Frequently Asked Questions
For this description, let's use a case study of Bitcoin. The same idea actually applies for trading Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum on UnifiedPurse
A. If you already have some Bitcoin that you are willing to sell, then:
- Go ahead and load your wallet
- Then proceed by setting up your selling rates and processing fee.
- Now, once a buyer initiate a trade, you will be contacted via all available notification means.
You will then have to agree-to-process the transaction (or reject) within the stipulated response-window, otherwise, the transaction will be automatically cancelled.
Please note that whatever the outcome of this process be, also affects the calculation of your rating/reputation - If you agree-to-process the transaction, the equivalent Bitcoin will be removed from your balance into the escrow, while you await the payment to be made by the buyer into your indicated payment method (e.g Bank, Western Union..)
- The buyer will normally supply you with a proof-of-payment (and you will be notified, with an expectation to respond promptly)
- Once you can successfully confirm the buyer's payment, you will be expected to indicate this from your transaction log, and the pending Bitcoin will be automatically released to the buyer.
- If you could not confirm the buyer's claim of payment after 1 hour, you may dispute the claim from your transaction log, and a UnifiedPurse agent will intervene to resolve this issue manually.
- Please Note (IMPORTANT): If the buyer has supplied the proof of payment, but you do not respond (to agree or dispute), the purchased Bitcoin will be automatically released to the buyer after the elapsement of the stipulated time that equals to your specified payment-window from your rate settings
B. If you want to start selling other currencies (e.g Perfectmoney, USD...), and accepting payments through (buying) Bitcoin :
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Then proceed by setting up your buying rates and processing fee.
Since it is very unlikely that a customer will want to trade with you when you have no reputation/rating, it is expected that you first gain some reputation by selling Bitcoin as indicated above. This reputation (from selling Bitcoin) will be automatically used to offset your reputation on buying Bitcoin; until you perform your first transaction and your new rating is computed accordingly
- Once a seller initiate a trade, you will be contacted via all available notification means.
You will then have to agree-to-process the transaction (or reject) within the stipulated response-window, otherwise, the transaction will be automatically cancelled.
Please note that whatever the outcome of this process be, also affects the calculation your rating/reputation - If you agree-to-process the transaction, the equivalent Bitcoin will be removed from the seller's Bitcoin balance into the escrow, while you will be expected as to (as soon as possible) make the payment/transfer of the correponding account (e.g Bank, Western Union..), that the seller had indicated while initiating the transaction.
- Then supply your a proof-of-payment (from your transaction log page) and the buyer will be immediately notified to confirm your payment
- Once the seller has successfully confirmed your payment, the Bitcoin will be automatically released from escrow into your UnifiedPurse wallet.
- If you have supplied the the proof of payment, but the seller do not respond (to agree or dispute), the Bitcoin will be automatically released to you after the elapsement of the stipulated time, that equals to your specified payment-window from your rate settings
- If the seller could not confirm the your claim of payment after 1 hour, he/she may dispute your payment claim, and a UnifiedPurse agent will need to intervene to resolve this issue manually.
Side Notes
Your personal market-url can be found on your dashboard, you may also like to share it with your customers on different platforms for increased patronage.
It is also smart to generate a passive income revenue for yourself by introducing people to the business on UnifiedPurse exchanger platform (through your exchanger referral-url located at the bottom of this page. They will become your referral automatically after signing-up, and you will start getting credited with 10% commissions instantly from every charges on their trades for 6 months
For the newbies, mostly, the basic principle of the trade is to find out a reputable and reliable source (e.g: through google here) or even ( maybe on UnifiedPurse market), where you will buy Bitcoin at fairly considerable rate.
Then proceed to set-up your rates for selling, at a slightly higher rates than the amount at which you bought.
It's important having good digital security, but it's especially important when you're trading CryptoCurrencies. When you have advertisements up selling a Digital Currency you also tell the world that you have CryptoCurrencies, which can make you an attractive target to cyber criminals if you don't have your security in check.
