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BitPay, Toshiba Partnership Brings Bitcoin To 6,000 New Merchants

Posted by timothy on from the how-will-refunds-be-calculated dept.

Raystonn (1463901) writes "Toshiba has announced the integration of Bitcoin support in their touch-screen point-of-sale platform, VisualTouch, used by over 6,000 merchants. The merchants will now be able to accept Bitcoin payments at the register from anyone with a smartphone or any other QR code reader. Acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment method frees merchants from worries of fraudulent chargebacks, as Bitcoin payments are non-reversible just like cash, while allowing settlement deposits in any of 9 currencies, including USD and Bitcoin."

6 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. What about taxation? by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Many countries are slowly transitioning away from cash to electronic payments in order to ensure that there is a paper trail and people can be forced to pay taxes on all their income. Terminals that accept anonymous Bitcoin seem to undo much of that progress. Will we see legislation to require terminals to also take a form of ID (or another document linked to one's ID) when paying with Bitcoin?

    1. Re:What about taxation? by goombah99 · · Score: 2

      Not until they do that for cash.

      I hadn't really thought about that aspect of bitcoin before: no chargebacks. IN fact as a consume not a seller it seemed like the very reason I would not use it. It sounds too much like Western Union frauds. But in point of sale transactions where I know I have my goods, as opposed to remote transactions where I don't I can now suddenly see this as a killer advantage. On the other hand chargebacks are not that prolific for honest sellers. I've used two in my life and both for cheats.

      On the other hand doesn't this actually put the merchant at more risk? I get my goods, hop in the car, and ten minutes later he finds out I gave him bad bit coins.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    2. Re:What about taxation? by Charliemopps · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because the government wants to control all financial transactions down to the penny. They don't like cash either. And no, it's not just about taxes. It's about controlling the populace.

    3. Re:What about taxation? by rotaryexpress · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the other hand chargebacks are not that prolific for honest sellers. I've used two in my life and both for cheats.

      I used to work for a small retail chain (75 stores) working specifically on the POS system (including CC processing). Chargebacks are a huge issue.

      Our staff had to deal with 30-40 chargebacks a month during our busy times. Each of those required at least an hour of research on the transaction, filling out forms and then getting the information back to the credit card processing company. All of which typically resulted in money coming out of our account, even though the customer was in the wrong (Along with other things, we sold monthly subscriptions to our service. A customer would dispute charges because they went to a store that started with the same first 4 letters of our name and didn't recognize the charge.).

      Chargebacks cost us 1 employees time for an entire week every single month, and we where an honest retailer (refunds for anything even have way reasonable).

  2. Re:Wait 10 minutes? by QuasiSteve · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do you have to stay 15-90 days in the restaurant after you've paid with a credit card before you can go?

    After all, nothing's stopping you from later calling up your bank/credit card company and getting the charge taken off for reasons ranging between fraud and "I didn't like the way that waiter looked at me, but I paid anyway, but after some more thinking I believe he was staring at my ass".

    Bitpay is a bit like the credit card companies in this - they actually deal very little 'in' Bitcoin, they just exchange it, and they give vendors some guarantee that they in fact get paid, even in the unlikely event of a customer trying to perform a double spend.

    Similarly, it's in merchants' best interest to take the money and run the small risk of fraud - same with credit cards. Of course, if you're selling a car, house, yacht, private jet.. you may want to wait those 10 minutes.. or maybe a day, just in case.

  3. Re:Wait 10 minutes? by LF11 · · Score: 2

    Not if the card is stolen, or the person reports the card as stolen. These are both significant problems for merchants, which cannot happen with bitcoin transactions.

    Something a lot of people don't understand about payment networks is that credit card transactions are not "confirmed" for several months. The merchant is on the hook for the full amount of the charge for this entire time period. The customer can call and dispute a charge several months after the fact, resulting in a chargeback to the merchant.

    Bitcoin, once the transaction has been confirmed, is permanent. What does this take, 10 minutes max if you include a reasonable fee? (a fee which is still vastly less than that charged by credit card companies...) Imagine being able to account for EVERY POSSIBLE "CHARGEBACK" by 10 minutes after closing that day? That's what bitcoin is.