I wrote a story about how I bought my first bitcoin. Well, I didn't write about what happened to me after I bought it. Right after actually getting the coin to my Mycelium wallet, I thought "How much does a bitcoin ATM cost?" I mean, I had to drive an hour in any direction from the capitol city of Michigan just to find one. I own a store called Pawn Just Jewelry West, so my thoughts were "What a great addition this would be to my store."
I started the search engine up and started digging. There are quite a few options actually. I ended up deciding on a company called General Bytes and the BATMThreeL+. The price point was in my budget and I am already registered as an MSB because of the gold buying business in my shop. About two weeks after buying my first bitcoin I found myself signing a contract to buy my first bitcoin ATM. My whole life I have just jumped before looking, their educated jumps in my defense. Lol. I don't even know how the damn thing works yet.
I bought it. The first invoice I received was for the payment amount in bitcoin. I thought that was the coolest thing to be able to purchase the high dollar item in bitcoin. I didn't have that many bitcoin, just the one I bought so I paid in USD instead. I had to wire the money to a bank that didn't have a physical location, it was an online bank. I was worried about this transaction now because I hadn't done business with this company and have never done business with anyone over "the pond".
The transaction went smoothly. After a few weeks they had my machine programmed and packaged, ready to ship to the US. Well, it arrived in the US yesterday and has to go through customs. UPS emailed me to ask if I already had a customs broker. "Ummmm, I guess I do not." You need one, apparently, to import anything from outside the US. I did not know this. I started looking up how much import taxes are and to my disbelief they are not cheap, pretty much 21% for everything under he sun.
At this point, I was ready to just bend over if you know what I mean. I signed a POA giving UPS the authority to be my customs broker and waited. All day long thinking "Man, what a dumbass. How did I not look into import costs?" I told my attorney and accountant what I was doing before I did anything. Not one word from them about these costs. Shouldn't someone have warned me. I guess we're not a worldly bunch, they didn't know either and were just as surprised as I.
At the end of my day today I received an email from UPS. It said "Please inform Matt that his package has cleared customs and to expect delivery." No invoice attached. Now I'm just baffled. Needless to say, my ATM will be here sometime this week. Hopefully, tomorrow.