Quote from: BitcoinLeader on April 19, 2013, 07:49:34 PM

Quote from: wdaniels on April 19, 2013, 07:23:09 PM

For small amounts you can buy Linden $ using credit card then change them for BTC at VirWoX or The Rock. That is how I got my first few BTC in the end.

This is indeed the way. However I would not recommend this for high volume because you end up with triple transaction fees.
- You pay 3% - 20% depending on deposit method.
- You pay transaction fees for exchanging USD/EUR to Linden $
- You pay transaction fees for exchanging Linden $ to BTC

I don't pay all that just buying L$ via the official SL Lindex, they just charge your card directly then I only pay 1% commission to The Rock for BTC.
It's OK now that they know me and I have a high deposit limit, but to start with I could only make very small linden deposits to The Rock each day.

I think you must be talking about going VirWoX first to buy the Lindens, which is crazy expensive. I only tried that once. I put funds on Neteller from my credit card, deposited that to VirWox and bought Lindens, which I moved then to The Rock. At the time Lindex wouldn't take my card, which turned out to be a problem with their gateway and I got 2000 L$ free as compensation for that. But the smile was soon wiped off my face when I got my credit card bill and saw that MBNA charged me an extortionate fee for Neteller as a 'cash' transaction.

Anyway, back on topic, the only way this can be done is to push the risk off onto another entity, in this case Lindex. The risk is partly shared in that SL sometimes confiscates L$ from The Rock if they are traced back to a source that since did a chargeback. Hence the cautious deposit limits initially.

It's all very frustrating but eventually you can always find ways that are not too expensive. Nowadays I buy enough BTC to use wire transfers but this method via L$ still comes in handy at times.