You can utilize bitcoin escrow services. Taking a look at the first service I fo...

abalone · on Feb 5, 2016

Exactly. Escrow charges you 1.5%. Many credit cards pay you 1.5%. And they protect you for upwards of 90 days post-purchase, for free.

It's free because it's built around agreements with a central authority that can delegate the power to police and reverse transactions. The whole point of Bitcoin is there's no central authority. So you have to layer on top of that much more expensive protection services, as you would with cash transactions.

rajacombinator · on Feb 5, 2016

If it exists, you pay for it one way or another. In the case of credit cards the cost is just obfuscated in the form of higher final prices.

abalone · on Feb 5, 2016

No. It is vastly less expensive to have a central authority reverse a transaction by flipping some bits vs. guaranteeing it via escrow or insurance.

Additionally the oft-repeated claim that credit card fees lead to higher prices has two problems:

1. When Australia regulated away CC fees, prices did not decline.

2. In the U.S., which has higher interchange rates, most of that is refunded back to the consumer via reward programs (1-2% cashback).

bduerst · on Feb 5, 2016

Except when you need to do a charge back because the good is defective after the first day.

Again, multisig escrow isn't new or innovative, and payments have evolved since then. Houses and shipping containers are as good at refunds as Bitcoin because they also use escrow - except their physical nature makes it harder to do infernational scams than with Bitcoin.