Topic: Major defeat toward my plan to drop my bank (Read 1205 times)

I would do it for 0.75 BTC if he lived close by...

Not sure where you are Elwar, but surely someone would love to cut your grass for bitcoins.?
Is someone here willing to do that?

For the first few months they would do good, but after quite some time they'll fuck you over. That's how scam works, you know? Specially in the world of bitcoin. Idk why would they scam for $750 if they're a registered service. Sorry for your loss, Elwar.

I'm interested in living with only bitcoins, but there aren't so much services and merchants around here that accepts bitcoin. Hmm, I wonder if an individual could live with bitcoins 100%? There is a documentary for that, right?

Several news sources:
http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/02/17/exclusive-interview-billpayforcoins/
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113942/how-to-get-your-mom-to-use-bitcoin
https://vimeo.com/118973760

I've seen a few trusted people on the forums say that they used the service and it worked. They were actually doing what they claimed to do for quite a while.

Just look at this as a minor speed bump though, don't be too disheartened. This is clearly not your fault nor a failure in the bitcoin infrastructure.

Several news sources:
http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/02/17/exclusive-interview-billpayforcoins/
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113942/how-to-get-your-mom-to-use-bitcoin
https://vimeo.com/118973760

I've seen a few trusted people on the forums say that they used the service and it worked. They were actually doing what they claimed to do for quite a while.

Several news sources:
http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/02/17/exclusive-interview-billpayforcoins/
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113942/how-to-get-your-mom-to-use-bitcoin
https://vimeo.com/118973760

I've seen a few trusted people on the forums say that they used the service and it worked. They were actually doing what they claimed to do for quite a while.

Elwar I'm sorry but that looks like a real scammy internet site.
How did you find out about them?

So to get away from trusted money handlers like banks you just send money to anyone who say they will take your bitcoin?

Anyone who has a computer can set up a web page claiming to do a service but since they do not have to register like banks have they can just take all your bitcoin an put it in ther own pockets and noone can do anything about it. No chargeback you know...

Good question. I will look into this approach.

Sorry to hear that Elwar, I've always admired your motivation & desire to be such a bitcoin innovator & visionary.

Can you use bitcoin debit cards like Xapo to pay your bills, at least the smaller ones?

Wow. That's a lot of money. Not cool. Thank you for the heads up. So they took your bitcoins last month, and then didn't bother to tell you that their bank and been closed until you contacted them! Wow.

billpayforcoins 5 points 13 days ago

First let us start by apologizing for the massive delay. There is no excuse but there is a reason and you deserve to know what happened. The next thing we need to tell you is that we have been working hard (Successfully) to either refund our customers or process payments through other means (More on that later) to Part of the issue recently is that the main person that processes payments was out for nearly a month dealing with some serious family issues.. Technical issues followed which did not allow us access to some key components of the website.. But these have been the least of our problems... and if it wasn't such a difficult and troubling issue this last part would be an interesting conversation piece... When we established the business we made it a point to speak directly to the Bank, explain the business in detail, delivery all of our paperwork and make ourselves available from Day one for any questions that they had. We did this so that we would not have issues with the Bank especially given the fact that we are a bitcoin business.

So.. what was the problem?: Despite a through and detailed explanation of our business with people at the highest level at each of these banks and despite the fact that they opened our accounts and approved our business.. within months Bank after Bank closed our accounts without warning, held the funds until they got around to cutting checks back to us (which is odd because once they closed the accounts we no longer had a bank to deposit into), and stopped or ignored payments that we made on behalf of our customers. The first time that this happened we wrote a mass email to customers advising them that we had this issue and that we had found a replacement bank. We did the same thing the second time, and we notified customers the third time. The person that oversees payment processing being out certainly did not help this most recent time. We have opened a new bank account but given the experience that we have had so many times we have continued to process refunds back to customers and process payments using alternative means. We want to leave it to you as to how you would like to proceed. Your Bitcoin is Safe.If you would like us to process a full refund please email us at [email protected]. Please include your Bitcoin address in the subject line. We have also made ourselves available to speak with customers, so if you would like to speak with us feel free to reach out.

Again we apologize deeply for all of the confusion.

I have pretty much reached the point where I can live off of bitcoins without using any credit/debit cards. My plan was to reach the point where I can drop my bank. The only thing I use my bank account for at this point is paying my mortgage and my lawn service for the house I have in the US.

Last month I decided to pay a big bill for my lawn service of $750 through BillPayForCoins.com. They ended up taking my bitcoins and not paying my bills (which I just found out last week from my lawn guy). I'm glad I didn't try paying my mortgage last month.

DO NOT USE BillPayForCoins.com!

Their claim is that while one partner was out of town on family issues the bank shut down their account. That's all well and good but they still took my bitcoins and haven't responded to any e-mails or phone calls to get my money back.

This is a major blow toward the idea of having a Bitcoin Bill Pay service in the US. They can do it in Canada and Australia, it appears that the banks in the US are in "then they fight you" phase against Bitcoin.

So what should the solution be? The way I see it, the answer usually comes from technology and decentralization.

I think the way it could be done would be somehow using OpenBazaar to do something like BitQuick where individuals can sign up to use their bank accounts to pay bills and get a percentage of profit. You would have a list of people willing to pay your bills with Bitcoins. You send it through an escrow and the bitcoins could be released upon verification that the payment went through (or a set amount of days). As a bonus, if someone could write a plugin to automatically set up the Bill Payment then it would essentially be a free money generator for anyone running it. Decentralized, people can turn their cash into bitcoins and no way for the banks to shut it down.