I wrote them back and their response was again the same. Filled out the form, but you're supposed to know that they can't serve US citizens and they will keep any money you send to them. They refused the refund. Here was their only response:
We can only offer a promo code for a free card (not express delivery). I am sorry that you've encountered this situation, but it is stated in our terms that we are unable to provide services to the US residents/citizens.
Best regards,
Olga Savelyeva
This was the second time they said it in email. The first time they immediately used that "it is stated in our terms that we are unable to provide services to the US residents/citizens.", so they're using this canned phrase to burn all the US citizens who send them bitcoin.
Stay away from them. They're dishonest and crooked. Lost $70. I accept it as the price for learning about a scam.
Prothius
Hello! The situation you are describing could have never happened if you checked out the User Agreement before putting a tick in the checkbox in the card order form. It is there for a reason. The paragraph where we state that our services aren't available for the USA due to the financial regulation and digital currencies policy is marked in red as IMPORTANT https://cryptopay.me/legal and is hard to miss.
Moreover, it is impossible to select the US as a billing country in the card order form. So, you must have ordered the card to an invalid or fake billing address in one of the supported countries and the card order has been processed. This is the only case I can think of when you could have been refused a refund. Otherwise, if the order was still being processed, our support agents could have canceled it and made a full payment refund to your Cryptopay wallet upon your request. Please contact us via the live chat or email ([email protected]) should you need any further clarifications. Thanks.
And why isn't this on that registration page overtly? Because you hope that some people will register and then pay you, and you can keep the funds. Which is exactly what you did. If you cannot provide cards to Americans, then you should tell us on the registration page. Where have you declared this? No where except if someone clicks into the terms of service and reads the entire thing to find where you've hidden it. No matter how you justify this behavior, you could easily have your website 'identify' customers from the US and simply turn them away. Instead, you've chosen a crooked way to do business.
Here's a suggestion, which only takes a couple minutes of your time. Go to your website and add a line on the first page of the registration, "Sorry, we don't accept any US citizens, as our card issuer isn't allowed to issue to you". Very easy, takes very little time, but instead you're accepting money and screwing as many Americans as you can sucker while we very quickly try to solve a problem for ourselves. You are preying on people. You can't justify what you're doing, because it is easily fixed by adding a couple lines of text on your website. Or you could add a box that says "I'm not an American" to allow registration, but instead you're relying on the old bait 'n switch tactics used by crooked organizations. You didn't identify the issue, and you blame the customer for not reading terms of service about whether you accept American customers.
Again, the ONLY response from you is that you have it in your 'terms of service'. What a feeble excuse. Announce your real intentions on your main webpage, so everyone can understand you provide no service to Americans, and stop taking money from people that you can't serve.
This is no different than me setting up a webpage to provide a certain good, and then when you buy it from me, I claim that "in my terms of service, I said that I cannot serve people from XXX country", sorry so now I'll keep your money because you didn't read it.
That is a completely unethical way of going about your business. You obviously prefer this business model, as the VERY FIRST email I received from you, was that statement. So funny, how quickly you sent that to me, so you could keep the money.
As I said, I'll accept the loss of $70 as my lesson that your company is completely unethical business-wise.
Again, for all people who are thinking about this company....Buyers beware. If they change their terms of service, then you're next and without disclosing anything to you, because....of course....you're at fault for not noticing and sending them money.