The Great Robocoin Rip-off 117
FhnuZoag writes: Last year, Andrew Wilkinson, founder of MetaLab, bought a Robocoin Bitcoin ATM, figuring it would be a fun little side project and a good way to help move Bitcoin forward. It did not quite turn out that way. He has now written a timeline of the 10-month, $25,000(CAD) struggle. In short: there was a massive shipping delay, a $2,000 charge to clear customs, no knowledge base, unhelpful support, and the ATM itself flat out didn't work.
A bitcoin product was a scam? (Score:5, Funny)
Good heavens never saw that one coming!
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I wonder how much mass the delay actually had.
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You lost your faith too fast. I'm sure the bitcoin product is blessed in it divine honesty and all the corruption comes from that Wilkinson guy. If that's even his real name.
(In the name of Mr.Nakamoto, the bitcoin and the block chain. Amine)
Serveds him right for being a hipster twat (Score:1, Insightful)
Trendy overhyped thing turns out to be utter fucking shite. Film at 11.
Re:Serveds him right for being a hipster twat (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a general rule of thumb is that once you hit 5 digits of price, a test drive is never too much to ask.
Re:Serveds him right for being a hipster twat (Score:5, Interesting)
That's really just a subset of an even more general rule of thumb, "a fool and his money are soon parted".
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At some point YES the victim really does have to shoulder some responsibility. If I told you I was selling you a ticket to the newest hotel we just established on the moon for $2000 and you bought it then while I am scum, you have to be pretty mentally impaired to fall for that scam.
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If your scheme to make money from Bitcoin involves giving real money to someone else who's scheme to make money from Bitcoin involves getting real money from you, then looking at past history of Bitcoin money-making schemes it's highly likely that out of all the people around the table, you are the sucker.
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Yup. Plenty of instances where it needs to be pointed out that a victim did something really stupid to enable their victimization.
News flash: people are responsible for their actions in most cases. There are certainly cases where victims bear no reasonable responsibility for their predicament, but there are absolutely cases where they bear significant responsibility.
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I think a general rule of thumb is that once you hit 5 digits of price, a test drive is never too much to ask.
Exactly. That's what I told my diamond guy. "Give me one that's over $9999."
Sadly, my future father in law disagreed.
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Wouldn't that include, say, cars boats trains airplanes and spaceships?
I'd happily pay $2 for a spaceship, even if it ran Windows.
I'd pay more than $2 for a Tesla.
What did you expect (Score:1)
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should of
would of
could of
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your not helping
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http://theoatmeal.com/comics/m... [theoatmeal.com]
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(that was the idea; too subtle, I guess)
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I try and help better next time.
Easy to see coming. (Score:1)
Anything called "Robo" as in ROBerCoin should be telling just from the label.
Startup/new company fails? (Score:2)
That's unpossible!
Visible douchebag (Score:1)
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Yeah, but looking at Wilkinson's photo, his douchiness quotient may not be far behind. Their combined daily hair product emissions alone could probably power a small town.
One overprivileged hipster screws another. Oh, the humanity! And it's so sad to see, since in another world they could have been bros, sharing some PBRs on a Sunday morning at the beer garden while talking over each other about their new iPhone apps.
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It's the look of a person who believes appearance and flamboyance wins friends, because he read it in some self-help book or he's just that stuck on himself. It's the way people who think they're so great that they can set trends or simply stand apart and make themselves a unique image, and people will praise them over it.
You can see it right there: he claims he's worked with many people, his service is great, and that he's doing his client a great favor by being such a great guy giving them a refund whe
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God damn (Score:1)
Reading the chat logs just pisses me off. WiFi losing connection, power getting turned off.. Is it so fucking hard to get a CAT cable hidden and tucked away and to pay someone not to turn the damn power off if you spent 20K already?
Hyper agro tech support guy? You made yourself look like an amature.
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Better would be to have the system use a cellular data network (with a VPN connection to whatever network it needed to communicate with for transaction data). That way it's isolated from the bar network *and* you don't need anything more than a power plug.
Robocoin has 44 operational ATMs worldwide (Score:4, Informative)
I can't vouch for the quality of their products or service, but I know Robocoin is one of the leading Bitcoin ATM manufacturers. According to Coin ATM Radar [coinatmradar.com], there currently are 44 Robocoin ATMs operational worldwide, in the United States, the UK, Canada, Spain, Japan,... Robocoin provided the very first Bitcoin ATM machine in the world, in October 2013 in Vancouver, Canada.