Most common attacks are done using spear phishing techniques. That's where the attackers will first attempt to get access to other services that you use, mainly your e-mail or cell phone account. From there they will try to get access to your financial services. This is why it's very important to keep all of your online accounts secure, not just your UnifiedPurse account. By following these steps you can be sure that your account is protected from most security threats.
- Enable Email Authentication from your profile settings, prevent logins to your account without an e-mail confirmation. This is not enabled by default for older accounts, please make sure it is turned on.
- Enable Two-Factor authentication on your UnifiedPurse account , this adds a second layer of security in case your password falls into the wrong hands. Make sure you do not store the backup code electronically, write them down and store the code safely. Enable it from your security settings.
- Use a different e-mail address for your UnifiedPurse account that is not used for anything else. Don't give this address out to your customers, use a separate e-mail account for customer correspondence. Gmail accounts are good as you can protect them with two-factor authentication.
- Review your login history & authorized browsers. From the account security settings you can view your account Login history and authorized browsers. It's a good habit to check these from time to time.
- Be VERY cautious of any images, links and other files that customers or unknown people send you, it can be an attempt to infect your computer with malware or worse. Run periodic malware and anti-virus checks on your computer.
- Don't use the same password on more than one site , instead use unique and randomly generated passwords. A password manager, like KeePass, allows you to do this without having to remember all your passwords. Using the same password on more than one site very dangerous, it can allow an attacker to get access to many of your accounts by knowing only one password.
- Enable Two-Factor authentication on services that support it , Google, Facebook, Dropbox all support it.
- Educate yourself on cyber security. Having knowledge is probably the best defence, read up on common attack techniques such as spear phishing to know how to identify potential attacks.
Verify the buyer
If you are selling Digital Currencies for a payment method that is reversible you should verify that it is the buyer who is making the payment with his own account.
When you receive a new trade, take a look at the buyer's UnifiedPurse profile to gauge the reputation of the buyer. Go through the buyer's previous feedback and his trading history. Check that the users IP address is from the same country as the payment is coming from.
If you're selling using a payment method such as transfer with specific bank where the buyer's name is visible, limiting your advertisement to only users who has verified their ID with UnifiedPurse is a good idea.
Enable first time buyer limits
A large part of fraud occurs from new accounts. Setting first time buyer limits on your advertisement helps you limit the risk you expose yourself to and any potential damage from fraudulent buys. They prevent a no-reputation buyer sending high volume trade requests. Setting the limits itself discourages the fraudulent buyers to contact you. See more above in the section Setting up an advertisement.
Reversible payments
Most of online payment methods are reversible. The payment provider can take back a payment even after it has arrived to your account. For example, PayPal payments are reversible up to 180 days.
In many countries, online banking is not protected by two-factor authentication. This means that whoever gains the control of user computer, using malware or otherwise hijacked computer, can do unauthorized bank transfers. This is an issue for SWIFT, SEPA and wire transfers. Receiving money from a stolen source may lead to freezing your bank accounts for the duration of criminal investigation. The way to mitigate this risk is to check that the buyer id matches the sender bank account name.
Characteristics of fraudulent activity
Scammers take advantage of the fact that CryptoCurrency transaction are irreversible or they try to trick you into releasing CryptoCurrencies without sending payment. That's why it is important to never release CryptoCurrencies from escrow until you have payment. Even if it's a regular buyer and someone you know, as once the CryptoCurrencies have been released from escrow, there is no way for you to get them back.
With reversible payments, scammers will attempt to pay using stolen credentials or purchase proof. Requiring the buyer to have ID verified their UnifiedPurse account, and always checking that the users real name matches that of the payment information helps you stop these attempts.
In case you encounter a suspicious user you can always open a dispute for the trade and UnifiedPurse support will help you ensure a safe trade.
Quick tips on identifying scammers
- Fraudulent buyers are often in a hurry. The more a customer asks you to hurry/rush the more suspicious you should be, real customers always have patience.
- Fraudulent buyers often suggest doing all or part of the transaction outside escrow and then do not complete their part of the transaction.
