Post
Topic
Board Trading Discussion
Re: Why is it so hard to buy bitcoin with PayPal Arghhhh!!!!
by
bezzeb
on 12/11/2013, 09:43:26 UTC
OMFG!!! Im absolutely disgusted at the fact that no one has worked out a simple, easy and effective way of selling BTC via PayPal yet.

I know that you can buy it with PayPal via various legit methods but I need BTC now, Im not going to be made to jump through hoops and send address or identity verification, it's absurd, im verified with PayPal and I want to by BTC, thats all, how hard can that possibly be!?

Please no one tell me to go via the second life method!

Ive signed up to MT Gox, Coin Mama and also coinbase but they all expect me to sit there and take scans of my utility bills or send them my passport it's ridiculous and the minute someone figures out a way to sell me (regular joe) BTC with an easy PayPal transaction they have my business!
Sorry, not gonna happen.

The issue here is that you want to use a horrible payment instrument to buy a wonderful payment instrument.  Nobody in their right mind would accept paypal fiat in 1:1 exchange for BTC as paypal caries the extreme risk of reversal or paypal seizure / account freeze.  BTC's on the other hand are an irreversible currency with many (if not most) of the properties of Gold or Silver with the added benefit of high liquidity and fungibility.

Those brave rare few that accept paypal payments for BTC will price in a heavy percentage markup to cover the fraud and seizure risks.  Even if you paid via paypal and were an honest customer with no intent to cheat, paypal can (and will) freeze the sellers funds for any reason without effective recourse.  So you run off happy with BTC, while the seller is probably gonna be screwed one way or the other.  That's not even mentioning the ridiculous percentage cuts Paypal skims from every transaction.  In short paypal is great for buyers, but horribly evil for sellers.  (I speak from experience as one who's been screwed by paypal.) 

So.  If you want to buy BTC:  Man up and register to do direct bank transfers to an exchange (which are safer than paypal for the seller), or give someone on localbitcoins.com cash if you care about privacy.  But I'm guessing you don't care about privacy if you use paypal....   ;-)