They are currently ranked 2nd, after Lamassu [lamassu.is] with 90 ATMs. But the Lamassu ATMs are mostly smaller and cheaper one-way machines (cash to Bitcoin), although they do sell a two-way solution now.
On Coin ATM Radar, a total of 267 operational Bitcoin ATMs are registered at the moment.
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You should recognize them easily too from the prominent OCP logo. And if somebody enters the PIN wrong three times, a belt comes out, imprisons the guy and zaps him dead.
Captcha: coolly
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And it won't even run down your battery.
Re:Robocoin has 44 operational ATMs worldwide (Score:4, Informative)
I can't vouch for the quality of their products or service, but I know Robocoin is one of the leading Bitcoin ATM manufacturers.
According to the email exchange shown in the article, Robocoin is NOT a manufacturer, they are simply a reseller who installs their own custom software. Which may or may not be crap and which may or may not actually work.
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I wish I had some seed money, I'd buy some Bitcoin ATMs and resell them with my own custom software written by the Office Space crew.
Robocoin has 44 operational ATMs worldwide (Score:1)
"leading bitcoin ATM manufacturers"? LOL. Is that like the leading slashdot beta ux guru?
ATM means Ass To Mouth, by the way.
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I can't vouch for the quality of their products or service, but I know Robocoin is one of the leading Bitcoin ATM manufacturers. According to Coin ATM Radar [coinatmradar.com], there currently are 44 Robocoin ATMs operational worldwide, in the United States, the UK, Canada, Spain, Japan,... Robocoin provided the very first Bitcoin ATM machine in the world, in October 2013 in Vancouver, Canada.
They are currently ranked 2nd, after Lamassu [lamassu.is] with 90 ATMs. But the Lamassu ATMs are mostly smaller and cheaper one-way machines (cash to Bitcoin), although they do sell a two-way solution now.
On Coin ATM Radar, a total of 267 operational Bitcoin ATMs are registered at the moment.
Wow, that's /almost/ 1 per state.
The inevitable (Score:2)
Is it just me, or is there a deluge of unsympathetic ridicule heading this guy's way?
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There will be two groups who will ridicule this guy the worst:
1) People who think everyone who buys a magazine with the word "bitcoin" deserves to be scammed because free market durp
2) Bitcoin uber-nerds who are shocked these n00bs didn't use a P2SH decentralized escrow service by manually copying and pasting the signatures
Normal people in the middle will just shrug and say "sue 'em!"
Huge spreads on withdrawals! (Score:3)
Wow, looking at those bitcoin ATM maps (http://coinatmradar.com/), it looks like these kiosks are charging a 5.5% fee for conversion into "fiat" currency. That's a huge forex spread, and amounts to an enormous ATM fee.
Lowest cost laundering (Score:5, Insightful)
One persons large spread on a conversion, is another persons bargain on laundering.
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Laundering? Whoa, whoa, careful! These days the preferred term is "Double Irish with Dutch Sandwich."
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Or you could just 3D-print your car and pay 0%.
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Right but, is it really that hard to understand? I mean yes, if you only value strict dollar value it seems like a contradiction but, if you realize that smaller operators take a larger proportionate risk with each transaction, you understand why they have to charge more for it to be worth it.
It makes as much sense to me to pay this extra fee as it would to pay the extra dollar to get similar coffee at the local coffee shop because I like that there is a local coffee shop at the corner and I get value from
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It makes as much sense to me to pay this extra fee as it would to pay the extra dollar to get similar coffee at the local coffee shop because I like that there is a local coffee shop at the corner and I get value from it being there and not being just another starbucks.
Except this is not about coffee or service but about money.
And someone giving even more money to A cause they don't like that B is overcharging them - that's cutting off the nose to spite the face.
Its called values, different people have different ones and....shocker.... make decisions based on them.
Which is just fine - as long as those people realize that such a decision is purely emotional and not rational in any way, shape or form.
Trouble starts when people start pretending and/or believing that their choices are correct because they are rational and logical.
That's being delusional.
