MC-Market Credits Currency

[Swift]

I might get a lot of people disagreeing with me on this, but I think it would be a cool idea if MC-Market had it's own currency/coin which you can purchase with PayPal, Venmo etc.
Then you can send it to other MC-Market users. Then, you would be able to sell the coin in exchange back to PayPal to other users.

Positives:
- Could lead to a lot less charging back on PayPal (as you wont be able to chargeback the transactions with it)
- Users who can not pay PayPal F&F and aren't "trusted", can be trusted by using this currency
- Would easily be purchasable by a new tab on the top of the screen.
- Can easily be investigated by MC-Market staff if the seller did not send the products
- Would attract more users to use this website.

Negatives:
- Could put a lot of stress on MC-Market staff (although could be cancelled out by the decrease in scam reports)
- Fees could be high when purchasing the currency.
- Could not be appealing for many users

 

[Justis]

If we allow on site credit to be converted back into currency, then our credits themselves become a currency and we would be subject to very strict laws and fees which we simply don’t have the resources to accommodate.

A credit system is planned for XF2, but we have no intention of allowing users to transfer credits to one another, nor convert them back into currency. It will simply be for transactions with MCM.

 

[Asodey]

Can we also add gambling pls

 

[Lockett]

What about MCM getting chargeback on?

 

[hgbf]

I don't trust Mick enough for this.

 

[Ted]

Didn't read, just disagreed.

 

[Asodey]

Do you know how many people are under 21 on this site.

So wat, rules are there to be broken

 

[Stelios]

It's not a bad idea for Mick to possibly make a bit of extra income, however it won't solve scam issues at all.
The reason being, even if they couldn't get the money out of the site, they could just as well buy a resource, some other service or a product with those credits and get outta here in no time. Or just sell the credits for half of what they're worth.

Second Life does something very similar with Linden Dollars and it works nicely - Exchange fees is how they make money.

Just putting money in as credits with no way of getting them out will really NOT work.
Yeah, you may be able to sell $300 worth of credits to others for $200, at least before the market becomes way oversaturated, which will happen very very soon.
...But who in their right mind will provide $300 worth of services or products for $200 when they can just as well use PayPal directly?

 

[Zerxal]

As Justis said, having this be able to be converted back into USD qualifies this as an actual currency and MCM would be subject to an absolute truckload of legal regulations they would have to follow.

This wouldn't solve scamming either, is MCM going to be the mediator to who get's their money returned or not? What if they loose a chargeback, does a user who got sent money from a person who chargebacked have their money removed?

Your money would be stuck in here forever as well. If MCM dies, you loose your money. If your account is compromised, you loose your money. If you quit the site, you loose your money. If anything undesirable happens to this site, you loose your money.

Not to mention all of development cost and upkeep.

Half-decent idea, terrible way to execute it. A big no from me.

 

[Mick]

I can definitely see how an idea like this may be appealing to some of our more active users to essentially shift the chargeback process from being done through PayPal to instead be our scam resolvers. The primary issue, as others have said, is the liability this places on MCM and the fact that it won't actually prevent scamming but instead will just mean that if you get scammed it's me who loses money from it. Which isn't exactly something I want.

A MCM credits system where users can put money into the site and then withdraw it again simply can't ever work in my opinion because it's always possible to chargeback with your bank saying unauthorised and then win a chargeback relatively easily.

In saying that though, as Justis has said, we do have plans to introduce a different type of credits system which to start with will be exclusively for our Ads Manager in XF2. I have already written my documentation for what I plan for this new credits system to be, so I'll paste it here to see if any of y'all have any ideas or feedback on it:

Credits System
At the moment, all of the payments we receive through the Ads Manager on XF1 are through PayPal. Users create an ad saying how long they want their ad to last for and then pay that full amount up front. At any point during the ad the user can extend their ad for longer. If there's already 5 stickies purchased or all of the slots in a particular position are full, then the user is placed in a queue until one of the current ad expires. After that point, they get alerted and told they have 24 hours to pay otherwise they'll be kicked from the queue.

This system has a number of flaws, namely:

1. Many people want to purchase an ad at one time but then change their mind by the time it is their turn, so a full 24 hours pass when they don't intend to pay
2. The system waits until after the existing ad has ended, and so if the new advertisers take 24 hours to pay it that entire time there is no ad in that position, which is lost money and extends wait times in the queue
3. If an advertiser wants an ad but doesn't log onto MCM for that 24 hour period or check their emails, they won't pay in time and then they'll be kicked out the queue and the ad will go to the next person. If the advertiser still wants the slot, they'll have to re-enter the queue again and wait still.

The solution to this problem is switching from people paying when they're first in the queue and paying for their individual ads, is switching to a credits system. Each MC-Market account will be eligible to purchase credits. These credits will only be usable in the ads manager and will not be transferrable between users.

Users may purchase credits with PayPal. One credit costs one US dollar, however, the more you buy the greater the discount you will receive is.

• $100 PayPal or more purchased: 10% off credits*
• $250 PayPal or more purchased: 20% off credits*
• $500 PayPal or more purchased: 25% off credits*
• $1000 PayPal or more purchased: 30% off credits*

* None of these numbers are actually accurate, they're just for illustrative purposes and will be changed
​

Once a user has credits, they are then able to select an ad package and create their advertisement. Importantly, users do not select a time frame that they want to purchase. Instead, they can specify a limit for how many credits they'd like to spend before their ad ends, but aren't required to. Rather than people paying by the week, they'll be charged every day automatically until they reach their limit or run out of credits.

