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Virtual Private Shopper
| Do you want to buy stuff with your cryptocurrency, silver, or gold? | |
| Do you want to hide a purchase from Amazon and credit card companies? | |
| Something a little personal that you'd rather not share with the Matrix? | |
| Is there a merchant that won't accept your credit card for some reason? | |
| Are you uncomfortable posting your credit card or shipping address online? | |
| Perhaps you don't even have a credit or debit card in the first place? |
What Is This?
Basically a concierge service. Sounds fancy right? Well it's quite simple:
- Send us a link to an item you want to buy online, along with enough crypto, precious metals or cash to cover the cost plus a small service fee.
- We purchase the item for you and it arrives at your door a few days later. Easy!
We can even ship the item to our address first then forward it to you. This completely hides your identity from the merchant. You can think of this like a VPN for physical goods. Check out our interview on Crypto Fireside for the full back story.
Is This Legal?
Is it legal to give your friend some money and ask them to buy something for you? We're friends right?! If you're a child asking to buy alcohol, yea things get weird. That's why we only deal with the kind of items you see on Amazon. See below for more details. You might say this friend example is silly. Why would someone need to use this service? Well people are getting a little paradoid lately, and rightfully so. Many stores now have sophisticated camera systems with facial recognition which syncs up your identity with your purchasing history, even if you use cash. So it depends on how much you care about your privacy. People are starting to realize why "I have nothing to hide" isn't valid anymore.
How Much Does It Cost?
$50.00 flat rate plus any shipping costs. If paying in gold or silver we can round to something close.
How Does Shipping Work?
- Option One: We have the item shipped directly to you from the online merchant. This means we give Amazon, eBay, etc. your shipping address upon checkout, in case that matters for your privacy.
- Option Two: We have it shipped first to our Virtual PO Box service, then have our service forward it to you. We do not handle the package personally. This is a more private option but obviously costs more.
- Option Three: Get a PO Box yourself and use a pseudonym along with a one-time-use email address like temp-mail.org or onetimeusemail.com. This is the most private option, especially when combined with Option Two.
What Currencies Do You Accept?
We accept most major cryptocurrencies as well as silver and gold or even cash in the mail. Private cryptocurrencies like Monero and Pirate Chain are preferred both for your benefit and ours. If you have another store of value or currency you're interested in using, let us know, we're flexible.
What Can I Buy?
Anything legally available online in the USA. So pretty much anything available on sites like Amazon and eBay. If a site accepts credit card and ships to the United States, it's probably fair game. There are some grey areas like alcohol, medications, and weapons that we will not deal with. Only very "innocent" items please. If you're unsure, just submit a purchase request and we'll let you know. We have turned down orders that were probably innocent, but if there's even a shred of doubt we err on the side of caution. It's nothing personal.
How Can I Trust You?
You can't! Trust is only confirmed when an item actually arrives at your door. All the guarantees in the world are worth nothing until that happens. As the service grows we will evaluate ways to improve confidence such as linking to a third party review site and escrow services. Until then you are taking a risk. But here's a secret: everything's a risk!
Why Not Use Crypto Gift Cards?
Many services like CoinGate let you buy gift cards with cryptocurrency, then you can use those gift cards on sites like Amazon. This SEEMS just as good as using Virtual Private Shopper, but most cryptocurrencies are very easily attached to your identity because of public blockchains. Which means the gift card is also attached to your identity. So these types of gift cards are not as private as they seem. Services like CoinCards DO let you use Monero (a private cryptocurrency), but there are still dozens of ways your identity can leak, not to mention, you can't hide your shipping address like with VPS.
Do You Store My Information?
No, we keep no records of any correspondence or purchase information once everything is settled. Your information is stored encrypted in our database initially, but is deleted as soon as you receive your item. If you would like, we are glad to accept an order through Session, Keybase, Signal, or Telegram, in that order of preference. But please note that if we really wanted to save your information, we could still copy/paste it from the chat. But we don't want to save your information. We just don't care enough. If you're using cryptocurrency then the transaction will be recorded on a blockchain forever. That's why it's a good idea to use a privacy coin like Monero or Pirate Chain. Currencies like Bitcoin are completely public and trackable. See our privacy policy for more information about how seriously we take your data.