Which coincidentally exp
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> And someone giving even more money to A cause they don't like that B is overcharging them - that's cutting
> off the nose to spite the face.
Or that is you over-simplifying their values. I guess if you accept that the only reason they have for disliking A is a feeling of being "overcharged" then, and only then it makes sense. Most people I know who would pay more elsewhere have more reasons than that to dislike the big banks and not want to do business with them.
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Most people I know who would pay more elsewhere have more reasons than that to dislike the big banks and not want to do business with them.
None of those reasons having anything to do with the purpose of the transaction - to acquire or use money in a way that guarantees getting most monetary value out of the said money.
All other reasons are akin to picking a car based solely on its color.
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Do you even have a point other than that you refuse to recognize that people might have more nuanced world views than you?
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Do you even understand that MONEY IS A TOOL and that "more nuanced world views" about money are about as relevant as more nuanced world views about hammers?
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Yes I understand that you hold this opinion.
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If you want to consider money as just a tool to transact and the simplified world view that getting the best value for money is the end game, then yes, you're correct.
However, money is also an instrument of change. If I want a buy a book, I could go to Amazon and get it, or my local bookstore across the street. Monetarily, I'd come out ahead using Amazon
Lay off the sophistry... (Score:2)
However, money is also an instrument of change.
Your "argument" could just as well be applied to almost anything. From excrement to cars.
Same as it could be turned around and broken by "proving" that money is an instrument of status quo.
Cause if it were not so, how do the wealthy remain wealthy, become wealthier and pass on that wealth to their offspring.
Both would be nonsense.
It is a tool.
Only we pass around tokens we confuse for money so we give it more material value and imagine it more real than say... mathematics.
Which is itself a tool one needs to
The old refuge of those without facts or logic... (Score:2)
Yes I understand that you hold this opinion.
...calling statements and facts "just opinions".
Self-immolating their own intellect in exchange for the false coin of the last desperate attempt to clutch at pride.
"Better all that is said be mere opinions, and thus an equation and a squiggle and a hard-earned fact be of same value, including such works of mine - than for ME to wrong.
Let NOTHING be wrong then, for all is mere thought and nothing is of real value."
Childish.
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You can call me all the names you want, it wont change the fact that you are the one who is pretending that a rational person can't have different values or come to different rational conclusions than you.
Rational ain't the same as factual. (Score:2)
And ignoring factual isn't even rational. That's called delusional.
Also, you're the one engaging in intellectual sophistry, still hiding behind "It is all just opinions. I know nothing and neither do you, for what can be truly known..."
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Because in this case we are essentially talking about values. Values are, actually, just opinions.
You are starting from a premise that the only thing that matters in a financial transaction is doing it the most cheaply. I reject the premise, which is, entirely based on values. Which....again....are opionions.
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Well, except, you know, running an bitcoin ATM in a shop is about a million times easier than getting a full blown banking license. Right now they often charge very high spreads because there's a lot of risk involved and the machines costs have to be paid down. But in theory there could be quite a bit of competition, given friendly governments and a long enough time horizon.
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It's worse than that. Much worse. Robocoin, right now: "Sell rate: USD 347.43 | Buy rate: USD 465.87". That's a 17% spread in each direction. On top of that, the one at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View adds a 5% fee. So you lose about 22% on each transaction.
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The airports have a captive market for people that didn't plan ahead. also remember it isn't just 5.5%, it is 5.5% plus the massive margin they make on the buy sell rate. So think it is closer to 20%.
Cost of Production (Score:2)
What's the energy cost to physically produce a bitcoin? Anybody know?
The cost of the energy. (Score:2, Informative)
The way bitcoin was originally designed (and should still react, barring the surging/bucking from mining vendors shoving their 'new stock' online for a couple days to 'test', before shipping them out to customers when they're no longer profitable) is to scale evenly with energy cost. So however much it would cost you to run a current gen cpu/gpu/asic is about how much energy you need to spend to generate a coin.
When I did it with an OpenCL capable GPU a couple years back the amount coincided exactly with th
Re:Cost of Production (Score:5, Informative)
With a Butterfly Labs' Monarch (700GH/s)), at a difficulty of 19,729,645,941 and a block reward of 25...
655 kWh per BTC, on average, or roughly one third of the current USD:BTC exchange rate in power costs.
