Topic: Do you want to spend your BitCoins on "Cuban" cigars ?!

[Samker]

BitCoin is the latest rage in cyber space - It is a new crypto currency that allows customers to easily receive and send payments and TrueTobacco.com is the first online tobacco retailer to accept this payment method.

TrueTobacco.com has established itself as an innovator in the online tobacco industry. As such it comes as no surprise that the expanding company has integrated a new payment method for the benefit of its customers: http://www.truetobacco.com/blog/

BitCoin was created by an anonymous online developer under the pseudonym of "Satoshi Nakamoto". It is a distributed peer-to-peer currency that functions without the intermediation of any central authority. BitCoin is known as a 'cryptocurrency' since it uses cryptography and proof of work schemes to prevent double-spending, a significant challenge that is inherent to digital currencies. As of August 2013 there are approximately 11.5 million BitCoins in circulation with an approximate value of a little under $2 Billion USD.

"We are proud to be the first online tobacco store to allow customers to purchase products using the BitCoin virtual currency. We have always offered the best prices, great service and fast delivery and now we can also boast being the only store of our kind to offer BitCoin checkout. We will of course conduct age verification for any such purchases to ensure our complete compliance with local, state and federal regulations," said Nick Gordon, General Manager for TrueTobacco.com.

TrueTobacco.com is celebrating it's first year in operations with constant sales and promotions. The company offers a line of over 3,000 different tobacco products. These products cover an extensive line of categories including premium cigars, machine made cigars, blunts and little cigars. Customers can find products for up to 70% off retail prices.

The company offers free shipping on orders over $200, a customer loyalty point system, discounts for writing reviews and other attractive, unique features. Purchases made from TrueTobacco.com are generally shipped out within 24 hours. The shipments are made using discreet brown boxes for the convenience and privacy of customers.

(PRW)

[Pez]

Sorry to say.
BitCoin as a fraud in my view. Her is some info that explain way and my view on it.

See also this thread in the forum: http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,8398.0.html

This anonymous developer of BitCoin is just a prof of the fraud. Who want to have some anonymous to handling your money?
Probably his is also the owner to "TrueTobacco.com" and want peoples to by something from him to get the BitCoin moving further so hi can earn more money in the pyramid game this is.

Can some one build a BitCoin Miner as in the thread a bow then its truly a fraud.
See the explanation and the links below that explain why.

Bit Coin is not a currency it is just a modern pyramid game. The only one that win the money is those that started Bit Coin it self. The Bit Coin dose not have a substantial value just a virtual that you can use as long as there is a bigger fool that by them and ship something of substantial value back to you.   

Her is a good description about Bit Coin and a good description have market economy works:

Don't Buy Bitcoins 
Don't Buy Bitcoins, Part 2
Don't Buy Bitcoins, Part 3 - Why Goods Attain Prices
Why must We not Buy Bitcoins?

Rebuttal "Don't Buy Bitcoins"

Remember there is nothing free on the net!

So If I understand your dilemma devnullius you probably get fraud by Butterfly Labs when you try to by something to mine bitcoin and that in it self says everything about bitcoin and there substantial value. Can some one virtual mine for something can it really have a substantial value and ware is the money created? You need to putt in a substantial value to have that ability to take out it also. You can not have more value in a system then you put in. If you have done this you get in a economic crises and that is what happen in some country's now when they have lived over there substantial value like some parts in US (Detroit) and Greece for example.

Realise this the only way to earn money in this way is to be in the top of the pyramid and try to sell a fraud to every body else so they give you money. And than you are the thief!

[Samker]

Remember there is nothing free on the net!

Pal, I agree with you but why "Wordpress, OkCupid, Reddit, Chinese Internet giant Baidu, and Humble Bundle" start to accept them? (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin )


Also, why to steal something which doesn't have any value?

" As some users have found to their cost, hackers can sometimes steal Bitcoins from users’ online vaults. In the latest raid, on September 5th, hackers stole $250,000 in Bitcoins from Bitfloor, a large American exchange, causing it to shut down its operation."

Source (The Economist): http://www.economist.com/node/21563752

[truetobacco]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Nicolas and I'm the general manager for TrueTobacco.com

First, I want to thank you for the mention of our brand. I was reading this thread and found there might be some misconceptions about TrueTobacco, our relationship or lack thereof with the bitcoin community and the types of products we sell. I'll try to address this so as to clear the air:

1- We don't sell Cuban cigars. They are illegal to sell. We are a legally licensed and registered business with the state of Florida, the Pinellas county and the city of Clearwater. We don't sell cigarettes, Cuban cigars, or any other product that is restricted. We don't even sell e-cigs since we consider them high risk. You must be over 18 years of age to purchase our products, and we do check ID (we have age verification systems both at the time of purchase, and of delivery)

2- We are not members or associated with the founding team behind bitcoin. We don't even own any bitcoins.

While we support the concept of bitcoin, and we have opened the option for our customers to pay in bitcoin, any bitcoin purchases are automatically transferred to USD and sent to our bank account, since that is currency we must use to pay our distributors, taxes, licensing, rent, staff, hosting, domain, marketing services and others.

