Santander trying to steal £14,200 from me

JuicyJesus

Diastolic wrote: »

tl;dr.

If OP wishes to invest his money into a virtual currency and make lots off it, why shouldn't he do so? You're taking this far too seriously and personally.

Ah, tl;dr, the last refuge of a cretin who can't actually argue coherently. Might I suggest you give my post that treatment because it brings up numerous holes in your logic which you can't refute?

If OP wants to invest his money in Bitcoin, then he can, but he should not then encourage other people to do so blindly by only bringing up the potential upsides and then ignoring the potential (and many) risks, or by making claims about its utility which he cannot substantiate.

Azelphur wrote: »

This, but with Bitcoins.

Except that matched betting literally (mathematically, even) involves no risk whatsoever when done correctly (but requires significant skill and time to do correctly, which means it shouldn't be done by most people without a substantial amount of research) whereas Bitcoin trading and speculation poses significant risks.

Diastolic

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Ah, tl;dr, the last refuge of a cretin who can't actually argue coherently. Might I suggest you give my post that treatment because it brings up numerous holes in your logic which you can't refute?

If OP wants to invest his money in Bitcoin, then he can, but he should not then encourage other people to do so blindly by only bringing up the potential upsides and then ignoring the potential (and many) risks, or by making claims about its utility which he cannot substantiate.



Except that matched betting literally (mathematically, even) involves no risk whatsoever when done correctly (but requires significant skill and time to do correctly, which means it shouldn't be done by most people without a substantial amount of research) whereas Bitcoin trading and speculation poses significant risks.

Not quite, I've just got better things to be doing with my time than arguing with you on here. OP hasn't encouraged anyone to do it, he's simply sharing his own personal experience.

JuicyJesus

Diastolic wrote: »

Not quite, I've just got better things to be doing with my time than arguing with you on here. OP hasn't encouraged anyone to do it, he's simply sharing his own personal experience.

But you did have time to post a long, rousing defence of the OP and of Bitcoin? But not to actually confront anything that might contradict your worldview.

Hilarious.

Gentoo365

Not sure why people are bothering with this argument/debate. The real issue was that the bank were withholding funds and not keeping to their promised timetables.

The whole bitcoins business is a tangent (an interesting one, and one that will always get a debate going, but still a tangent).

opinions4u

Anyone who is doubting bitcoins hasn't looked back at it's track record. Currently one bitcoin is worth £79.50 (Aprox. at time of writing) and a few weeks back they were touching £95. The margins of it are crazy and can change within hours. It's all about knowing when to buy and sell, but that much is obvious.

Not obvious to those who paid £95.

The_pc_tech

Diastolic wrote: »

Ah nice! I'm jealous of the BFL orders, I'm yet to order mine... I've got 3 3GB Radeon HD7970 beauties coming my way soon! Should at least get 1.8GH/s so it's all good.

Out of sheer interest, how much are you making per buy/sell?

Guaranteed you'll be back here when you can't pay your electricity bill and the supplier won't agree to a payment plan.

JuicyJesus

Hang on a sec. This is a classic pump and dump.

There are always a finite number of Bitcoins in existence because of their nature. Indeed, there is a mathematical limit to the number of Bitcoins that will EVER exist. Now, according to supply and demand, that means the more Bitcoins that are bought, the fewer there are left, meaning that a higher price can be demanded for them. If these pillocks get more people to buy Bitcoins, the value of their "investments" in them goes up...

Clever.

Azelphur

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Congratulations, you assume I am completely ignorant about the subject I'm mocking.

You're one to talk

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Only so much is in circulation because for everyone except people who desperately want to buy into it for ideological reasons or just because they think it's a nice idea it is a solution in search of a problem. And not even a particularly good solution.

I've explained Bitcoins potential, and what it solves before, did you forget?

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It has no consumer protection for purchase of goods (whereas someone buying something online with a credit or debit card or, hell, even PayPal has simple measures they can take if they've been scammed or ripped off)

Neither does any currency, these features are not part of the currency, they are third party services offered by external businesses, there is no reason that companies couldn't provide these services with Bitcoin, in much the same way they do with any other currency. The only reasons these services don't exist yet is because of Bitcoins immaturity.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

it is only accepted in a tiny, tiny minority of shops and is grossly less accessible and more inconvenient than the prevailing national currencies it claims to be able to represent.

Depends what situation you're in really, An example scenario is buying computer hardware from abroad cheaply, I do it all the time. I can send someone BTC in exchange for some stuff shipped to me from USA, it's relatively cheap and we avoid paypal fees. Where does bitcoin claim to represent a national currency?!?

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Not to mention being vastly more unstable, being subject to a bubble driven by intense speculation. And bubbles inevitably pop, like the tech bubble did in the early 2000s and the housing bubble has recently.

I agree with this to a certain degree, Bitcoin certainly has had it's bubbles caused by media coverage, and the bubble does certainly burst afterwards causing price drops (sometimes very large ones), but it doesn't ever completely go away (much like the tech bubble) and just like even today the tech industry is still a highly profitable area, Bitcoin is too. You just have to be careful and know what you're doing, because otherwise you can be hit by one of those large price drops (I've dodged the bullet a few times personally)

JuicyJesus wrote: »

And that situation WILL NOT change, no matter how much wishful thinking you or any other of Bitcoin's somewhat deluded supporters use, until the man on the street can DIRECTLY use Bitcoin to purchase goods and services essential for life from virtually any supplier I can choose AND there are enough numerate and significant benefits to said man-on-the-street in using it over extant currencies like pounds and dollars which justify the conversion to an entirely new currency.