- Be careful about photoshopped payment evidence, don't release CryptoCurrencies until you have confirmed that you have received the money. You are not obliged to release a trade until you can verify that you have received the buyer's payment.
- Don't open any links that your trading partner is sending to you. If you must, use different browser than the one you are using.
- Don't visit websites other than UnifiedPurse.com with the browser that you're using to trade. Use a different browser for other websites.
- Bookmark UnifiedPurse.com in your browser and always use the bookmark when visiting the website. This helps you avoid accidentally visiting phishing websites, they exist and can be very convincing. Even experienced traders have fallen victim to phishing websites.
- If you're unsure about a user, you can always contact support for help.
Disputes
Please also read our terms of service.
- UnifiedPurse.com support handles disputes based on evidence supplied by trade participants and their reputation.
- Disputes can be started 1 hour after payment is marked complete.
- If the buyer has fewer than 3 completed trades, the seller may open a dispute after 1 hour.
- After the escrow has been released by the seller the trade is considered finished by UnifiedPurse.com and cannot be disputed.
- When a CryptoCurrency seller is unresponsive, UnifiedPurse will release the CryptoCurrency to the buyer if the buyer can provide valid proof of payment.
- If the buyer is unresponsive after starting a trade, the escrow will released back to the seller by UnifiedPurse support.
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Receiving payments online for your products and services or donations.
By blowing-open the wide range of payment methods available to payers, you have no worry about how your customers are going to acquire the type of digital currencies that you accept for payment.
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Transfering funds between persons or countries without currency barrier
Supposing a person in Nigeria, need to make a payment in USD to the bank account of a recipient that recides in the United States.
The payer can simply get some bitcoin (for example) here, then proceed to find an exchanger in the United States, that will buy the Bitcoins and pay in local currency (USD) to the recipient's bank account in the United States. -
Trading (buying and selling) digital currencies to make profits
Even if you already have a website (from which you buy and/or sell digital currencies), you can still trade on UnifiedPurse, taking advangate of the simplicity and broader market-reach.
There are 4 ways you can get your UnifiedPurse account funded
- Receive payments through Shopping Cart Interface (SCI) by simply directing the payeer to your SCI page, as explain here in this documentation
- Receive direct transfer when you give your UnifiedPurse username to another user for an instant transfer from their UnifiedPurse wallet balance to yours
- Buy digital currencies through trading transactions from customers by setting up your rates
- Keep receiving passive income in form of referral commissions from every charges on transactions performed by the people that you have referred to sign-up. You can copy your referral url from your trade settings page or from your dashboard
Withdrawals to an external Crypto-currency wallets are subject to CryptoCurrency network transaction fee this is called the miner fee, a very low amount taken by the corresponding blockchain node operators (known as miners) to compute and insert your transaction information into the blockchain. The size of the fee varies/changes depending on the congestion current usage rate of the Crypto-currency blockchain
When sending Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum to an external wallet address, the miner fee needed for that transaction will be charged from your balance.
If your deposit amount is smaller than the crypto-currency deposit fee, the deposit will not be processed.In which, reversals can occur weeks or months after the trade. In fact the payment provider may lock your account without a refund after receiving payments for crypto-currency if related to fraud-case.
