Ask HN: Why can't I buy bitcoins with a credit card?

2 points by ritonlajoie ↗ HN
As far as I understand, paying with Paypal or credit card is nearly impossible over the bitcoins exchange currently. Why is it so ? For Paypal, I read somewhere that it is because of the chargebacks that paypal allows to the clients. This would make possible for anyone to buy bitcoins, and ask for a chargeback to get their money back, while they still received the bitcoins. Why do Paypal don’t check the blockchain in any way to check that a bitcoin transaction between a merchant and the client has taken place ?

Do Paypal plan to make such a service soon in the future ? Maybe by recording the merchant wallet address as well as the client’s address? This way, Paypal would be able to check for the bitcoins transactions (using said blockchain, as in http://www.blockchain.info ) and then allow or disallow the chargeback to happen.

Do you know why the credit card payments such as Visa, Mastercard, are not used by merchant to sell bitcoins ? Is that because this chargeback issue is in the way, same as Paypal ? Also, do you know if any bank, in the future, has some offering in the works regarding bitcoin payments with credit cards over the internet?

4 comments

[ 190 ms ] story [ 549 ms ] thread
It's simple. If you buy bitcoins with a credit card, you could then issue a chargeback. So the person who sold them would have the money taken away, and you would just keep the bitcoins.
Yes, but why do no-one makes a company that will make friend with a bank and tell them : hey guys, let's do that but check the blockchain before accepting chargebacks..
A credit card is just not the right way to do this. Non-refundable money transfers (wire transfers, Western Union etc) already exist and work fine.
It's going to take banks and their regulators many years to understand this "blockchain" you speak of.