This is a scam. Pure unadulterated scam.

This is very exciting news, but we want to make sure we are completely clear and you understand what this means!

Of course there are always ifs and buts. It's the confusing fine print and the endless talk about exciting plans ahead which they use to cheat you while making sure they don't scare the living daylights out of you.

As you can see we definitely care about our members, and look forward to helping you double and even triple your BitCoin as many times as you want!

That line stinks worse than fermented cat pee. If they could double yours, why can't they double theirs... and keep doubling or tripling their own. These false assurances are as evil as a politician's promises. They always have an ulterior motive.

You might get some back but you definitely can't recover your entire bitcoins. The chance of getting some back is still slim.

You shouldn't have parked your bitcoins on an exchange wallet. There is always a risk of an exchange collapsing financially or legally. Storing your coins in an offline wallet and having sole access to that wallet's private keys would have spared you the pain of losing your more than $100k.

Interesting to see you have access to your wallet despite the servers having been seized by the US authorities. You need to be careful. That might be a phishing site harvesting login credentials for the legitimate btc-e website. Well, of course even if this was a phishing site, your login information won't do the thieves any good.

There are a few reports of other users using this "nz" site. I am convinced it is a phishing site.

This is what you call a tolerated scam. Or a scammer operating with impunity.

They have FinCEN credentials so they know they are untouchable. Sometimes I wonder why they are not meted the same treatment and penalties suffered by other rogue exchanges (btc-e for example). The authorities are doing nothing to deter them from doing these scams. It's an American company so by default, they are presumed to be operating by the rules.

So now you're at their mercy. 2.1 bitcoins held hostage until they decide to press the release button. I suggest bombarding them day and night with reminders to release YOUR coins. Their staff seem to have a hard time understanding the difference between what's theirs and what's not theirs.

Strange. How does the FBI have access to and seizure powers in Russia? How can they simply go to that country and seize physical equipment and servers? Foreign governments should be more proactive in stopping these arrogant intrusions. Sovereignty is not something to be trifled with. The US seems to forget their place on this planet. It's no wonder they are despised and derided by most countries.

Thankfully I live in a country that has a strong anti-US position. I support this strongly.

I know the truth hurts but it's always best to say it plainly and directly: your coins are irrecoverably gone.

The thief is incognito and the theft was perpetrated light years ago (well, in bitcoin years that is, given 72% of coins are now in circulation).

If the thief mixed the coins in a sophisticated way (such as trading them anonymously for altcoins, then retrading those altcoins back to bitcoins) then your chances of recovering them are almost as slim as you being elected the next US president.

There is also no incentive to claim the bounty since not only do you want the coins traced but you also want them recovered.

Are you all naive? Or simply out of your mind? Aren't the red flags obvious enough?

No escrow and a bank account in a country where "accounts are sold all the time".

Romania. A country where ATM skimming is an industry. Just google "romanians skimming" (I dare you) and see for yourself. If you buy these accounts and cards, yes he might be claiming here he won't go to the bank to declare the cards lost or to request the bank to reset the accounts. That is absolutely not necessary. Simply copy the card information (skim them) and send the original card to you. You then load the card and within minutes they will withdraw your money in Romania.

Even with escrow protection, you will lose your money. The money you paid for the IBAN account and the money you load into the card.

How can a scam be a pretty thing? I detest all this thievery and conning. It's because of a never ending coming and going of naive victims that these scams thrive and flourish. These scammers know there will always be one out there whom they can con within minutes. Even 1 out of 10 is a good failure/success ratio for them.

People interested in mining should really educate themselves before investing a ton of money on these expensive rigs. Due diligence. Lots of it. Take your time to check and research your sources carefully. Don't let the excitement of quickly getting those rigs tempt you to send thousands of dollars to websites or people who promise to deliver them to your door before 9 AM tomorrow. Scammers will say, do and promise anything to lure you to send money ASAP!

Don't put all your hopes in a revival of this exchange. Healthy speculation is however a good way to stay positive. It's depressing enough for those who probably lost hundreds or more BTC on this exchange. Given the massive penalties imposed by the US authorities, it's almost impossible to recover losses 1:1. If you're lucky, you might get a certain percentage back. If.