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List I heard, $113 but that sounds a bit low to me.
CSR (Score:1)
3646'41.7"N 11925'04.6"W (Score:4, Funny)
I tried to find the nearest robocoin kiosk to see if it was possible to witness one of these things in person. The nearest one is in "Los Angeles" California. More specifically it is at this Latitude and Longitude 3646'41.7"N 11925'04.6"W which is along a desolate road with no name that runs along side the King River 20 miles outside of Fresno.
I was hoping for a bar or some other urban public space.
I really don't want to run into Jordan Kelley or anyone from his company in the middle of the desert with no witnesses.
Always a chuckle (Score:1, Insightful)
when libertarians get treated the way they'd treat others in a libertarian utopia.
Caveat emptor.
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No no no sir, clearly when we all live in a libertarian paradise, everyone will behave themselves and lift the world out of the socialist cesspool that we live in!
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Because of the thundering herds of lawyers that follow them around, since their answer to every obvious fault in their religion is "That would never happen because they would be sued!"
Re:Always a chuckle (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you like it when libertarians chuckle at your "socialist paradise" when the government screws up? It's a straw man argument.
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Because being told what to do by an overbearing government is "Civilization". No thanks.
libertarianism (Score:2)
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You forgot to mention Somalia. FAIL!
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I'm not especially libertarian, but I do not believe libertarianism has anything to say against dispute mediation. Bitcoin itself has the ability to do dispute mediated transactions but it's not fully fleshed out. If it was, and had been used here, a third party could have signed off on the transaction and the money could have been released, only once the machine was delivered and working.
Of course, Robocoin may have chosen not to use such a mechanism because with pre-sales, they are often spending the purc
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Libertarians never said disputes or fraud don't happen in business. That's what courts are for.
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Libertarians claim that bad business practices will force bad companies out of business allowing good companies to prosper, but any time a person buys a product from a 'bad' vendor is their own fault for not doing enough research.
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That's pretty much what's happening here. Robocoin will hardly prosper by providing a "service" like this and getting sued for breach of contract. In fact that's how the world works in general except where companies are granted special privileges by the government.
Whaaaaa (Score:3)
I blew $25k on a hobby and it didn't work out. LIFE IS SO HORRIBLE!!!!!11
terms and conditions (Score:2)
Who pays full price for something like this up front?! Across an international border?! I would never sign T&C's without some recourse for a non-functioning product. Things like paying customs and shipping, installation and support costs, that's all divvied up ahead of time.
Wanting 100% cash up front is just not how business is done. You might pay some portion of it, but you never shell out the whole price unless you have some other leverage. Especially on something that is months out. In this case Robo
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Apology from CEO Jordan Kelley (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jakg4/the_great_robocoin_ripoff_how_we_lost_25000/cla6b7d
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First (Score:2)
People who want to do something first should expect a bumpy ride. Having to pay $10k more is part of the word "pioneer". Pioneers clear the path for the masses.
Charitable interpretation (Score:2)
Wait a sec (Score:2)
Bitcoin ATM is pointless (Score:2)
I have never understood the point of using a Bitcoin ATM versus buying through an exchange like Coinbase. It just seems like a gimmick. Why would someone on the street need to convert between fiat and cryptocurrency? If you have cash wouldn't you just pay with your cash?
Bitcoin's great for storing and transferring value. No one can take your coins without your private key and you can do international transfers yourself. Purchasing with Bitcoin, on the other hand, is not terribly practical. Not many
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They make gold ATMs, too, and the same arguments apply. There's absolutely nothing practical about it, and you're going to be ripped off by the fees no matter what. I guess it's a fun novelty for some folks, "Press Button, Receive Bitcoin." No one who's serious about using Bitcoin for any quasinonymous purpose will get them this way, especially considering that these ATMs tend to be in locations that have cameras everywhere.
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Two reasons.
1) The power of physicality. Sure you can do all your Bitcoin transactio
Saw one locally (Score:1)
I saw a bitcoin-type ATM near Harvard Square, in Cambridge, MA, at a building called "The Garage" (bunch of shops and eateries). I've never seen anyone actually use it, though. It's the only one in the city I've seen. I was suspicious of it :-)
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There's no reason whatsoever to mine more of them for the system to be successful. A finite supply would be perfectly acceptable.