like to build some trust so I can use the service later  (when I finally acquire some monies)