Topic: First prepaid card to exchange Bitcoins (Read 8090 times)

maybe you have to activate it via iban, ike this one?:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anonymous-visa-debit-cards-with-own-iban-bank-account-216629

At least you looked to read those instructions.  I wasnt privy enough to check the documentation and wasn't able to activate the card. I tried contacting them but when I told them that I lost the PIN or instructions to activate it, they simply refused to respond. Such lousy customer service. -_-

Part of it was my fault I'll admit..however they are also at fault for false advertising. As I was ordering the card I saw nothing explaining how I'd have to activate it upon receiving it. I figured it was something I could just use right away, and thats the impression they gave, so under that impression why would anyone hurry to read the documentation? I was just excited to finally get it after a week of waiting. Such nonsense..they're not getting any more of my bitcoins.

Finally received my card but it will not activate using supplied instructions.

Now apparently they found my payment and will be sending me the card... Over 1 month late.  We shall see.

They are telling me that they can't locate my payment.  Very concerned that I'm out the money and have been scammed. We'll see what comes of this.

Nearly 1 month later and still no card.

Ok, so my cards arrived:



As you can see, no special branding, these are straight TransCash cards. You have to activate them (in French!) using a translation table provided by the site, heaven forbid there's an error message. This is far from seamless. Once you've activated them, you can buy coupons: http://thebitcoincard.co.uk/index.php/coupon - the rates are about 10% below spot (not sure if they've been updated recently?) - mtgox last is at 68.94 EUR, and they're buying the coins at 100 EUR for 1.611594 BTC, which is 62.05 EUR per BTC. All in all, the card is overpriced, the process is not seamless, and for an unbranded French card I'm not convinced it's worthwhile.

Marked and waiting for updates
Thanks

I bought one today as well.  We shall see how it goes.

Thank you. Keep me updated.

I've decided to chip in and purchase one:



Initial impressions: there is a distinct lack of automation on the site (they're using a single payment address instead of hitting the getnewaddress RPC function, and presumably confirming transactions manually). That doesn't preclude the service from working, nor does it indicate it's a scam, just that it's very new. I'm interested in seeing how I load funds into the card, at what rate, and what the costs are. The initial cost of the card is exceedingly high, but from the FAQ it seems that after 24 months when the card expires you can opt to get a new one - and there's no indication that there's an additional charge for this. I'll update with further info once the card arrives etc. etc.

I would call it scam, but I did not use it

I found only one user in this forum using this card successfully.

Is there anyone else who is using bitcoincard or ecardone with success?

Seems quite suspicious...

Attention! A company named: Dragensia ( dragensia.eu ) former ecardone.com who was seized by the US Gov. for money laundering!

This company posts in forums and article comments related to our card that is better to order with them!

We suggest to be highly warned, we TheBitcoinCompany are not in any relation with this company from the Czech Rep.!

It's very sad to see how this company use our reputation for a nice product to scam people with highly illegal business pratices, our lawyers are informed and do the required steps now on.

Please don't trust them at all, the practises they do confirm us how they work. If you order a card there you do that at your own risk!


Regards


TheBitcoinCard.co.uk

Just open an account at rietumu bank in latvia remotely, withdraw from Gox or p2p here or on IRC, then withdraw from ATM using their card. Though they may have cut off Americans like every other financial institution lately

According to recent US regulation they are and unlicensed Money Transmitter and as such will not be able to operate with in the US until they register with FinCEN as a Money Service Business and obtain Money Transmitter Licenses in any US state in which their clients reside.

MSB registration is free.

Money Transmitter licensing is required in 48 of the 50 State and in addition to extensive personal and financial background checks bonds are also required to be posted in each state.  In California it is aproximately $1.5M USD, New York State is $500,000 and these bonds amounts can fluctuate relative to the volume of business you conduct.

Essentially any business or individual you want to legally buy and sell bitcoin will be considered a "Financial Institution" and regulated as such.

All of which they were collecting at the Bitcoin Conference to open a new account. Alas, it was to be insufficient. I just logged into my account to load my newly authorized Bitcoin MasterCard with a bitcoin payment for the first time, where I was met with:


Such wasted promise....

The recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance  basically requires anyone dealing in buying or selling bitcoin to comply with the US Treasurey's Bank Secrecy Act's guidlines for Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and to implement a Customer Information Program (CIP) which requires them to collect:

(1) the name;
(2) date of birth (for an individual);
(3) an address, which will be a residential or business street address (for an individual), an Army Post Office (APO) or Fleet Post Office (FPO) box number, or residential or business street address of next of kin or another contact individual (for an individual who does not have a residential or business street address), or a principal place of business, local office, or other physical location (for a person other than an individual); and
(4) an identification number, which will be a taxpayer identification number (for U.S. persons), or one or more of the following: a taxpayer identification number, passport number and country of issuance, alien identification card number, or number and country of issuance of any other government-issued document evidencing nationality or residence and bearing a photograph or other similar safeguard (for non-U.S. persons). 


Welcome to the new world of bitcoin in the US.

   

This had great potential. But, it was ruined by the professionalism of the owner. They have gone by making their website mostly private which required you to sign up and reveal email etc. Then they have got closed down, many times and have continued to open up their website.

+1
Have a card with them, account moved to new domain, everything still seems to work fine ... from eu customer using card in Sweden.

