Why is this all so confusing? It's dead clear and straightforward: credit cards means you borrow money, debit cards are your own money. That's the difference. With credit card, you are borrowing money which you then repay later which is why it's called a "credit" card. With a debit card, the money is taken or debited from your own available funds.

Going by the above definition, there is no such thing as a bitcoin credit card which would mean a card provider issuing a card with a credit limit. You then repay the bitcoins later with or without interest. As we all know, this does not (yet) exist.

A bitcoin debit card on the other hand exists which is basically a card which debits or takes money from your available funds (or coins) as you use the card.

A prepaid credit card is a secured credit card. It's a card you secure or prepay with a deposit which the bank or card issuer holds as a lien or collateral against the credit limit granted for that particular card.

Trust is an important and sacred element in any crypto project. The fact that you are operators makes no difference in the integrity factor. When you mentioned "no participation or inquiries" I assume you mean no investments pouring in?

ICO scams are all the rage now. There were so many fly by night operations and schemes this year alone. It's not easy to overlook those scams and the damage they caused to the crypto community. These scammers are now living the high life at the expense of their cheated investors.

Transparency is another issue here. Lack of verifiable information leads people to suspect and doubt. A poorly created whitepaper and an unrealistic roadmap are also red flags. They all add up into one single blood-red warning banner which is why you are experiencing this silent treatment despite the perceived extensive traffic.

Very difficult to overcome the card limit dilemma if you opt to stay unverified. Almost all card issuers have an option for lower limit cards but those limits are miserably low. A single shopping event depletes the limit and renders the card useless for future use.

As for cash, you can use escrowed services on this forum or Localbitcoins. Forget exchanges. Exchanges are now implementing enhanced verification procedures and they all want to know every atom of your being. Who you are, what you are, where you are. Those. Some even demand you provide more intimate information than what your family and friends already know about you, such as bank statements and source of funds.

You might find suspicious card offers on certain sections of this forum. Be on your toes and carefully do your due diligence before loading such cards with money. You never know if they have been cloned before delivery to you or if the seller has backdoor access to the card account.

Thanks for that. I had no idea of such threats until now. But wouldn't it be hard for a hacker to know the entire combination of login credentials (login/password) and also overcome that barrier of porting a number from one phone to another? It's not like this information is advertised (I have a cheap disposable prepaid sim linked to my social media accounts). My Authy sim was uniquely and exclusively for my Authy app.

Porting and sim cloning are not common crimes in the country I live in. Getting a new sim would require a visit to the carrier's store or branch with the same ID or passport used to register the first sim. They take pics of their customers when a sim is purchased here which the carrier's staff see on their computers when a new sim is purchased, making it difficult for impostors to clone sims.

Good to be aware that these risks are still very real and a now thing. Yes, I do take precautions and I would urge others to do so too. Criminals are born every minute and they seem to be evolving and growing at the same rate anti-fraud tools are being developed.

It's all a gamble for these scammers. They can't be 100% sure if all their work will yield anything.

Frankly, a lot of newbies are interested in your phone but they are silent as a mouse after you mentioned that dreaded E word. You see, some of them prefer you to ship the phone upfront without any of that annoying escrow thing which protects you from being scammed.

Try editing your post and delete the E word. I bet you will have a long list of offers within minutes.

On a serious note, do use escrow and never ever fall for the Skype trap. It’s when you are invited to have a friendly chat on Skype and carefully groomed and manipulated to convince you to send that iPhone sans escrow upfront.

As I posted earlier, PayPal is a high risk payment method. It is reversible and prone to being charged back up to 180 days from the day payment is made.

If you do not want to wait 6 months, the alternative is to withdraw your PayPal funds to your bank account, withdraw the money and use that cash to pay irreversibly.

Taking PayPal from newbies is playing with fire. I’m not saying all newbies are dishonest but an overwhelming majority of them are usually throwaway accounts created by habitual scammers. Sad but that’s the trend here.

Next time you should consider using either Authy or 1Password. Both have strong security protocols and both are trusted systems.

Both Authy and 1Password allow you to reinstall their apps and recover accounts previously saved within those apps. With Authy, the process simply involves two steps: download the app and verify by either getting an SMS or a call on the phone number linked to your Authy account. With 1Password, login with your master password and secret key. Done. All passwords and 2FA recovered.

Both work on phones and laptops.