If a user currently has an advertisement active (or several), they will receive an alert when they have 7 days worth of credits left reminding them to buy more otherwise their ads will end. When a user has 2 and 1 days left they'll also be notified. If they get down to $0 in their account and don't refill, their ad will immediately end and if there is someone else in the queue they will immediately get their ad (without the 24-hour delay).

This is something I haven't fully thought about yet and don't know how possible it would be, but potentially we could introduce an option for people to Autoload money into their account balance whenever they get low. Doing so, they would receive an additional 10% off on whatever credits they're buying. For example, someone could set it so that they'll automatically top up $30 into their credit balance through PayPal without having to manually pay for it every time their balance hits $5.

----

That's my idea for that, so if any of y'all have feedback please let me know. It is quite a large system to be developed but considering the revenue that the ads manager brings in it does make a lot of sense for us to make the system as easy to use and efficient as possible so if you have any other ideas please let me know as well.

 

[inferno]

As well, if 20k of this coin is bought and Mick spends the money in whatever, and suddenly a large number of people withdraw 10k from the site, how is he going to pay? I can't see this working although I would like it.

mick would not be spending the money like that. I believe what comes from mcm goes back into it. But it could be a good idea if scamming and chargebacks were solved. Aka, when people withdraw coins from their account its sent as g&s meaning MCM can chargeback in case of scams.

 

[Ted]

It's nice on paper, but like Mick mentioned the logistics behind it just isn't viable. You could easily win bank chargebacks proclaiming unauthorized purchase.

 

[Banned]

No disrespect, but after "XF2" nothing made sense.

How are we supposed to purchase Mc-Markets "Currency" but we can't send to one another. That defeats the purpose of the credit system or whatever. You said it is simply for transactions with MCM. So you are saying we can only use it on account upgades...

I can definitely see how an idea like this may be appealing to some of our more active users to essentially shift the chargeback process from being done through PayPal to instead be our scam resolvers. The primary issue, as others have said, is the liability this places on MCM and the fact that it won't actually prevent scamming but instead will just mean that if you get scammed it's me who loses money from it. Which isn't exactly something I want.

A MCM credits system where users can put money into the site and then withdraw it again simply can't ever work in my opinion because it's always possible to chargeback with your bank saying unauthorised and then win a chargeback relatively easily.

In saying that though, as Justis has said, we do have plans to introduce a different type of credits system which to start with will be exclusively for our Ads Manager in XF2. I have already written my documentation for what I plan for this new credits system to be, so I'll paste it here to see if any of y'all have any ideas or feedback on it:

Credits System
At the moment, all of the payments we receive through the Ads Manager on XF1 are through PayPal. Users create an ad saying how long they want their ad to last for and then pay that full amount up front. At any point during the ad the user can extend their ad for longer. If there's already 5 stickies purchased or all of the slots in a particular position are full, then the user is placed in a queue until one of the current ad expires. After that point, they get alerted and told they have 24 hours to pay otherwise they'll be kicked from the queue.

This system has a number of flaws, namely:

1. Many people want to purchase an ad at one time but then change their mind by the time it is their turn, so a full 24 hours pass when they don't intend to pay
2. The system waits until after the existing ad has ended, and so if the new advertisers take 24 hours to pay it that entire time there is no ad in that position, which is lost money and extends wait times in the queue
3. If an advertiser wants an ad but doesn't log onto MCM for that 24 hour period or check their emails, they won't pay in time and then they'll be kicked out the queue and the ad will go to the next person. If the advertiser still wants the slot, they'll have to re-enter the queue again and wait still.

The solution to this problem is switching from people paying when they're first in the queue and paying for their individual ads, is switching to a credits system. Each MC-Market account will be eligible to purchase credits. These credits will only be usable in the ads manager and will not be transferrable between users.

Users may purchase credits with PayPal. One credit costs one US dollar, however, the more you buy the greater the discount you will receive is.

• $100 PayPal or more purchased: 10% off credits*
• $250 PayPal or more purchased: 20% off credits*
• $500 PayPal or more purchased: 25% off credits*
• $1000 PayPal or more purchased: 30% off credits*

* None of these numbers are actually accurate, they're just for illustrative purposes and will be changed
​

Once a user has credits, they are then able to select an ad package and create their advertisement. Importantly, users do not select a time frame that they want to purchase. Instead, they can specify a limit for how many credits they'd like to spend before their ad ends, but aren't required to. Rather than people paying by the week, they'll be charged every day automatically until they reach their limit or run out of credits.

If a user currently has an advertisement active (or several), they will receive an alert when they have 7 days worth of credits left reminding them to buy more otherwise their ads will end. When a user has 2 and 1 days left they'll also be notified. If they get down to $0 in their account and don't refill, their ad will immediately end and if there is someone else in the queue they will immediately get their ad (without the 24-hour delay).

This is something I haven't fully thought about yet and don't know how possible it would be, but potentially we could introduce an option for people to Autoload money into their account balance whenever they get low. Doing so, they would receive an additional 10% off on whatever credits they're buying. For example, someone could set it so that they'll automatically top up $30 into their credit balance through PayPal without having to manually pay for it every time their balance hits $5.

----

That's my idea for that, so if any of y'all have feedback please let me know. It is quite a large system to be developed but considering the revenue that the ads manager brings in it does make a lot of sense for us to make the system as easy to use and efficient as possible so if you have any other ideas please let me know as well.