I'm brand new to BitCoins.
I've been considering buying BitCoins for the first time ever by using PayPal.
As I considered doing so I was amazed how much personal information people selling BitCoins wanted from me.
I ended up feeling they might as well ask me for my PayPal password as well.
I mean, I don't even know these people and some wanted a picture of me standing next to my photo ID.
It made me feel rather uncomfortable. I don't like to give out personal information unless absolutely necessary.
I do business using PayPal quite often. Others don't ask for so much personal information.
I don't get it.
The whole concept of using BitCoin is supposedly to be as anonymous as possible, right?
Any comments would be appreciated.
Having traded bitcoins with paypal, the sole purpose of such an investigation is to make sure you haven't set up a person to scam others. A lot of people have access to fake ID's and they set up fake paypal accounts. They make a payment for buying bitcoins and then charge back after receiving bitcoins. If they used their real identity and did the same, they could be under legal trouble incase the buyer files a legal case.
Most of these hackers or scammers aren't prepared to have photos of the real guy standing next to the ID, so they give up their scams when asked for one. But even that isn't the safest way these days as the scammers for some reason are able to obtain even such photos these days.