And if they do recover and reestablish themselves as an exchange, trust will be the operative word. Gaining it will require an enormous effort to fight the stigma of being labeled a rogue exchange and the disdainful way they treated customers. They were known for showing contempt to their customers, for making it difficult for their customers to access their money, for being dishonest... well, evil begets karma. Scammers on this forum seem to forget that.

I'm surprised they still operate as a licensed exchange. With so many scam complaints hounding them, I can't understand why the authorities are not giving them the same treatment meted out to btc-e and other rogue exchanges.

This is an exchange perpetrating scams with impunity. They seem to be using that time-proven tactic of reverse-accusing their customers of being the scammers. Being FinCEN compliant, they can profit from small fish like you (yes you, OP) by giving you the silent treatment and disguising their pernicious scams as a legitimate investigation.  

A lawyer might help but it will be an expensive fight. Lawyers want money upfront and only a few will litigate on the strength of a projected positive outcome. Exchanges retain an excellent team of legal professionals to help them stay afloat long enough to sustain their "legit" facade. After all, a legit exchange is one you can entrust with your money. As for your $1300, don't expect to see them resolve this issue soon. Their facebook and twitter pages alone are littered with endless complaints. Their staff take their own sweet time, come to work professionally attired, coffee in hand, holding 9 to 5 jobs like every other degree-holding guy whose parents are oh so proud of... oblivious to all your losses here. They simply do not care.

I always remind myself of one time-proven rule: if anyone begins a conversation with friend or brother or dear or kitten or honey bun it's almost always not going to end well. It's as certain as the 2 you get when you add 1 and 1.

And of course, when you are invited to Skype, the scammer's favorite playground, then you know you have a serial coin molester who wants your coins. It's just easier and more comfortable to molest your coins within the four walls of that chat room. Don't let these scammers traumatize your last few coins. Chat here, a cleaner and safer platform.

Never send coins upfront without escrow protection. Not even if they call you butterball or sweetie pie.

Sometimes I have a feeling there is some kind of insider manipulation involved in all these "stuck transactions". It's as if they will not respond to you while they inject the funds in the market and gain something from it. You might then hear from them when market conditions are not in your favour. That's if they even decide to respond or react to your support request tickets.

Never put all your eggs in one basket. Don't send all your money to an exchange as there is a very real risk that they could be blocked for a very very very long time. It's frustrating enough when they give you the silent treatment but it's even more unsettling when they don't give you a reason for the blockage.

You must only invest or trade those assets which exceed your basic disposable income or holdings. If you invest everything, the risk is two-fold: 1) the exchange blocking your money and 2) the risk of your crypto assets devaluing over time while you wait for the blockage to be lifted.

This will not work because most card providers in the UK do an electoral roll check. This allows them to verify and confirm that you, the person named on the card, really live in the UK.

If they can't find you on the electoral roll, they will try a credit check or ask you to provide a copy of a utility bill or a bank statement but they often rely on more authoritative sources such as the electoral roll and credit bureau services such as Experian. If you use a foreign passport for KYC, they might ask for a copy of your Right of Abode.

The usual requirements:

Two of the following are applicable to you: Home telephone registered in your name / you have a UK Driving License / you are registered on the Electoral roll OR a scanned copy or photocopy of the photo page of your passport along with original proof of your address for the last 3 months.

Or were you thinking about hiring a person to apply for a card on your behalf? This is risky for both the applicant (the person you are "hiring") and the intended end user (you).

I have a Cryptopay card and have been using it for more than a year. Flawless service. Never had issues with loading the card. Cryptopay's cards are the Visa type and are accepted worldwide.

Well, until 15 October 2017.

On that day, the cards will cease to be valid for those residing outside Europe. Wave Crest, the issuer of the MyChoice card, was acquired by Visa International. Visa decided to restrict the cards to residents of Europe. So if you ordered your card and if you are a non-resident of Europe, you will be waiting forever for that card to arrive. And if it does arrive, you might as well frame it and hang it on a wall.

Read this thread: 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2120076.0

Given the massive amounts of overseas remittances which drive the economy, any positive development will have an equally massive revenue shift for these exchanges. Obviously a government-issued license or accreditation will impact their penetration in the financial market and will allow them to compete more aggressively with banks and other forms of remittance providers. For one, they will be seen as accepted and legit by the remitting OFWs which would allow them to market their services in a more streamlined manner.