NOTE Risk-level only applies when you are selling crypto-currencies online. You don't have any concern with risk-level if you are buying digital currencies
ID | Payment System | Risk Level | Description |
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1 | national-bank-transfer | LOW | Wire transfer within a specific country. Or Go to a bank / ATM and deposit cash directly to the bank account |
2 | transfers-with-specific-bank | LOW | Transfers to and from other customers with the same bank as you. |
3 | altcoin-alternative-cryptocurrencies | LOW | Any other cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum. |
4 | sepa-eu-bank-transfer | LOW | Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) wire transfers. Usually recallable up to 10 days. |
5 | okpay | HIGH | OKPAY allows you to accept bank wire and cash money transfers and all e-currencies quickly and affordably. Currently OKPay offers as irreversible payment. |
6 | paypal | HIGH | Transfer money to anybody with an email address. |
7 | webmoney | HIGH | Secure and immediate transactions online. |
8 | moneybookers-skrill | HIGH | The simple and secure way to send and receive money. |
9 | neteller | HIGH | Instant deposits, withdrawals and payouts online. |
10 | cashiers-check | HIGH | Checks signed by cashiers. |
11 | venmo | HIGH | Send money to friends using a mobile app in US. Can be funded using a credit card. |
12 | dwolla | HIGH | Send money online using Dwolla. |
13 | perfect-money | HIGH | Instant payments and confidential money transfers online. |
14 | cashu | HIGH | Pay online securely without bank account or credit card and fund your account using variety of methods. |
15 | paysafecard | HIGH | Pay online securely without bank account or credit card in Europe. Fund your account with redeemable coupons. |
16 | payza | HIGH | Send and receive money online. Fund your account with wire transfer or credit card. |
17 | hal-cash | HIGH | Hal-Cash is a bank service that allows you to send money to any mobile phone, and be withdrawn instantly at an ATM of any of the financial institutions associated with the worldwide system, anytime and anywhere without needing a credit card. |
18 | western-union | MEDIUM | Send and receive money internationally. The receiver can redeem the transfer as cash. |
19 | postepay | MEDIUM | Italian online payments. |
20 | moneygram | MEDIUM | Send and receive money internationally. The receiver can redeem the transfer as cash. |
21 | postal-order | MEDIUM | Sending money through the mail in UK and US. |
22 | ria-money-transfer | MEDIUM | Send and receive money internationally. The receiver can redeem the transfer as cash. |
23 | m-pesa-tanzania-vodacom | UNKNOWN | Send and receive money with mobile phone in Africa. |
24 | bpay-bill-payment | UNKNOWN | Bpay allows Australians different ways to pay their bills. |
25 | transferwise | UNKNOWN | Transfer money online internationally |
26 | telegramatic-order | UNKNOWN | Payment method in Croatia |
27 | payeer | UNKNOWN | Send money anywhere in the world, receiver does not need be registered. |
28 | vipps | HIGH | Send money to anyone who has a Norwegian phone number. |
29 | cash-by-mail | HIGH | Send cash to the receiver via mail. |
30 | chase-quickpay | HIGH | Person-to-person payments through Chase's quickpay system. |
31 | gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
32 | gift-card-code-global | HIGH | A gift card code. |
33 | google-wallet | HIGH | Online payment method to transfer funds between two Google Wallet users. |
34 | amazon-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
35 | vanilla | HIGH | Redeemable coupons and debit cards. |
36 | paypal-my-cash | HIGH | Coupons which can be used to load your PayPal account. |
37 | solidtrustpay | HIGH | International instant payment processor. Multiple funding options. |
38 | apple-store-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
39 | steam-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
40 | itunes-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
41 | square-cash | HIGH | Send money to friends using a mobile app in US. Can be funded with debit cards. |
42 | credit-card | HIGH | Buy Bitcoins using your credit card. |
43 | reloadit | HIGH | Redeemable coupons and debit cards. |
44 | walmart-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
45 | ebay-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
46 | starbucks-gift-card-code | HIGH | A gift card code. |
47 | swish | LOW | Send and receive Swedish Kroner to and from mobile phone numbers. |
48 | qiwi | LOW | Send money to anyone with a Qiwi account. All you need to know is their phone number, simple easy and fast. |
49 | m-pesa-kenya-safaricom | LOW | Send and receive money with your mobile phone in Africa. |
50 | international-wire-swift | MEDIUM | International wire transfer with SWIFT code |
