Bitcoin Forum

Does anyone use Bitpay to purchase Bitcoin? I don't really get the intrigue if it is just a wallet connected to Coinbase... Seems like you could just cut out the middle man and it would all work the same. I just downloaded the app and set it up so forgive me if I am wrong in my assumption...

For those who have purchased Bitcoin using Bitpay how long did you wait before you actually received your coin?

I have a BitPay card.  I really like it.  In my opinion, it isn't practical to use a BitPay account to purchase Bitcoin, in fact, I'm not even sure you can.  What it's convenient for is when you have BTC and need a small to medium amount of cash on a financial card for whatever reason.  Obviously there are a ton of merchants, especially in the real world, that don't accept Bitcoin.  It's nice to be able to take 500 bucks from your BTC wallet and throw it on your BitPay card, which is instant, and have it on a debit/credit card for use anywhere Visa is accepted, like getting gas, or a hotel room, or hitting up an ATM.  

I agree, I use a BitPay card for the same reason but might have to change my plans if they go along with all this 2x nonsense. It's getting annoying.

2x nonsense, do you mean double spent btc network fee?
anyway Skrill is using bitpay to settle their clients btc uploads
if Skrill can trust bitpay,then me too

but yes, there is noticeable loss
i have to pay btc network fee in coinbase while sending funds and bitpay is taking btc network fee from Skrill end

What is the fee for converting from bitcoin to usd in the account? Do they use a bad exchange rate too?

Their recent update is a major letdown.
Invoices no longer displays the payment address, instead you have to pay exclusively using the Bitcoin Payment Protocol (BIP 70) that is supported only by a few wallets.

Yeah, that new protocol is a pain in the ass. I fund my card like this: Blockchain > Bitpay Wallet > Topping Up Bitpay Card. Their Bitpay wallet (computer based, not on a website) makes it fairly easy to deposit BTC onto my Bitpay card.

I don't mean to Hijack but does anyone know of a BTC > Debit card service like Bitpay that is open to Americans? Bitpay is great...almost too good when their nonexistent/garbage competition is considered. I don't like having my eggs in one basket though. Having 2-3 different cards via different companies would be much better. It can even just be an ATM card instead of debit. High fees are acceptable too. Any suggestions?

Bitpay wallet is a total scam!!! They claim to have integration with coinbase, and offer to buy bitcoins using a higher exchange rate from coinbase than you would if directly buying at coinbase. So Anyway I thought by buying through bitpay integrated system and paying the premium would save me from paying a transaction fee to transact the bitcoins from coinbase to bitpay. I double checked the amount of bitcoins I would be receiving, now after actually going forward with the transaction and buying the bitcoins I ended up receiving an amount of bitcoins MINUS the transction fee anyway. Basically a MUCH lower amount than claimed by their app prior to buying them!! Total scammers. Ruined my purchase. I was no longer able to purchase the product I wanted because I was short of bitcoins. Now I need to transfer bitcoins again to the darn bitpay wallet and pay the network fee again to buy the items I wanted.

What a scam.

One word of warning about BitPay - I've been using their credit card for several months now, and I've been pretty active with it - and I've transferred in $8k which they initially showed as pending for several weeks, then they showed as applied but they didn't actually apply the money to my balance - so they just effectively kept it.  Contacted support, then again, and again and again - it's now been about 3 weeks that I've been trying to get them to even respond but I get literally zero back from them - the only thing I got was some BS form email on the first submission of the issue saying how they're growing and that it may take a day or two.  No phone number, no responses - I went with them because I thought I would be dealing with a somewhat reputable company that gave a crap, but at least in this instance it's definitely not the case.

BitPay is the best in what it does usually, but there is unfortunately no way to keep everything on track all the time. Them growing shouldn't be used as an excuse anymore, we're beyond that now, that's for sure.

If we look at the majority of the services in this industry, then it's safe to say that they all severely lack when it comes to their support desk. It can be solved by hiring capable staff, but that's too cost intensive apparently.

I however found a telephone number on BitPay's whois page, and that's +1.8554248729 ~ I don't know if it works, or will provide you any help, but at least something you can try.

The thing that is lame is to your point, they aren't brand new and they're making enough to afford to buy any of the myriad of support service ticket apps out that - instead it's some crap web form and then emails.  Even Bitmain, who is about as far from the pinnacle of customer support, had a better system and actually responded after a couple days.  Just lame.

We used them with one of my previous business as a merchant services company, but based on this experience I would be hard pressed to recommend them again for either.  If you're going to offer a service, do a good job or don't do it.  The sad thing is that we're not talking about adding a ton of staff - just give me the ability to know that my request is even in the system, and if anyone is ever going to even look at it.  Now I just send emails into a black hole and hope that maybe someone might respond.

Just sent an email, the same generic form crap response:


I send the last one almost 20 days ago and got this exact same quote, so even if they were only handling 50 inquiries a day they should be through this backlog.

Bitpay is definitely not known for good customer service these days. But I know Bitstamp gives the silent treatment like this when doing law enforcement checks on account holders and blocking funds. When that happens, the deposit is either credited a few weeks later (without much communication) or the account is terminated without explanation and presumably the money is refunded to the originating account/address.

Any chance you deposited funds of a questionable nature? It's probably just an error and incompetent customer service, but just throwing the idea out there given the silent treatment...

No, it was just a problem with that one transfer, and all my coin is mined coin, so about as virgin as it can get - plus I transferred in  $10k the next day no problem and quite a bit more after that.  I suspect it had something to do with BTC volatility at the time, but then just refund me the BTC if you didn't get the rate you had planned.

They actually FINALLY got back to me today, and confirmed that they had said it was released but not actually gave me the money, and they deposited the money today.  Super lame that I had to actively pursue this and pay attention - so be warned to verify that they actually credit whatever money you deposit into your account.

Have anyone used the service of Paybear? They seem like bitpay but with lower fees, not sure if they are legit or not though.

I have done a test buy using paybear and it worked perfectly. They're quite a bit cheaper than Bitpay, so I'd suggest use paybear than Bitpay.

Never heard of Paybear, Is this a new ICO? Can you link me a website of them? Would be glad to use their services if what they claim is true. Thanks

I've checked their site and staff are quite friendly and helpful.. I think that Paybear is good for making small payments since fees are very cheap. I have no idea if I can trust them with larger amounts, but we'll see based on reviews.

But paybear is relatively new as a service provider. Their team and website although seems neat, I still fear using their service since they don't have an official support for the queries I'm asking.

Perhaps you'd like to contact PayBear via Telegram since their staff is pretty much active there compared to Bitcointalk at this time. https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=@paybear

It looks like Paybear will soon have support for both Shopify and Magento! This is really good news especially since both are large platforms with quite a number of merchants to reach.

Paybear and Bitpay are completely different if you want to buy Bitcoin.
Paybear only gives you their API for payment gateway, Paybear supports multiple cryptocurrency out of the box when compared to Bitpay payment gateway.
Bitpay on the other hand has many services to offer, something as simple as buying bitcoin to Bitcoin Debit Card and Payment gateway.

If you want to buy Bitcoin, you can find exchanges that has lower/higher rate than Bitpay.

In terms of service providing which of them do you think is more reliable and cheap? Bitpay or paybear?