[vanzard]

Not always true. The reality is less rosy than you depict it.

Most credit card issuers don't let you charge back transactions older than 60 days. It is always fun to discover this fact after a merchant invents believable excuses to stall your order for 60+ days... ("Warehouse stock depleted, wait 4-6 weeks. We shipped it! Sorry we shipped the wrong item!")

Merchants can dispute chargebacks, and in fact do win 40% of them. See page 12 of http://bit.ly/10iW5wJ A lot of this is friendly fraud but still...

CC issuers will typically hold you liable and refuse chargebacks if the PIN code was used (the hacker guessed it, stole it, or cloned it). Check your CC fine print, for example: "If your Password or PIN is used in such a transaction, you will be liable for the full debt" from http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/common/pdf/borrowing/revolving_...

[vectorpush]

Fair enough. Credit cards offer decent but limited consumer protections; bitcoins offer none.

[vanzard]

Credit cards enable theft at, or fraud by the merchant because you give the merchant your CC info; Bitcoin fixes this flaw by design as it cryptographically authorizes only transactions of specific amounts to specific addresses.

CCs and Bitcoin solve different issues with fraud and theft. I argue that the protection offered by CCs is overrated. For example plenty of people everyday are happy to use a system that does not offer these protections: cash. I don't see you running around warning people to not use cash because it offers no protection.

[sanswork]

>I don't see you running around warning people to not use cash because it offers no protection

People are happy to use cash because in almost all cash transactions they are able to verify the receipt of the product or service immediately or have a known location within reach to access the seller incase it doesn't happen.

>I don't see you running around warning people to not use cash because it offers no protection.

But this is something that is warned against. People/organisations warn against mailing cash for this exact reason all the time.

[vanzard]

We warn about mailing cash to dubious/untrustworthy recipients.

But paying a very trustworthy merchant by mailing cash would probably be fine in terms of risk of theft: mailing a $100 bill is no different than mailing a $100 item, yet people ship millions of $100+ items every day through the postal system and few get stolen.

It's just stupid to mail cash because faster ways of sending money exist.

[sanswork]

We don't warn against mailing cash only because it might be stolen in transit we warn against it because of the lack of tracking. How do you know the store received the cash? What happens if your envelope is delivered but falls off the mail cart somewhere and is lost? The merchant isn't going to take your word that you mailed them cash no matter how trustworthy they are.

[vanzard]

> lack of tracking

Are you joking? The entire shipping industry offers tracking services, delivery confirmations, etc.

[grubles]

The difference with bitcoin is that the protection is up to you. Same as with holding cash or precious metal in a safe at home. Except with bitcoin, you have m-of-n signatures, encrypted wallets, brain-wallets even. You can backup your encrypted wallet anywhere. Someone even put their wallet.dat on a website for anyone to download, but their passphrase is probably 1,000 random characters or something.

[ForHackernews]

Why would anyone want that? Most people are not interested in holding cash or precious metal in a safe at their house. It's extremely inconvenient, expensive to do correctly, and still much riskier than keeping your money in an FDIC-insured bank.

This is the problem with bitcoin: Everything its advocates claim is a desirable feature is actually a huge bug for normal people.