Well, don't get me wrong. I think Bitcoins are a fantastic idea but I don't understand everyone allowance of this vulnerability? I can see being cheated out of a few bucks here and there but if I leave my miner running for weeks on end and rack up a couple hundred dollars in energy costs or what not and I go to trade my hard earned coin and something happens to where the other party can't accept the trade, I don't understand how people are okay with taking the loss? Why hasn't some fail safe been put in place to protect people? Both on the Buying and Selling side of the deal? How can anyone have faith in a system that is unsafe?
The vulnerability is just a side-effect of being a new currency. There is nothing inherent to cash that makes it safer... we've just been using it long enough that companies have sprung up around the flow of this money to provide services like chargebacks, electronic transfer, etc.
You essentially just mailed someone, who you didn't know, cash in an envelope. The same scenarios apply (no insta money back, screwed if buyer dies, etcetc). Luckily we're already starting to see services (Clearcoin) that help people with these issue.
