BeerBorg

I am a merchant accepting regular card payments and am interested in hearing what others (merchants & customers using and accepting Bitcoins) have to say good &/or bad with experiences with Bitcoins. As I have a SquareUp Marketplace online, I am doing my own due diligence in researching this and as a borg member, would appreciate any furhter information from those familiar with using Bitcoin. To clarify, I am not accepting Bitcoins as we speak, I am in the "Interested in Possibly accepting them" stage!

in advance as I look forward to the experts and experienced individuals from this treasure wealth of information called the BeerBorg!!!

Bitcoin? What's that? Can they be redeemed for real $$, how, where, ease of redeemed, etc??

Bitcoins are still pretty young, as such they experience wild fluctuations in value.
There are a large number of exchanges: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/
Some retailers accept them as payment, I think the largest is Overstock.com, but I don't know a lot of physical retails outlets that accept them.

Two words - Mt. Gox. As a merchant, unless you are very savvy and prepared for wide fluctuations (such as the Mt. Gox failure), IMHO you'd be crazy to accept bitcoin.

I'm the type that doesn't think having my phone be my wallet is a good idea, so take my feedback with that in mind. Bitcoin to me seems like a scam. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. See, I'm so helpful.

My son has been trying to get me involved but for now, I'm staying on the sidelines. It's just not worth it for my small biz at this point and I wonder if it will truly be for a long while.

Bluejaye wrote:I'm the type that doesn't think having my phone be my wallet is a good idea, so take my feedback with that in mind. Bitcoin to me seems like a scam. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. See, I'm so helpful.

I use a Twenty Foot Pole for my benchmark!!! Everything I read, hear and such is like my daddy always said "Hold 'er thar Newt"...now i think I understand him completely, R.I.P. Dad!!!

I like paypal
I will choose an online business that accepts paypal over one that doesn't even if the one that doesn't saves me some money.

I shan't reply from a techie standpoint else RB will succumb to apoplexy ( )....

But I will ask if you knew that there is some kind of International Internet security and governance conference going on in Brazil and that the US has or is consdering relinquishing control of said Internet via (ICANN) ? Most folks may think it isn't a big deal who is in charge of "assigning website names" but if you start getting something turned into an International Bureaucracy from a normal screwed up ity bity bureaucracy who knows what could happen.

If our regular everyday currency/transaction methods are forever being attacked, hijacked and compromised why add another risk to your business. Heck that kind of crap almost took down Target.

Get a good Risk Management Consultant before you add any kind of risk to your business is what BB2 and I would advise as former the aforementioned.

I'm with Roger. Paypal is a much more trusted and stable way to exchange money. I'm not buying into the bitcoin thing.

Bluejaye wrote:I'm the type that doesn't think having my phone be my wallet is a good idea, so take my feedback with that in mind. Bitcoin to me seems like a scam. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. See, I'm so helpful.

I wouldn't touch it with YOUR ten foot pole

In theory it sounds good, until you begin to look at why Bitcoin was developed. Probably its first use was on The Silk Road, a site (that has been since taken down) that specialized in things like selling drugs, murder for hire, and all that great stuff. Bitcoin is a way to launder money as it is not tied to a person. As a businessman, would I really even want to do business with a person who goes to great lengths to be anonymous? I mean, if you really want to be anonymous, buy a prepaid Visa card.

Ive done some looking trying to figure it out: how money is "created," who creates it, etc. and it is a bunch of gobbledegook to me. Reminds me of those CMOs that caused The Great Recession - a vehicle of monetary transfer that 99% of the people selling and 99.9999% of the people buying did not understand. I have a MBA in Finance and I still find myself banging my head on a table trying to figure out everything.

IF I were to accept Bitcoin, I would have something set up that IMMEDIATELY exchanges them for good old US dollars, for both protection from fluctuation as well as potential fraud.

DaYooper wrote:In theory it sounds good, until you begin to look at why Bitcoin was developed. Probably its first use was on The Silk Road, a site (that has been since taken down) that specialized in things like selling drugs, murder for hire, and all that great stuff. Bitcoin is a way to launder money as it is not tied to a person. As a businessman, would I really even want to do business with a person who goes to great lengths to be anonymous? I mean, if you really want to be anonymous, buy a prepaid Visa card.

Ive done some looking trying to figure it out: how money is "created," who creates it, etc. and it is a bunch of gobbledegook to me. Reminds me of those CMOs that caused The Great Recession - a vehicle of monetary transfer that 99% of the people selling and 99.9999% of the people buying did not understand. I have a MBA in Finance and I still find myself banging my head on a table trying to figure out everything.

IF I were to accept Bitcoin, I would have something set up that IMMEDIATELY exchanges them for good old US dollars, for both protection from fluctuation as well as potential fraud.

DaYooper: spot on with all including the last comment. Since I sell on Squareup Marketplace and I use Square as my merchant service account both online and with my smart phone (thank god it is smart), they accept bitcoin for some merchants at this time, and once accepted as payment, Square exchanges the bitcoins and in turn deposits US dollars into my bank account so me thinks they have taken the risk out of accepting Bitcoins. I personally would not accept or use Bitcoins in a transaction.
Since I am not very familiar with Bitcoins, I was using the borg to gain advice and experience on them.

to everyone participating in this topic as it does enlighten me.

Okay, this afternoon I received a favorable response from Square Up regarding the acceptance of BitCoins...

Accept Bitcoin Purchases
While customers now can pay with bitcoin, the experience for Square sellers to accept a payment won’t change: customer’s bitcoin will be immediately exchanged into dollars and deposited into the seller’s bank account. Merchants will receive the full purchase price in USD, less Square’s fee, for any item purchased with bitcoin. The refund process for bitcoin payments will be the same as credit card payments. Your customer will receive their refund in the original form of payment.

I would figure that Square Up is accepting the responsibility for the values of Bitcoins and thus as a merchant, I am safe from any fraudulent Bitcoin transaction. I actually don't have to do anything other than to fulfill the purchase by packaging and shipping purchased item.