Not quoting the whole convo but I'll address your points written in red one by one:
#1 there's a stable deviation from average market rates of about 3%
#2 It's not stated that it's a buy price, it's only called a
Live Rate[1] and the landing page advertised the card.
#3 Not optional SMS fee
[1]Finally and again could you tell us with few simple words if you know better service of this kind? Just Yes/No Who? Link?
I didn't want to seem like I'm promoting another card on top of my critique, but I'll oblige since you insist. Uquid recently introduced a debit card. Their user accounts can be funded with BitPay so the sell rates are always guaranteed to be better that e-coin with no deviation from market rates that act as a
hidden fee. You can read
my review of the card if you want a more detailed explanation of why I believe that it's better.
Thank you, this is quite enough i'll check it.
Let it me add some extra info to your lab
Uquid has some extra fees like:
- Physical Card Issuance Fee (one-time cost) 15 EUR
- Monthly Service Fee 1 EUR
- Foreign Currency Conversion Fee 3%
- ATM Transaction (International) 2.75 EUR
- Deposit Fee Bank Transfer 1.5% ( It looks lower, but what would be the bank fees to transfer from Central, East or South Europe)?
https://uquid.com/fees
For me e-coin is better because of the Fast Bank Transfers service, which means they have bank account in many countries I'm talking about more than 50+ countries => so I'm able to deposit directly in their bank for 0 fee or very low, also in the local currency. The conversation rates are good so especially when you pay less fees.
https://help.e-coin.io/hc/en-us/articles/207150559
https://help.e-coin.io/hc/en-us/articles/207035475-Bank-Transfer-Deposit-Fees
https://help.e-coin.io/hc/en-us/articles/206325189-Alternative-Payment-Methods-Fees?preview_as_role=manager&use_theme_settings=false
P.S.
In case I deposit € 5000 will be
e-coin fee: € 3 ------------------- 5000-3= 4997 EUR
uquid fee: 1.5% 0.015*5000= 75 EUR 5000-75=4925 EUR
4997-4925= 72 EUR
Just checked for 4997 EUR at e-coin could get 9.675548 btc ~516 EUR per btc (with the blockchain fee), at kraken now is 510 EUR
Now the bitpay shows 506 EUR per btc which is lower than kraken which means you'll get ~ 9.733201 € btc. its strange because bitpay has 1% fee for more than 30 transaction
https://bitpay.com/pricing , so here there are hidden things. This is in case we don't calculate the bank fees to deposit.
e.x. To deposit 5000 EUR from Bulgaria(EU) to uquid I need to pay bank fee at least ~220 EUR
To deposit 5000 EUR from Bulgaria to e-coin via Fast Bank service cost 2.25 BGN (1.15 EUR)
aaand finally we have this:
e-coin: €3 + €1.15 + €0.5(blockchain fee) + €5000 = €5004.65 = 9.675548 btc ( ~ €517 per BTC)
uquid: €75 + €220 + €5000 = €5295 = 9.733201 btc (~ € 544 per BTC) this is without Foreign Currency Conversion fee 3% and in case we take the bitpay price as indicator for uquid.
just i'll get extra time i'll do a better research.