It's a flat 3.99% and on some orders using zipzap there is a $3.95 convenience fee by them, obviously the fee is alot less the more you deposit.
On a $1000 transaction, the extra $3.95 makes your fee go from 3.99% to 4.38%.
Look, your more than welcome to not use our services. We make it easy to buy your first Bitcoin by walking down the block to your local 7-11. There are alot of middlemen who need to be paid in a transaction like this, Bitinstant being the last one. There are cheaper and slower alternatives to use. As our volume goes up and the high risk natures lessens, our fee's can go down. Don't forget, we need to pay these 'evil merchant processors'
We are always working on cheaper ways, including being able to buy with your bank account in about 18 counties within a few weeks.
If you have any actual comments, constructive criticism, suggestions, please feel free to email us and we can work on it and not in this thread.
If your hating on me or Bitinstant right now for a specific reason, please let me know.
Thanks
Charlie
Thank you for your honesty. My point in this thread and others is that Bitcoin was intended to eliminate "alot of middlemen".
Instead, we are just changing one lot of middlemen for another, in the process eliminating all of the privacy Bitcoin offers, and giving up the protections government fiat offers...
In my experience, new services online start out being free or virtually free, at least for small users. Then, as their popularity increases, they start to introduce or increase fees.
Bitinstant and the like are doing the opposite - laughably high fees from the start for the smallest users, with the possibility of lower fees when the popularity and size of your business grows.
To me, even as a proponent of Bitcoin, that makes the whole Bitcoin system look like a get-rich-quick scheme for a select few, perhaps, a front for government agencies, etc...
Another highly advertised potential for Bitcoin is micropayments. I know over there in New York and
Wall Street, 20$ is considered a micropayment,
but it's not in most of the world or even on American Main street.
So, even here, we are back to the banking status quo - those who can afford to make large transactions have lower percentage fees.
Those who don't have a lot of money, get to pay the highest possible percentage, or have to go to other services, which are slower or not a "legal business" as Bitinstant is, and so on...
These are "actual comments" in a public forum regarding the facts as i see them. The Bitinstant threads here are not your PR or support portal... I am not hating on you or Bitinstant. It's just business facts as i see them, rather than some personal affair.
I certainly will avoid using your service again at current rates. So glad i got my first Bitcoin, before Bitinstant arrived to "make it easy".
At 19.83% or even 4.38%, i doubt i would have taken the chance on something so uncertain to even survive, let alone displace entrenched competitors...
Gauging from the speed of Bitcoin adoption among average consumers, i suspect i am not the only one with that view...