I don't think so, Bitcoin has its place, on that basis services like Paypal would be useless, as you can't use them over the counter any more than you can with Bitcoin. The volatility will likely continue for a while to come as it's such an infant currency (And there is definitely market manipulation going on) but, assuming Bitcoin continues it's growth in the future, I would say that it will eventually stabilise.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Right now there are none. Even I, someone technologically clued-up and financially clued-up, have no reason whatsoever to chuck my pounds in the bin and switch to Bitcoin.

Maybe you should do some research before making such statements, there are plenty of very good reasons for moving (at least some) money into Bitcoins, reasons such as being impossible to freeze, very difficult to steal (when stored correctly), Anonymity (Not useful to everyone, but certainly useful to some), Ability to transfer money internationally instantly and cheaply, Combating inflation, etc.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Yes, wandering into an unregulated market and getting your bank accounts frozen because you do absolutely no due diligence checks on your clients and as a result receive stolen money in exchange for clean money is what I would describe as a "great job".

Yea, I did see this one coming and walk right into it, It's unfortunately rather difficult to do due diligence checks. I'm still very fuzzy on what exactly could be done to prevent this, suggestions welcome!

JuicyJesus wrote: »

What a wonderful idea, except for the bit where the cost of the electricity and the hardware behind the mining is more than the Bitcoins themselves are worth. And that mining is essentially a lottery based on random chance - no matter how amazing your rig, each extra gigaflop of processing power is just you basically buying another lottery ticket, and is no guarantee that the guy who just bought one won't get lucky.

Sorry but you're just showing a lack of understanding here, Generally miners use pools, which means a large group of people will band together in order to normalise the profits, in a decent pool you're generally gonna solve blocks rather quickly and regularly, and earn a fairly uniform amount. As for mining vs electricity costs, that's the job of a miner, to keep his equipment efficient enough that he earns more than he burns, that's why I got rid of my old 5870 setup mentioned above, and preordered the BFL ASICs (the old 5870 setup paid for itself by about 5x, btw)

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It's a good thing that values of things can only ever go up and never down, especially when in and of themselves (and even right now, according to virtually everyone else) they have absolutely no intrinsic value and therefore their value is best described as "whatever other people who are also playing a game where they're hoping the value will never go down otherwise they lose big will pay for them".

Uhh, didn't you just mention above that Bitcoin regularly goes down in price as well as up? You seem to be contradicting yourself, Bitcoins do have intrinsic value, they cost resources (computer hardware, electricity) to make, and thus the value is set at a combination of supply+demand+cost to create, this is why media coverage causes massive booms in price, because demand goes up, supply and cost to create stays the same.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

That's why people who have invested in shares and houses and precious metals have all become indescribably wealthy and are suffering no adverse consequences which might happen should the value of any of those things decrease, because it doesn't.

Uhh...what? people who invested in shares have all become indescribably wealthy? ...I think you should perhaps rethink this statement, people have lost large quantities of money in all the industries you mention, investing in these industries is certainly not a sure profit, and I don't know why you are saying it is.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

No, it wasn't, and no, he doesn't. If his account is frozen for suspected money laundering he cannot be given any information by anyone, hence why the branch manager HAS to lie, because "tipping off" someone that they are subject to an investigation carries a potential prison sentence. Any other bank would act the same way.

I think we all came to the conclusion this scenario is unlikely due to funds being released.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Add to that that Bitcoin is used to an incredible degree for criminal activity due to its anonymous, distributed nature

So are all currencies, I cannot be responsible for the actions of other people, and do my best to stop people from engaging in these activities (As a bitcoin-otc op, I've kicked many a drug dealer out.)

JuicyJesus wrote: »

That using a personal account for business use is against the bank's conditions in the first place

It never started as a business, it is something that evolved into a business, and as soon as it became one, I opened a business account.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

and that the OP HAS ADMITTED RECEIVING FRAUDULENTLY OBTAINED MONIES and you can possibly see why Santander are acting how they are.

I've admitted it because the bank told me I had done, To the best of my ability I had no way of knowing I was receiving stolen funds, and no way to prevent it.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

No, because I made the JuicyJesus dollar up to sarcastically make a point, but if it did have all those features it STILL wouldn't be a viable currency because nobody worth a damn would accept it for anything and it would have no beneficial features over and above those provided by already extant currencies, WHICH WAS MY POINT.

Being sarcastic is a bad way to put your point across, it just comes off as rude and immature.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Marvellous - you mean, like a bank account? That I can have now, and don't have to convert all my money to a near-useless currency to use, and provides numerous other features over and above Bitcoin? Wow. Sign me up to this amazing new inconvenience over what I and everyone else in the UK have right now.

Bitcoin has a different feature set to a typically bank account.

Azelphur

Gentoo365 wrote: »

Not sure why people are bothering with this argument/debate. The real issue was that the bank were withholding funds and not keeping to their promised timetables.

The whole bitcoins business is a tangent (an interesting one, and one that will always get a debate going, but still a tangent).

I agree, I did try to get people to stay on topic, I even asked for the mods to step in, but it seems like we're gonna have to go off topic and talk about bitcoins a bit before people get back to the topic at hand.

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

What is the point of this thread