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Purse.io Immune to Brawker Amazon Wishlist Scam; CEO Andrew Lee: “What Happens Under the Hood Actually Matters”

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:41 PM

By Caleb Chen

Following recent coverage of a potential exploit on services that rely on Amazon Wishlist for order fulfillment, Purse.io, a Bitcoin service that allows users to “buy” goods on Amazon using Bitcoin at a heavily discounted price, has clarified that this particular scam has long been dealt with for Purse users. Through the use of a proprietary order tracking system, Purse.io isn’t dependent on Amazon Wishlist, which Amazon admits has known errors that lead to scams.

Purse.io has several times the Amazon trading action as Brawker; as such, they have the data to construct reliable fraud detection algorithms. However, more general scam attempts, such as the ones that users on eBay face, still exist on Bitcoin only services such as Purse.io. Users should always beware when a seller offers a larger discount for settling the transaction “outside of the system.”

Also read: How to Avoid the Amazon Wishlist Scam On Brawker and Who’s at Fault

Purse.io

Purse.io CEO Andrew Lee stated to CCN.com:

There are many ways to decentralize the online shopping experience, so there are many services that have emerged that offer ways for Bitcoiners a means to shop on Amazon. At Purse, we successfully transacted over 5,000 Amazon orders in the past 6 months without an incident like the one that’s described [in the Brawker article].

Unlike other services that cannot tell whether an order was purchased, shipped, and delivered, we developed methods to detect and prevent unwanted behavior. The Purse escrow and dispute system ensures issues like the one described are resolved swiftly. Not only do we have visibility into what’s going on with an order, we analyze user behavior with machine learning algorithms that detects and limits suspect users. There are many services that look the same, but what happens under the hood actually matters.

For a refresher on how Purse.io works, check out their starter video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3YOmXUaB88

What do you think about decentralized online shopping possibilities going into the Holiday Season? Comment below!

Images from Purse.io and Shutterstock.