My BitPay Debit Card Account Was Closed And I Need An Alternative ASAP!
I've been a big fan of BitPay, the debit card you can load with bitcoins which then converts in into USD on a Visa debit card. You can spend it and make ATM withdraws just like a regular debit card.
I got it about a year ago and everything worked just fine until now. (beginning of my rant)
Last April I moved to Mexico and called BitPay to let them know I would be making regular ATM withdraws from out of the country. They assured me that would be fine and it was.
Then in July a third-party customer service center for BitPay blocked my card. I called them and sorted it all out. Everything was fine once again.
About a week ago the card was blocked again so I called customer service again and sent copies of my passport and various ID's to verify my identity and was told they should be able to clear things up in 1 to 2 business days.
Those days went by with no response so I called them again and they asked me to send them an image of the back of my ID's assuring me that in 1-2 business days it should be cleared up.
The days passed and still no response so I called again. They said they had everything they needed and assured me it should all be fine. They also sent me an email this time saying;
A request was sent to our Compliance Department regarding the status of your account. An update should be available before the end of our business day today.
Two more business days go by and still no response so I called again and again was reassured.
Then I got this email.
Please contact our Customer Service department by phone to discuss the update on your account.
Regards,
Card Services
To which I responded:
I have already called the customer service department 3 times and each time I am told this will be resolved in 1-2 business days.
I got a response an hour later that read:
We asked that you call us since our Compliance Department agreed to allow you to withdraw your funds. Please contact us while you are at an ATM. We will temporarily activate the account to allow the withdrawal and if there are still funds remaining, you may make a purchase to use the remaining funds.
The email made it sound like they were "temporarily" unblocking my card which made me concerned. You see, the only source of cash I have at the moment is this card. I use it to pull cash out and pay my bills.
So I called them and a very nice lady said she saw and removed the block on my card and I can now use it and no, it is not temporary.
Great! So I go to the ATM and it still did not work. I called them again and this time, only 30-minutes from being told that all is good with my card, I was told that the account is being closed.
To their credit they did lift the block for 4-hours allowing me to withdraw the funds I had in there, but damn, I'm now in Mexico with no way to get cash at the moment.
This just illustrates that banks can do whatever they want with your account and close it at any time.
When I asked why they closed my account they said it was for "suspicious activity". What is so suspicious about pulling money out of an ATM, even a foreign one, considering I called them prior to coming to Mexico to let them know that this is normal behavior for my account.
They said it was duly noted on my account that I would be in Mexico for an indefinite amount of time.
So, what is so suspicious about it seeing how they were told ahead of time?
(end of rant)
Thankfully, my landlady is being cool about the rent until I make other arrangements but it still leaves me with no cash until I can.
So, I'm asking the community to recommend another Bitcoin debit card that works well for travelers. I wonder what Andreas Antonopolus uses?
Can anyone here recommend a bitcoin debit card that works and works well even if you travel a lot? Preferably with low transaction fees and that could be shipped to Mexico.
I was just about to book my flights to Lisbon, Portugal for SteemFest 2 and this is really setting me back. The longer it takes me to sort this out the higher the price of the flight may be.
I sure would appreciate your recommendations.
Thanks
I'm waiting for Monaco to release their cards - hopefully soon though 😣
I know this is a shitty solution... but as the absolute worst-case, you can open a PayPal account, connect it to coinbase (instant withdraws), and have a PayPal debit card mailed to you. That would hold you over for a month or two while you look for more solutions... but like I said, it's shit, PayPal is shit.
I am not a fan of the fee's paypal charges but using it to make transactions has been wonderful. I once had a double charge for the same transaction and didn't notice it till the money was taken out of my account, paypal refunded the money and the over draft charge it caused in 3 hours. No bank works that quick to protect customer's money and get it returned to them. It just sucks if you are a seller.
I've used paypal a lot and like their service. Never used their debit card though and I don't know if they even offer that in Mexico which my paypal account originates from.
I would contact them and find out. When I sell I transfer to my paypal I haven't had any issues as they seem to like when I load money into my account. Sorry you are having the issues with the bitcoin backed debit card that sucks. But note to self when traveling have back up methods to access my crypto
That's thinking outside the box. Thanks
It doesn't help with the card but have you checked into booking your flight with Bitcoin? There is many options at this point, this list gives a decent intro https://news.bitcoin.com/many-ways-book-travels-using-bitcoin/
I have used Bitso for almost 2 years now, as they have grown I think there service has declined. The only direct bad incident I can point to with them personally is they took around 45USD out of my account claiming I owed them because of errors within there site; claiming I had been previously over paid by the site. I didn't regularly download my trade history so I will never know if they are being honest and just have terrible customer service or they straight stole the money. Either way from my perspective I shouldn't of had to pay...Good luck with getting it all figured out
Hey, thanks a lot for the references , I've used cheapair.com before and did cheack them for fights to Lisbon but they cost $1,300 and a 23-hour flight as opposed to $1,000 and a 14-hour flight. Big difference.
I'll look into the other links you sent me thatnk.
That is strange about bitso charging you. When they took it out of your account was it pesos or bitcoin that they took out?
thanks for sharing
TenX is all the rage these days. I think they had some trouble with servicing users outside of Europe but this may be fixed or should be fixed soon. TenX is pretty much the 'hottest' crypto payment card out there. It lets you store Bitcoin as well as a variety of altcoins and you can pay with them directly (depending on which price is highest at that time! benefit from price swings)
Also TenX doesn't require you to 'trade' your BTC when you put them onto the card. You can keep them as BTC and keep hodling, all the way up until you make a purchase.
Looks like they have reasonable fees and they do ship to Mexico. But cards outside of Europe no longer work. They may be av=ble to find a workaround but no sooner than November 2017.
To read the full update here;s the link.
https://blog.tenx.tech/tenx-card-update-sept-2017-2c9e41bf8f59
This subject interests me a lot, I will be listening to the answers of this post, thank you @luzcypher
I found a solution to my BitPay card problem you showed interest in. You can read about it here.
Bitso The Largest Crypto Exchange In Mexico My First Trade On Bitso
I havent had this problem yet! Following for different options to bitpay!
I have researched all of these cards. Some don't ship to Mexico, some have higher fees, and all have some bad reviews online.
But then again BitPay has some bad reviews too.
http://www.bestbitcoincard.com/
There's 2 person I saw before made post about http://cryptopay.me/
I've been thinking of that but never use. Let me know what you think.
Their fees are pretty high. and they have a fee for depositing and withdrawing.
https://cryptopay.me/bitcoin-debit-card
Thanks for your reply. Hope to see what you end up with :-)
ANX do a debit card that can be used worldwide
I haven't used the card, but I've used their exchange for a few years now. Pretty sure they'll be able to fedex it over :)
check this link https://anxpro.com/pages/card
This card looks like it is designed for businesses to pay their employees that work in multiple countries. Also, they do not list their fees on their fees page. https://anxpro.com/pages/fees
Wow that sounds awful. I just pulled money out of my bitpay card the other day in Laos for the first time, no problem. You recommended it to me when we were hanging out in Playas. Worked great. I'll keep an eye on this post to see what recommendations are given when I run into this problem. I'm sure you'll get an alternative soon. Sorry this is happening. Good warning to everyone, bad publicity and dumb service on their part. Best of luck my friend. -Dan
You think I would be the perfect customer for them as their fees are higher when you're withdrawing out of the country and I'm always doing that.