51 | mobilepay-fi | MEDIUM | Easy way to send money with phone numbers, works with all Finnish banks. |
52 | imps-bank-transfer-india | MEDIUM | IMPS bank transfers in India. |
53 | interac-e-transfer | MEDIUM | Canadian online transfers |
54 | pingit | MEDIUM | Barclays mobile payments in UK. |
55 | paym | MEDIUM | Pay your friends and family using just their mobile number. |
56 | pyc | MEDIUM | Pay your contacts - mobile payments by Natwest / Royal Bank of Scotland |
57 | xoom | MEDIUM | Xoom Corporation is a digital money transfer company based in San Francisco. It provides consumer remittance services to Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America, the Philippines and India. |
58 | mobilepay | MEDIUM | Easy way to send money with phone numbers, works with all Danish banks. |
59 | netspend-reload-pack | MEDIUM | Redeemable coupon for NetSpend card |
60 | mobilepay-no | MEDIUM | Easy way to send money with phone numbers, works with all Norwegian banks. |
61 | walmart-2-walmart | MEDIUM | Send and receive money between two Walmart locations. The receiver can redeem the transfer as cash. |
62 | serve2serve | MEDIUM | Reloadable debit cards and transfers between them. |
63 | yandex-money | MEDIUM | Mobile payment solution. |
64 | paytm | UNKNOWN | Indian mobile payment method (Pay Through Mobile). |
65 | lydia | UNKNOWN | French mobile payment method. |
66 | alipay | UNKNOWN | Alipay is a major Chinese online payment system. |
67 | superflash | UNKNOWN | Italian debit card with an IBAN number. |
68 | astropay | UNKNOWN | AstroPay Card is an easy and safe way to make payments online in latin american countries. |
69 | advcash | UNKNOWN | Advanced cash is an online wallet service that lets you send and receive money. |
70 | hyperwallet | UNKNOWN | hyperWALLET is online payment solution which offers instant bank transfer funding in Canada. |
71 | tigo-pesa-tanzania | UNKNOWN | Send and receive money with mobile phone in Africa. |
72 | payoneer | UNKNOWN | Payoneer is a financial services business that provides online money transfer and e-commerce payment services. |
73 | onecard | UNKNOWN | Prepaid card sold in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait. |
74 | paxum | UNKNOWN | Send money anywhere in the world with just an email address. |
75 | cash-at-atm | UNKNOWN | Cash at ATM is a service some banks that lets you withdraw or deposit money from/to ATMs with a PIN code. |
76 | UNKNOWN | WeChat Pay is a digital wallet service incorporated into WeChat, which allows users to perform mobile payments and send money between contacts. | |
77 | easypaisa | UNKNOWN | Send money to other people in Pakistan using your mobile phone. |
78 | worldremit | UNKNOWN | Send money anywhere in the world. |
79 | other-online-payment | HIGH | The exchanger gives payment details in the offer message |
80 | other-online-wallet | HIGH | Other online wallets that do not have their own category. The exchanger gives payment details in the offer description. |
81 | other-online-wallet-global | HIGH | International online wallets that do not have their own category.. The exchanger gives payment details in the offer descirption |
82 | other-remittance | HIGH | Remittance vendors not already on the list. The exchanger gives payment details in the offer message |
83 | other-pre-paid-debit-card | HIGH | National pre-paid debit cards that do not have their own category. The exchanger gives payment details in the offer descirption |
UnifiedPurse has two types of rating system. 1. The System Rating 2. The Customers Rating/feedback
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The System Rating is computed from the result of analysing an exchanger's your previous transactions. (by summing up the: A. percentage of successfully completed transactions, B. the relative (compared to expected) response time in which the exchanger responds to request for trade, and C. the relative processing duration taken by the exchanger to completely process the payment for the customer. This factors will be considered in the ratio weight of 2.5, 1 and 1.5 respectively; making the maximum total rating of 5)
This rating is displayed on the exchanger's profile and also used in the sorting-algorithm for suggesting exchangers to customers. -
The Customers Rating/feedback is the average value of the ratings and comments left on the profile of an exchanger by (only) the users that has transacted with him/her about their experience on each transaction.
This rating is made available on the exchanger's profile, and customers can make their at their discretion decisions based on the values
Web notifications allow you to receive pop-up notifications through your browser whenever you get a new notification on UnifiedPurse. If you're trading crypto-currency and want to know immediately when something happens, enable web notifications from your profile.
