Topic: Invest in BTC with Paypal on Etoro :) (Read 2676 times)

Here's an update from my etoro experience:

• etoro account opened, money deposited by paypal. "Bought" some netflix stock.

• after a few days the account locked down and demanded i upload ID. wouldn't let me trade/withdraw/anything.

• Site's ID upload didn't work, nor did help section.

• Contacted etoro help. They didn't help much over email, and though i stated not to use my phone,they called my phone.

• Customer services person over phone suggested i insecurely email scans of government-issued ID, which I wasn't gonna do. I remind them that they're legally prohibited from trading on behalf of anyone who they can't prove to be over 18 in the UK, so they can't lawfully take a deposit before seeing a user's ID. More to the point, my passport is out of date so I didn't have enough ID at the time.

• This meant my account was stuck holding netflix and I couldn't change that before renewing my passport or generating some other form of ID. If i was holding some less successful stock, that might have wiped out my money. I explained this, and how it meant I wanted my account cancelled and my money withdrawn.

• I posted about this experience on these boards in etoro's bitcoin announce thread, and was messaged that they'd look into it.

• They tried to call me 8 more times while I was working but I wanted to use email, not phone (so I had logs, perhaps to paste here). I let it ring, but they didn't try my email.

• They DID cancel my account and informed me, but rather than paying me the account balance, they only paypalled me the amount I first deposited, minus 5$ for fees.

In short: I paid 5 bucks to let them borrow my money for a month.

And to be slightly dissed by an american over the phone who seemingly didn't believe that a brit can exist without a current passport or driving license.

...and to be told this:


Sorry, etoro. Your service may be legit and real to moneyed users with ID who don't mind risking it in insecure transmissions, but from my experience being locked out of my account, for all I can tell no trading occurs there and it may just be a big operation to sucker folks into that $5 processing fee.

I mean, that referral $$ that etoro is giving people to spam links around has got to come from somewhere. Some of it is mine.

Ah, but:


Literally happening to hundreds of users right now, including me with a casual tenner i threw in there to try it out.

They accept paypal, then shortly afterwards they lock the account down until you provide ID, including not letting you trade out of positions making a loss. Then they don't have a working secure ID upload form on the site, and since one shouldn't risk sending ID by insecure email, the practical upshot of that aspect of etoro in this scene's lingo is:

SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM

Imagine if your favourite cryptocurrency exchange abruptly locked you out of your account right when you were holding, for instance, freicoin or something else that may well make a loss of your investment. Then they demand more ID than you have, which you can't upload.

I'm currently using it myself but you do know its only CFDs and not actual bitcoins, right?

No no, not invest in, but bet on. You don't own any BTC betting on its value at etoro.

Plus they're super happy to take your paypal then have problems with their verification & ID process so you can't get it out.

No, not every business insists on giving their customers the old probulator when it comes time to pay out. If you want to pretend bullshit is fine because "everybody does it", why are you interested in bitcoin in the first place?

At any rate, there are referral programs out there for actually sane businesses, you know. Staying here and arguing with the rather sensible points already brought to you because etoro has a lot of clients and you'd like to make a buck is as unneccessary as it is unsanitary.

Out of Beta and orders are executed 4 times a day now instead of once in beta.

Verification is needed anywhere these days to cash out to be honest. Fees are big though.

The catch is the KYC requirements:

http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/withdraw-faq/


Trading fees are excessive:

http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/fees/

I don't mean that you risk losing fiat. But that you may not be dealing with bitcoins at all. If this drives the price up, great - it's exposure if nothing else - but if there is no bitcoin in their system then it is fraud any way you slice it. Who knows what that could do to the image if that is the case.

That's why they won't let you withdraw the bitcoins from their system. It protects them from chargebacks.

I read bitcoin and paypal in one sentence. Is it me or is paypal a perfect way to scam people by telling paypal you never received the goods to get back your money?

They are reliable website with zillion users trading forex, stocks etc.. I'm not worried about them.

BTW, just tested paypal deposit, money added to my account immediately.

I don't keep money on exchanges. By my wallet I meant MY wallet, my personal one on my computer.

If there is no proof that they hold the bitcoins they allegedly trade with then this is a scam. Legal or otherwise. Be very careful.

You own it on their platform though, it's same like Metatrader for ex. It's probably much safer than keeping btc on other exchange too.

It's not betting, you sell it when the price reach your selling point. But I'm not sure if they hold BTC as you can't deposit it. It's pretty much as any trading platform otu there, Metatrader for ex. - there's no bitcoins there too, you transfer fiat from BTC-e and trade it on their platform. When you're done, you can't withdraw btc, but fiat to btc-e again.

lol ok, no thanks.

Bucketshop anybody?

Don't like the sound of that. If i can't move it to my wallet then it's not btc. Ownership is a good chunk of what makes it valuable.

Yes, withdrawals can be made to Paypal, that's the best part of it.

But you can't deposit Bitcoin there unfortunately, you have to buy it with fiat there, then sell there too and withdraw fiat if you want.

Does this work the other way around too? Cashing out to paypal?
In that case I'm interested.

I remember this site from about a year ago, saying BTC was coming to the platform, and then.... nothing.

So the BTC can only be traded on etoro? Do they actually hold any BTC, or is this essentially just betting on the price direction and nothing else?