First off, I hope everyone is having a good night!
My question relates to BitCoin and personal security. How are you protected from someone trying to rip you off?
For example purposes only: Say you move BitCoins from your desktop wallet to an online store to buy an HDTV. The BitCoins leave your wallet...but the store says you never sent them (when in actuality you did, but they are lying to you).
What options do you have? Is it merely your word against them? Is there some sort of "trace" that you can show the legal authorities?
Thank you for reading.
All bitcoin translations are recorded publicly. Proving that x bincoin were sent form address A to address B is extremity easy.
The tricky part comes in trying to prove that address B is the address that the intended recipient asked you to send the bitcoins to.
There really needs to be an invoicing (or payment request) system that uses digital signatures that will stand up in court. Barring that, it would help if there were properly insured bitcoin "banks" that could act as an escrow intermediary. They could then hold off on settling the transaction for a few days giving the buyer a chance to make a claim that they didn't receive payment. If the "bank" had a contract with the seller, they could settle immediately and then just perform a charge-back if a customer denies the charges.
I expect that such entities will be created as bitcoin matures, but at the moment, handing over bitcoin is like handing over cash. How can you prove that you paid someone after you hand them the cash? It's pretty much your word against theirs, isn't it?