Tick the box that says Enable Web notifications and when your browser asks you for permission to show web notifications, press accept. You're now all set and will start receiving web notifications.
Common Problems & Solutions
Sometimes a trader may ask for your ID. If you are trading for the first time with a trader he/she may ask for you to identify yourself, even if you've already verified your ID with UnifiedPurse. This is because in certain countries sellers are required by local laws to know who their customers are. Most sellers explain in the terms of the trade if they require ID verification or not.
If you do not wish to give the seller your ID, you can always cancel the trade and search for a trader with less strict requirements.
Always send your ID to the seller via the trade chat, our trade chat messages are kept encrypted on our servers and are deleted after 180 days. All photographs sent to the trade chat is also marked with a watermark to prevent misuse of the images.
- The sellers usually release crypto-currency as soon as they see your payment, which can sometimes take an hour or two. If you've paid but are still waiting there is nothing to worry about, for all online trades are protected by escrow and the seller cannot run away with your CryptoCurrency.
- If there are any issues with a trade and the seller won't release your crypto-currency, you can dispute the trade to have UnifiedPurse support resolve it.
- If you are buying or selling crypto-currency online, you can dispute the trade after 1 hour if you have marked the payment completed.
- A dispute can no longer be started if the crypto-currency have been released from escrow or if it's a local trade without escrow enabled.
When a trade you're involved in becomes disputed, you'll receive an SMS notification and an email, in most cases simply starting the dispute is enough to get the attention of your trading partner. A disputed trade is usually resolved within 24-48 hours.
This answer concerns the case when you are buying crypto-currency online.
After you send in a trade request to the seller of crypto-currency, you have a time window to complete the payment before the trade is automatically canceled (the payment window varies depending on the payment method of the trade). During this time you need to complete your payment and submit your proof-of-payment. The seller is notified that you've made the payment and the crypto-currency will be held in escrow until the seller releases them for you when seeing the payment in his/her account.
If you paid for the purchase, but did not mark the payment complete before the payment time window expired, please contact the seller through the trade. The CryptoCurrency seller has functionality to Reopen the purchase, this also re-enables escrow. You can contact the seller and your other existing trade contacts from the Dashboard in your UnifiedPurse User Profile. Send a message to the seller and kindly explain the situation and why you couldn't complete payment within the time window.
If the seller does not respond to this request please contact UnifiedPurse support using the Support request form and mention your trade contact id number.
CryptoCurrency transactions are irreversible, once you’ve sent money to another CryptoCurrency address it is not possible for you or UnifiedPurse to reverse it. To get your CryptoCurrency back you can try to find the owner of the address and ask them to return the CryptoCurrency to you. From where did you get the address where you sent the crypto-currency to? You can try googling the address to see if is related to any CryptoCurrency service that has contact details or you can try using a service such as wallet explorer to see if the wallet is tagged as belonging to a CryptoCurrency company.
If those searches come up empty, you can still try asking on our discussion forums if anyone knows to whom the address belongs, but chances are slim.
Please note that the same wallet can have multiple incoming addresses. The CryptoCurrency protocol ensures that crypto-currency are not sent to an address that does not exist, but they can be sent to addresses which are inactive or not controlled by anyone.
There are many things that affect advertisement visibility, e.g. your trading history; feedback; account age; advertisement settings and more. If your ad is not showing up please check the following list of common problems.
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Do you have CryptoCurrency in your UnifiedPurse wallet?
There is high tendency that your ads has been pushed down by the system algorithm
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Open a support ticket
You can always open up a support ticket to ask for help with advertisement visibility.
Advertisement prices are based on Digital Currencies exchange rates. The CryptoCurrency exchange rate is volatile and may change rapidly.
UnifiedPurse exchangers may update their exchange rates and prices quite frequently (even within 5 minutes) because sometimes, the CryptoCurrency price is fluctuates rapidly. However, the price of the purchase is determined at the moment the crypto-currency buyer sends in the trade request.Get More Help
In case any of your question has not been answered here already, you can then ask a question on our forums or open up a support ticket to contact our support representatives