Dear clients, since the U.S. government unlawfully seized our ecardone.com domain even though we are licenced and fully compliant and haven’t done anything wrong, we now had two options. Either spend hundreds of thousands on US lawyers to defend ourselves - but what is the point if they gave no time and the domain has been seized already. Or move to a European domain. We came to the US to attend the first Bitcoin conference. And we wanted to promote our services. Unfortunately we found out that it is nearly impossible and highly dangerous to offer services in the US as a foreign entity, and we sincerely apologize to our US clients.

new domain:

http://dagensia.eu/

bitcoincard linked to a french guy, using a UK domain...

with the price conversion on the website as dollars.

hmmmm... amateur.. he aint gonna see any of my coins. nothing seems legit.

::le sigh::

I suppose this is my fault, for introducing discussion of a fully licensed entity, affiliated with MasterCard, in a thread that started with a bogus claim that some other entity is the first to offer a prepaid card to exchange bitcoins.

"Dagensia Finance s.r.o is a company based in the Czech Republic, you can look this up on the Commercial Registry website. Dagensia Finance s.r.o. is registered by the Czech National Bank as a payment institution under the payment services regulation and it is fully authorized to provide payment services."

In the words of the aggrieved party (take them for what you think they are worth) upon login:
"Dear client,
our ecardone.com domain was seized among 34 other exchanger domains by the United States simply because there was a link reference to our website. We had to switch to a European domain Dagensia.eu today. All client funds in our system are safe in insured and monitored European bank accounts and all operations remain active without disruptions.
We apologize for any inconvenience this quick change may have caused you."

I can't seem to follow their link to the information I looked into a couple weeks back. I guess that would not be unusual for an org who had their Domain Name stolen in the last 48 hours to not have completely reconstructed their links. However, bearing in mind that I have no specific knowledge of EU Finance Law, it did lead me to several authoritative-lookng sites dedicated to business registrations - seemingly governmental in nature.

So while I cannot vouch for the absolute integrity of eCardOne/Dagensia, I see nothing to indicate that they are a scam.

As far as the OP, I agree that firm looks like it may be scammy. I was just trying to redirect latent interest to what looks to me to be a better alternative.

As far as the google maps posting is concerned, I have no idea whatsoever what that is all about. Looks like any small office front anywhere in the developed world.

I'm going with scam on this one.

looks extremely suspicious to me !!!

Their new domain is ecardone.eu

Ps: This card thing is a big joke, it's made by a crazy guy who bought all these thexxx domains. So don't take it  seriously.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/searching-for-investors-the-bitcoin-company-189119


http://thebitcoinnews.co.uk/
http://thebitcoincompany.co.uk etc

They are not a licensed bank and they have never mentioned that they are a licensed bank.

They are in fact a licensed small payment institution registered with Czech National Bank.

Yeah. Nice "bank"

http://maps.google.de/maps?q=Zarami+90,+Zlin+76001&hl=de&ie=UTF8&ll=49.227563,17.667&spn=0.00578,0.013937&sll=49.227766,17.666999&layer=c&cbp=13,359.68,,0,0.05&cbll=49.227563,17.667&hnear=Zar%C3%A1m%C3%AD+90,+760+01+Zl%C3%ADn,+Tschechische+Republik&t=h&z=17&iwloc=A&panoid=gR9FnrOAF5n0IIbJ2oWEeQ

Looks like a minor glitch:


If the relative might of the US armed forces to the Czech armed forces weren't so darned imbalanced, I might expect some repercussions from the DHS seizing the assets of a licensed EU bank. Makes me somewhat ashamed to be an American. in that I am powerless to right this wrong.
 

Is your name protected from MasterCard?

ecardone is down for the count (domain seized!)

Make FAQ, Terms, Fees public. Don't frustrate users with login just to see your page.

Price of card way tooooo expensive! How about card expiration?

This threads put you on a nice track for your FAQ and what the customer wants. Use it!

Horses - the water is not where you are looking... it's over here

Half a bitcoin for a prepaid card? No thanks.
It might have been something I would have considered if the card was free as each transaction I make will make you money anyway.
Plus it looks like the OP is not the owner/webmaster of that site. Looks like an affiliate link.

The site is also on a .co.uk domain but the English throughout the site is terrible and certainly not written by a native English speaker. You would think if they expect anyone to trust them they would at least have their copy proofread

Smells like a scam to me.

+1

Half a bitcoin plus 2% seems massively expensive.

*le sigh*

+1

please make FAQ public if you don't want to put people off from the start

Does the card carry my name? Is it anonymous? Why can't I read the FAQ?? What are the monthly fees? etc.

.... or .... eCardOne.com . A MasterCard debit card, loaded from bitcoin.

From a licensed bank, that has been dealing with Liberty Reserve for something like six years.

You pays yo money and you makes yo choice.

Hmm, not sure if this is a scam?
Working together with Mastercard worldwide with such an amateurish website???

Looks like you are just gathering email addresses and passwords via the logon to your site.

Everybody, please beware, before you create an account, make sure to use a unique password to this site!

The current price for the card is 0.52 BTC.

ATM withdrawal - 2%, max $10.00

Retail purchase transactions in UK are free; outside of UK - $2.00.

^^^^

Why would I give you any of my information without first having the opportunity to fully understand what it is you're doing, and how you're doing it?

What are your fees?

First prepaid card to exchange BTC

- withdraw Bitcoins in cash in your local currency at most ATMs around the world. Also works for online purchases and POS locations;

- easy Card to Card transfers via SMS;

- Internet account management system to check the balance etc;

- maximum daily spend - $10,000.00

http://thebitcoincard.co.uk/


MOD EDIT:
Doesn't like like OP is one of the guys who made it, just created this post to put up a referral link.  Referral part of the link has been removed.