Way over 99% (more like 99.97%) of purchases made from our website are made with traditional methods of payment: Bank Transfer (ACH), PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover.

We do not endorse bitcoin, and we are not suggesting anyone should buy them. We only offer the option so that people who currently own bitcoin and enjoy cigars can purchase them without having to transfer the bitcoins into USD first.

I apologize if our press release did not make this clear.

Kind Regards,
Nicolas Gordon
TrueTobacco.com General Manager
Toll Free Phone Number: 855-876-6537 ext 3

[Pez]

Hi Everyone,

...

2- We are not members or associated with the founding team behind bitcoin. We don't even own any bitcoins.

While we support the concept of bitcoin, and we have opened the option for our customers to pay in bitcoin, any bitcoin purchases are automatically transferred to USD and sent to our bank account, since that is currency we must use to pay our distributors, taxes, licensing, rent, staff, hosting, domain, marketing services and others.

Way over 99% (more like 99.97%) of purchases made from our website are made with traditional methods of payment: Bank Transfer (ACH), PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover.

We do not endorse bitcoin, and we are not suggesting anyone should buy them. We only offer the option so that people who currently own bitcoin and enjoy cigars can purchase them without having to transfer the bitcoins into USD first.

I apologize if our press release did not make this clear.

Kind Regards,
Nicolas Gordon
TrueTobacco.com General Manager
Toll Free Phone Number: 855-876-6537 ext 3

A curios question!
If you give the opportunity to by your products in Bitcoin. How do you handle the exchange rate?
It wearies heavy not only day for day but under the same time from place of exchange if you for example exchange it to USD.
Specifically when the Bitcoin is not supported by a substantial value and today just is a virtual value that no country's currency supports official exchange rate to. To cover your risk in a transaction you need to get a very heavy under rate of the Bitcoin on the virtual exchange to cover your risk in your transaction. How match % in over prize do you use to cover this risk?
Because I suppose you don't want to lose money when some one by from you in Bitcoin and you do not get any stabile exchange rate on the Bitcoin compare against for example USD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

"The rate of new bitcoin creation will be halved every four years until there are 21 million BTC [2]" 

"Without a sustained increase in the value of Bitcoin relative to other currencies, payment processing fees must rise over time, and once the Bitcoin ceiling is reached, processing transactions will no longer be rewarded with new Bitcoins. This is due to the fact that the total number of Bitcoins is capped at 21 million and because the creation of each successive Bitcoin requires a larger amount of payment processing work than the last.[17] Fees are generally independent of the amount being sent, making Bitcoin attractive for those seeking to transfer larger amounts of money.[18] In one instance, Bitcoins worth millions of US dollars were transferred for only a few pennies.[19]"

The info I got from your site:
http://www.truetobacco.com/truetobacco-com-becomes-first-online-tobacco-store-accept-bitcoins/

"At TrueTobacco.com we are always looking to provide the best service to our customers. In that spirit, we have included a new payment method to our online store; BitCoins.

Now BitCoin users have yet another place where they can spend their Cryto-Currency. At TrueTobacco.com you can now exchange BitCoins and receive high quality tobacco products delivered to your door step withing days. The same super low prices apply to BitCoin purchases as to regular dollar orders.

For customers interested in paying with Bit Coins, we request that they note that we will be forced to request age verification documentation in order to stay compliant with our tobacco license. However, this can be a fast and easy process, just snap a shot of your drivers license, passport or voter ID card, and email to us. Within 1 business day we will process the age verification step and ship your products."

Dose not say anything ware you do the exchange or under what conditions you do the exchange rate. The only prize I found on your site is in USD and that is possible to compare against other currency's except for Bitcoin as I describe earlier.

[truetobacco]

Hi Pez,

Thank you for your question, you brought up a great point.

As a retailer, we don't handle any transactions directly. For credit cards, merchant acc providers handle the transaction and pay us. When you pay with your Visa card in most businesses, this is generally how it goes:
User pays with Visa > Retailer sends transaction to Merchant account provider via a 'gateway' > Merchant provider verifies transaction > Merchant provider sends transaction to acquiring bank > Acquiring bank settles with Visa/MasterCard > Money goes from Visa to acquiring bank > then to merchant provider > merchant provider sends money to merchant account holder (the retailer). Everyone along the way keeps fees which are paid for by the retailer.

I will note that some very large companies might have their own Merchant company and handle transactions directly with Acquiring banks, or they might even have their own acquiring banks. But I can't confirm this, since it would only be VERY large companies that would be able to get that high up the food chain (think amazon, ebay, etc)... we are a small business.

For bitcoin, there is a company that will take the bitcoins and pay us in USD based on our USD pricing. All the risk and considerations regarding handling the bitcoin transactions are taken by them. They charge us a fee, just like merchant banks do, for handling this for us. We never see the bitcoins themselves. The conversion is done on a moment-to-moment basis once the customer hits check out and requests to pay with bitcoin. The conversion is determined by the company that provides the 'bitcoin merchant services' to us.

