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by oldprogrammer2 1437 days ago
It may fix this particular problem, on one side of the transaction, but it creates new ones. What if I, as a purchaser, want to dispute my purchase? What if I was ripped off? What if the product was broken, not as advertised, etc. I like knowing there is recourse through chargebacks.

For example, I rented a vacation home last year, on VRBO, and the highly unusual contract (that was not shared until after the purchase) made me very uncomfortable. As an aside, I was also surprised that I was billed directly by the rental company via Stripe, rather than through VRBO. I requested a refund within an hour of booking.

For two weeks, I attempted to contact the rental company. I never received a single acknowledgement from them, and VRBO provided zero support. The only way I was able to get my money back was with a chargeback, showing my request for a refund within the cancellation window.

I am 100% confident that if this had been a bitcoin transaction I would have lost that money. I would also expect a rise in bad actors abusing that lack of recourse if bitcoin did increase in popularity for payment. In my mind, that is the challenge that crypto needs to solve before it can become widely adopted as a payment option.

3 comments

Forget chargebacks: the wildly fluctuating price of BTC means that even a good-faith retailer can't offer refunds without risk to either the buyer or the seller. The price of BTC has risen almost 40% in the past month; how do you settle this without either side feeling like they've gotten ripped off?
I agree that this is still a challenge that needs to be solved in better ways. There are some solutions possible. For example OpenBazaar used 2-of-3 multisig escrow. Bisq is using security deposits, limits and reputation. For some large transactions there are legal escrow services. But for small regular transactions with most merchants, there is no good standardized solution so far. You just have to do your research about about the counterparty and trust the merchant as far as transaction goes.
Consider crypto payments as cash payments and the problem(your expectations from a payment provider) is "solved"
Or for services/goods that requires this kind of leeway, use an escrow.

Yes it does introduce a third party, but the point is that compared to the current system there is no other option for the many cases in which you don't need don't want to use an escrow, the payment processor invariably act as such and can shutdown your business at will.

A system that requires me to put transactions in escrow more often than extremely rarely is not a system I want to use.
It's a system you already use if you use credit cards. The payment processor play this role by assuming the counterparty risk and issuing chargebacks when they deem it appropriate.