I gave up on Google Auth a year ago after a similar thing happened to my phone. Dropped it and the screen started flickering. I couldn't see the 2FA codes. I then started using Authy but changed to 1Password recently. Authy is very good but I travel a lot and I worry I might not get the verification code by SMS or call while on roaming mode in case I lose or misplace the phone. 1Password is really good. You can save your passwords, private keys and 2FA securely. Their app is often paranoid and will ask for the master password every 2 weeks (this can be switched off or adjusted) or when the phone is rebooted.

As far as I know, Localbitcoins does not even allow trading on their site if the transacting parties are in Germany.

http://bit.ly/2kWvw3f

Operations involving Localbitcoins trades in Germany ceased in 2014. I'm not sure if anything has changed since then.

Since your friend wants to deal in person and pay with cash, then the above is irrelevant but still something I wanted to mention as a point of interest.

I'm not sure if you will find anyone willing to travel to Loerrach to trade a few coins. Your friend might find offers involving a SEPA transfer or Sofortueberweisung.

He might want to consider buying from BitPanda in Austria:

https://www.bitpanda.com/

Or taking the train to Basel and buying coins at the ATM:

https://www.bitcoinsuisse.ch/atm-network/

Viel Glueck!

This is all very nice technically and impressively developed but considering the many ICOs which recently either flopped or scammed their investors, I'm curious and interested in seeing how this all progresses. Trust is a core element in projects like this as obviously you expect people to inject bitcoins and altcoins into this ICO which might be seen as investing but is in fact gambling in TravelFlex to gain some form of ROI.

It's always nice to see new projects and ideas which advance the crypto world. It's still an evolving industry but of course we all need to be realistic about our expectations and also aware of the risks involved. I like this project, especially the idea of a solid payment system divorced from the traditional banking system. If totally real and functional, this would be an opportunity not to be missed. Relying on a Gibraltar-based card issuer however implies or suggests you do not have your own issuer number from MasterCard. As such, there is no direct relationship between TravelFlex and MasterCard. It would be nice to see you progress to a point where you are recognized as an issuing bank.

Always use escrow and avoid taking reversible payment methods. Avoid PayPal, Skrill, Venmo etc from newbies. Ignore offers to trade smaller amounts first but require that you send the coins first. Avoid this trap and your coins will be safe.

Again, use escrow and trade here or use Localbitcoins. Refuse Skype where you might be entrapped into something fishy.

Escrow + irreversible payment method = safe transaction.

 

This is what I keep advising others here to do. It is absolutely unsafe to store your entire coins on an exchange wallet which gives no access to that wallet's private keys. And even if they did, any kind of arrangement where you share access to your keys is a disaster and tragedy in the making. The safest way is for you and you alone to own, know and keep the private keys. Shared access is not compatible with sole and safe ownership.

Consider an analogy: joint bank accounts or supplementary credit cards. If the joint account holder or supplementary card holder spends the entire contents of that account or card, the main account or card holder absorbs the damage. Applying this to the exchange scenario, if they use your coins and refuse to reimburse you, there is almost nothing you can do, unless they operate in your country in which case there is a slim chance you might find recourse through the civil (and maybe even criminal) courts.

Trading can be nice and profitable, yes, but think and decide carefully when it comes to where to safely store those profits.

Get a Mistertango IBAN account. It comes with a MasterCard and you can load your account with bitcoins. You can also use it for sending and receiving SEPA payments.

https://mistertango.com/en/

I'm not sure if you can get it quickly during the Christmas holidays. If you sign up, you might get the card in January but definitely not before the end of this month.

The account and the MasterCard are free. They have an awesome easy to use app.

Cryptopay is another option but be prepared to wait a few days or longer for verification results. It's their card issuer which verifies you and they can be notoriously slow. When you are verified, you can expect to get your card within a few days if you live in Europe. If you don't, it will take longer (or quicker if you pay for DHL courier).

A debit card would have been the simplest way and straight line route from BTC to GBP but all exchangers offering legitimate cards require that their card holders be fully verified and KYC/AML vetted. This of course isn't the fastest way since you first need to open an exchange account (such as Cryptopay which still offers their MyChoice visa cards to EU and UK residents) and you would need to apply for the card which takes time, given the verification and card issuing procedures. And all the holidays would slow things down even more.