I will disclose that we own a very small amount of bitcoin ($60 worth when I bought it, it could be worth more now, I don't know since it isn't something we really care for). Those bitcoins were purchased to test our integration with our 'bitcoin merchant provider' (this last term is something that doesn't really exists, but it is the closest I know to describe the services they provide)

The company that handles our bitcoin transactions is a US company based out of Atlanta, GA.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give a full picture on how transactions are handled in general, not just bitcoin.

Kind Regards,
Nicolas Gordon
TrueTobacco.com General Manager
Toll Free Phone Number: 855-876-6537 ext 3

[Pez]

Sorry I have update some in my note abow after you start your answer. Take that in view when you read this.

Can you please explain how I can (hypothetically) by in Bitcoin from you and know what price I pay for it.
I have looked at one exchange rate place and have seen that it have just under this month raised from $200 to $400 for one Bitcoin.
If I looked back in April the Bitcion varies about $100 up and down in just one week.

http://www.quandl.com/BCHAIN-Blockchain/MKPRU-Bitcoin-Market-Price-USD

This is not seriously to use for a business if you can't tell a real price in a local value that is more stabile. It is like make commerce with a banana republic. The only question is who is it that get fraud? You the byer or both!
My point in this article is that the Bitcoin is no more then a  pyramid game but in a different way. It works as long you get a bigger fool in the market.

One thing that you probably need to take in you decision to support Bitcoin in your site and to make at least me feel you are serious is if Bitcoin is a serious currency and your company should look serious why dose not the large company's like American express, MasterCard and VISA that you all ready have contact with don't handle Bitcoin?

[truetobacco]

Hi Pez,

Our prices are in USD. Whatever bitcoin is valued at is irrelevant to us.

There is a company that takes the risk. They determine the exchange rate you would need to pay as a bitcoin user.

To see the price, add any product to your shopping card, fill out the check out, and on the bottom there is an option to pay with bitcoin. When you click that option, you will be re-directed to bitpay.com - They will tell you how many bitcoins to send and where. When you do, bitpay receives your bitcoins, and pays us in USD.

We are not endorsing bitcoins. We don't even own any real money in bitcoins (aside from the $60 worth we purchased for testing)

Let me put it this way: If tulips started being worth serious money, and there was a company that would process the risk and send us USD (like bitpay does for us with bitcoins), you could pay with tulips. We won't handle that type of risk, but if it is easy for us to take payments in X or Y form, we will jump on the opportunity.

All we care about us is getting quality tobacco products to customers looking to purchase quality tobacco products and stay profitable when doing so. BitPay allows us to 'take bitcoin payments' since they handle all the logistics and just pass on USD to us.

Regarding your question as to why credit card companies don't handle bitcoin, I am not a representative of for them, so I can't really provide you with an answer.

I think we might have mistakenly been seen as 'promoting bitcoins'. It isn't so. We 'accept bitcoins' for people who have them.

If you don't have bitcoins and wish to pay us with USD using your Credit Card, like 99.97% of our customers do, then you are welcome to do so. If you like bitcoins, you are welcome to pay in bitcoins.

We aren't endorsing, we are giving our customers options. Wordpress is a company that provides a technology platform to almost 20% of ALL existing websites. They take bitcoin donations. Accepting bitcoins has nothing to do with either wordpress or TrueTobacco.com's business model, it is simply a convenience offered to bitcoin users.

Our position toward bitcoin is neutral, we neither recommend investing in them, nor not investing in them. If you like bitcoin, great. If you don't like bitcoin, great. All we are about is tobacco. We offer options for purchasing tobacco to both camps. We aren't taking sides.

You seem to believe bitcoins are garbage, others believe they are gold. We know nothing about it. All we know is tobacco, how to purchase it, store it and sell it to customers at great prices.

We sell premium hand made cigars for as little as $1/cigar and little cigars for as little as $9/carton of 200. We guarantee satisfaction, so any purchase made from us comes with a full money back guarantee, there is very little to lose purchasing from us if you are a smoker. And there is a lot to save.

Kind Regards,
Nicolas Gordon
TrueTobacco.com General Manager
Toll Free Phone Number: 855-876-6537 ext 3

[Samker]

Hi Nicolas and Welcome to SCF Community.
Thank you very much for detailed information... 

Best Regards,

Samker


P.S.

Please check your PM for our proposal.

[Pez]

The in the time the BitCoin fraud should show up as the fraud it is. The time will show, the time will show.

We had in my country a new try to make the BitCoin the new investment area for the economic market in the news. Also one of the company's that try to do some marketing about the BitCoin mining machines they sells. They talked about prices now around € 4000 - 8000 for the miner computer with 4 - 8 mining units inside.

They talked also that the current market is mostly a investment to make money not in the sells market for things.

Think about what I have wrote before about this and the relation to pyramid games. More and more is talking to that this is just something someone try to earn money from other whit noting. A real fraud!

Lets see how right I have in this in the future.
Se also my other notes about NSA and Apple, Microsoft and many more of the company's that NSA have their grip on them.