I would like to share my experience with Bitwala.
A the very beginning I was very excited to find a crypto bank, with a debit card and actually Made In Germany.
I registered, verified myself, got a debit card. Everything was smooth. A fair bitcoin wallet with keys made me feel confident.
I loaded some coins into my (MY OWN, in my name) Bitstamp account and made 2500 EUR SEPA withdrawal to the Bitwala IBAN. It came the same day. Perfect! After that I made a local 1000 EUR SEPA to pay a kindergarten. It went through but 2 days later they sent me a questionnaire asking for fund source and proofs. I provided all the documents including blockchain tx when I purchased crypto and Kindergarten invoice. And what do you think?
We regret to inform you that we can no longer continue our banking journey, following a review of your account with us.
We have recently undertaken a review of your banking journey and reached this conclusion in line with Section 19 paragraph 3 of our partners solarisBank's General Terms and Conditions (GTC) and will no longer provide these facilities. You will, therefore, need to make alternative banking arrangements.
All of your other banking arrangements, including your account and cryptocurrency wallet, will be cancelled and closed with immediate effect.
wtf? Just one payment, absolutely transparent. No VPN, no proxies, all in my name, I just wanted to live crypto!
This was a great disappointment.
But another disappointment was waiting for me.
I decided to know what kind of data and for how long will be kept in Bitwala. I made a proper request referring to GDPR and sent it to Bitwala support. It's been along journey, kicking me from one manager to another who were giving me general answers like "some data" "for 5 years" "for 10 years" "do not worry". It ended up by adding me in their Jira an assigning me someone competent from the legal team and at the end I received a letter in german with an excuse and a zip file attached. There was a table with data and time mark it will be kept for. As I said I was dissapointed, all my personal data, my address, phone, IP, timestamps and photos of all the documents that were used during verification and after. My passport was captured in different positions and angels.
So wtf??
They kicked me out after the first legal payment but but they are going to keep all the data for 5-10 years? Is it OK guys?
A the very beginning I was very excited to find a crypto bank, with a debit card and actually Made In Germany.
I registered, verified myself, got a debit card. Everything was smooth. A fair bitcoin wallet with keys made me feel confident.
I loaded some coins into my (MY OWN, in my name) Bitstamp account and made 2500 EUR SEPA withdrawal to the Bitwala IBAN. It came the same day. Perfect! After that I made a local 1000 EUR SEPA to pay a kindergarten. It went through but 2 days later they sent me a questionnaire asking for fund source and proofs. I provided all the documents including blockchain tx when I purchased crypto and Kindergarten invoice. And what do you think?
We regret to inform you that we can no longer continue our banking journey, following a review of your account with us.
We have recently undertaken a review of your banking journey and reached this conclusion in line with Section 19 paragraph 3 of our partners solarisBank's General Terms and Conditions (GTC) and will no longer provide these facilities. You will, therefore, need to make alternative banking arrangements.
All of your other banking arrangements, including your account and cryptocurrency wallet, will be cancelled and closed with immediate effect.
wtf? Just one payment, absolutely transparent. No VPN, no proxies, all in my name, I just wanted to live crypto!
This was a great disappointment.
But another disappointment was waiting for me.
I decided to know what kind of data and for how long will be kept in Bitwala. I made a proper request referring to GDPR and sent it to Bitwala support. It's been along journey, kicking me from one manager to another who were giving me general answers like "some data" "for 5 years" "for 10 years" "do not worry". It ended up by adding me in their Jira an assigning me someone competent from the legal team and at the end I received a letter in german with an excuse and a zip file attached. There was a table with data and time mark it will be kept for. As I said I was dissapointed, all my personal data, my address, phone, IP, timestamps and photos of all the documents that were used during verification and after. My passport was captured in different positions and angels.
So wtf??
They kicked me out after the first legal payment but but they are going to keep all the data for 5-10 years? Is it OK guys?
Bitwala is scam! I bought BTC with 2000 Euro, then a lock appeared on the Bitcoin and I was not able to withdrawal my BTC. I called the costumer support 8 times, but nobody answered, I send email 2 months but nobody replayed.
Localbitcoins.com and Bitwala is scam.