Another way is to use Localbitcoins. You can advertise your bitcoins and specify how you want to be paid in GBP. Be careful of scammers. Some of them use SEPA and Faster Payments to perpetrate scams. Some of these fraudsters send payments from compromised accounts or bank cards. Another dangerous scam which is all the rage now in Europe (and in the UK) is meeting up to transact and later being assaulted and robbed. They usually operate in groups and will lure their victims by offering temptingly favorable exchange rates. Always meet in a very public places and take a companion or witnesses with you.

And lastly, always be on your toes when receiving cash for your BTC. Check and doublecheck the money to make sure they are genuine.

Sell your bitcoin (if you really have one) to trusted members here. Never use Skype for trades (unless you don't mind transacting with other newbie scammers) and forget about being paid $13000 with PayPal.

I have a feeling this is not a legitimate offer anyway but I don't mind posting this in the rare event that you genuinely intend to sell 1 BTC, let alone even have it. If you don't have the coin, threads like this still have an educational element in them and help others be aware of and avoid mentally challenged scammers here who keep posting their drivel and trash.

Wrong. Family/friends option can be charged back. Simply dispute the payment by advising PayPal it wasn't you or it was a fraudulent payment and you know nothing about it. PayPal has reversed such payments and will not hesitate to reverse yours if brazenly challenge the transfer after getting the coins.

As for references and feedback earned elsewhere, trusted traders here usually rely on the internal trust system of this site. It may not be a solid indicator of integrity but it is a definitive measure of one's credibility.

Be careful of requests to chat on Skype. It is a scammer's preferred choice of communicating with their victims. Private and zero interference from those sharp eyed members here who might ruin their scam strategy.

I suspect it has something to do with accounts being subjected to enhanced identity verification which is probably why transactions are not being posted. They might be doing the verification manually. Not sure if you noticed yet but there are countless threads here about unresolved Bittrex issues and complaints. I did see a few involving amounts of over a million $. So count yourself as part of the club. Bittrex is notorious for being unresponsive.

I don't think you will find any help here. Bittrex is not active on this forum. I suggest you contact them directly by whatever means possible-- their support page or on their Facebook or Twitter account if they have one.

You should do extensive due diligence before sending that much coin to an exchange's hot wallet. I'm sorry you're in this predicament but you should have carefully checked complaints and reviews before sending the coins. It's Christmas and nobody's working so expect more silent treatment until after the New Year.

You can pay by reversible Skrill only? I don't think anybody will be interested. Skrill can be charged back after you receive coins. You should find a way to withdraw Skrill to your bank account, then withdraw the cash from your account and buy coins safely.

Escrow can't protect because of the charge back risk.

That red trust is not very encouraging.

If you do find someone willing to do this, I suggest using escrow to hold the coins until the Skrill payment is successfully withdrawn without issues. But this is still risky. Skrill has been known to reverse withdrawn funds if they detect systematic fraud, even if the money left the Skrill account.

Be careful of offers from fake or under-qualified developers who might ask for a downpayment or a small deposit before they start working on your project. Escrow the coins and don't pay anything upfront. Be wary of scammers who insist on chatting on Skype. Some of them are very calculating and manipulative and will try to build rapport to convince you to send some of the money first.

And yes, escrow is a very good component of this deal. This will protect those with good intentions and legitimate developers and will encourage them to respect your terms to the letter. Guaranteed funds are a strong incentive to motivate a developer to complete and deliver time-critical elements of your sportsbook casino.

I would suggest Mistertango. The account is free. The card is free too. You only pay when you withdraw cash from your card.

Here's the website: https://mistertango.com/en/

Best of all, you can load the account with bitcoins. You get an IBAN account which allows you to send and receive SEPA payments and the card works worldwide.

N26 is reliable but they might require German PostIdent identity verification and for that you have to be in Germany.

Mistertango also requires verification and you can do that conveniently on their iOS or android app.

No harm in trying it. You won't be charged for opening an account.

 

You'd be surprised but there are people out there who scam millions on Christmas day. Scammers even scam on their birthday, Thanksgiving and the rest of the year. They operate 24/7/365.

I know it's hard to gain the trust of others but it's how the world turns. You need to be part of this community, contribute positively and constructively one way or another and do a few honest escrowed trades perhaps.

I'm sorry if all the no you're getting from lenders here ruined your Christmas. Perhaps you can try borrowing the $12 from family and friends? Sad to see a man fall so low as to desperately need $12 to survive.