For example, having a license would allow them to join hands with banks in product sectors which used to be reserved for banks alone. Bitcoin cards, for example. Offering local cards in conjunction with leading Philippine banks will lead to consumers placing greater trust in cryptocurrency. Filipinos will probably find it easier to trust a Coins.ph card issued by Metrobank or BPI than one issued by Wave Crest in Gibraltar. This is because banks have a ubiquitous presence in the country and a physical branch of a bank almost always evokes a sense of trust, knowing there is someone to approach if something goes wrong.

The vast majority of Filipinos are not familiar with bitcoin, especially those in rural areas of the country. To succeed nationally, bitcoin exchanges should be more proactive in educating Filipinos about the advantages of using it. This is a formidable challenge and is almost akin to introducing a new currency.

EU residents might be safe and unaffected by the merger and acquisition of Wave Crest by Visa International but they will be affected by the contract dissolution. As a result of the merger, Visa International decided to no longer offer the cards to users residing outside Europe.

As you may have noticed, the bitcoin card providers are actively looking for new banking partners. This signals that they will no longer support the Wave Crest brand of cards and as such even EU residents subscribing to services of Xapo, Cryptopay, Wirex, Uquid, Bitpay etc will also no longer be able to use those cards beyond October. As an EU resident, what use is it to have a card which you can't load with funds if these bitcoin card providers no longer offer and support those cards?

So we are all in this together, EU and non-EU residents.

Yes, it's official. Just got this email:

Dear xxx,

Due to the licence restriction of our card issuer, the xxx card program (Prepaid and Real-time Conversion card types) will no longer be supported for all cardholders after October 15, 2017.

How will this impact me?

Your xxx card will remain open for use until 15 October, 2017 11:59 PM GMT. After that, your card will be closed and you will no longer be able to use it.

What steps should I take next?

You should, therefore, use up or withdraw any balance on your card before 15 October 2017.Withdrawal can be made from any visa-supported ATM machine.
We also recommend that you stop loading further funds onto your card effective immediately to avoid any balance remaining on your card.
Although this situation is out of our control, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our cardholders. We want to assure you that we are actively looking for suitable products to bring convenience to our customers. Details will be announced in due course, so stay tuned.

I have a prepaid card issued by Wirecard AG and I top it up on my MisterTango account. You might want to consider this company as your card provider as they claim to be a global leader in prepaid card services.

The card works well. I have used it at ATMs and merchants but I always keep the transactions at an average low. Large amounts might trigger a flag and cause the card to be blocked. I would hate to see that happen.. especially if there is a queue lol. The stares one gets while you look for another card. How can you explain to a supermarket teller you need 2 more confirmations on blockchain before you can use the card again lol.



 

I just ordered mine and the fees may be somewhat high but it's the peace-of-mind factor that I value here. I was using my MyChoice card the other day and I was worried while withdrawing, thinking the card could be frozen or blocked anytime. One should never be made to worry. It's unhealthy. A bank that makes one feel unsettled when transacting or embarrassed by a declined transaction is a bank to avoid.

Submitted my passport copy and a selfie holding the passport plus proof of residential address. I hope I get the card before my trip to Dubai next week. Shopping and dining in Dubai with a bitcoin card... that would be nice.

So essentially you want a partner to loan you 59 x 30 = about $1770 in BTC (as a minimum, given the dynamic earnings you expect to achieve) on the strength of predicted income?

This might work but given the nature of the partnership where someone/anyone interested in doing this is expected to advance you the money (in other words, lend you the money) then you might need to consider escrowing some form of collateral to allay any fears of a potential failure of your business plan.

At the end of the day, this is still a loan.

These are examples of why it is important to anticipate and expect to be verified BEFORE trading any fiat and coins on exchanges. There is a very real risk that your money will be blocked for a long time if not even indefinitely while they investigate you. The thing that is most worrying is that they don't usually say what's going on or what's wrong.

They will simply give you the silent treatment during the course of the investigation. It's probably how such investigations are done and it's standard procedure for them to remain silent. Why? I read about one bank's KYC procedure where the staff are supposed to not inform the customer when something suspicious about the account is detected. It allows them to investigate while at the same time preventing the customer from destroying evidence or "perverting the course of justice".

Assuming your coins or fiat are from clean sources, you shouldn't be worried about losing your money. Bitstamp is a regulated and properly licensed exchange. They will eventually resolve the matter. It just takes time.