Advcash | a new "anonymous" bitcoin debit card [EUR & USD]

[xissburg]

Guys be careful with Advcash, avoid it. I just lost $4658 USD in a credit card fraud. Days ago (on June 24) when I logged in my advcash account I was devastated to see a negative balance and a series of weird transactions in my card. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/lOxRKIN.png

They were all ATM withdrawals in Indonesian Rupiah, each around $150 and $200 USD, 29 in total. The fraud is pretty obvious. They were all performed in sequence on June 21 (and then one more on June 23), only a few minutes apart and nothing was done to block the card. This shows they have a pretty weak security, I had to block the card myself, and I still don't understand how my balance became negative. Are you allowed to spend more than you have??

 This card was barely used and the only sketchy place I have used it was in London's subway ticket machine so I am almost certain my card was cloned there.

I contacted support and it took a few messages for them to understand what was going on even though it was all obvious.. quite frustrating. Then they tell me they can initiate a chargeback procedure with their card vendor and I have to pay $35 USD for each transaction and it can take up to 90 days. Like I mentioned earlier there are 29 fraudulent transactions so I would have to pay $1015 USD to move this forward! WTF?!!

I don't really know what to do at this point. Better give them $1k and get $4.6k back than be left with nothing instead. But I can't trust Advcash anymore after this. I can't just hand them $1k and believe they will do anything at all.

It's not Advcash's fault that the card was cloned, however, it's Advcash's fault not having detected the series of fraudulent transactions where the card should have been blocked on the first few transactions. It'd be ok to lose $300, now $4658... I obviously can't trust Advcash anymore, nor I can recommend it to anyone else, which I now regret doing in the past. All I can do is warn as many people as I can about the fragility of Advcash and how they can end up in the same terrible situation as me.

Ps: call me stupid for keeping this amount in this card, but the reason why I had almost $5k in this card is that weeks ago I was going to make a big payment and I'd do it with multiple credit cards so I topped up this one with bitcoins. I ended up doing a bank transfer and left this money in the card.. meh

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[AdvancedCash]

Guys be careful with Advcash, avoid it. I just lost $4658 USD in a credit card fraud. Days ago (on June 24) when I logged in my advcash account I was devastated to see a negative balance and a series of weird transactions in my card. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/lOxRKIN.png

They were all ATM withdrawals in Indonesian Rupiah, each around $150 and $200 USD, 29 in total. The fraud is pretty obvious. They were all performed in sequence on June 21 (and then one more on June 23), only a few minutes apart and nothing was done to block the card. This shows they have a pretty weak security, I had to block the card myself, and I still don't understand how my balance became negative. Are you allowed to spend more than you have??

 This card was barely used and the only sketchy place I have used it was in London's subway ticket machine so I am almost certain my card was cloned there.

I contacted support and it took a few messages for them to understand what was going on even though it was all obvious.. quite frustrating. Then they tell me they can initiate a chargeback procedure with their card vendor and I have to pay $35 USD for each transaction and it can take up to 90 days. Like I mentioned earlier there are 29 fraudulent transactions so I would have to pay $1015 USD to move this forward! WTF?!!

I don't really know what to do at this point. Better give them $1k and get $4.6k back than be left with nothing instead. But I can't trust Advcash anymore after this. I can't just hand them $1k and believe they will do anything at all.

It's not Advcash's fault that the card was cloned, however, it's Advcash's fault not having detected the series of fraudulent transactions where the card should have been blocked on the first few transactions. It'd be ok to lose $300, now $4658... I obviously can't trust Advcash anymore, nor I can recommend it to anyone else, which I now regret doing in the past. All I can do is warn as many people as I can about the fragility of Advcash and how they can end up in the same terrible situation as me.

Ps: call me stupid for keeping this amount in this card, but the reason why I have almost $5k in this card is that weeks ago I was going to make a big payment and I'd do it with multiple credit cards so I topped up this one with bitcoins. I ended up doing a bank transfer and left this money in the card.. meh

What kind of 'fragility' are you talking about exactly? How are we involved in your card transactions? Because we are not. We do not make them for you, we do not block them for you, we have literally no say in this. It's all between you, your merchant, and our card vendor. We simply show you the balance taken from their system. I'm not even sure why you decided to complain about it here in our thread. What exactly are we supposed to do, you think? We did not take a single cent from you. There is no such thing as blocking the card because of certain transactions, there is literally no information about this anywhere on the website. The chargeback fee, however, is openly listed, and it's what our card vendor charges according to their internal policies. So please explain what exactly in this is our fault? I am sorry you became a victim of card fraud, but I don't really see how we could possibly have prevented it. We give you the card with the chip, the PIN, the block button inside your account, and the ability to move the funds freely between the card and the wallet at any time. What else do you expect from us that made you make us the bad guys in this situation?

Matter of fact, as far as I remember, raising a dispute with the card vendor in this situation gets the user their money back in most cases, if not always. Send me the ticket ID to andrew@advcash.com and I'll have a look at what's going on.

[xissburg]

What kind of 'fragility' are you talking about exactly? How are we involved in your card transactions? Because we are not. We do not make them for you, we do not block them for you, we have literally no say in this. It's all between you, your merchant, and our card vendor. We simply show you the balance taken from their system. I'm not even sure why you decided to complain about it here in our thread. What exactly are we supposed to do, you think? We did not take a single cent from you. There is no such thing as blocking the card because of certain transactions, there is literally no information about this anywhere on the website. The chargeback fee, however, is openly listed, and it's what our card vendor charges according to their internal policies. So please explain what exactly in this is our fault? I am sorry you became a victim of card fraud, but I don't really see how we could possibly have prevented it. We give you the card with the chip, the PIN, the block button inside your account, and the ability to move the funds freely between the card and the wallet at any time. What else do you expect from us that made you make us the bad guys in this situation?

Matter of fact, as far as I remember, raising a dispute with the card vendor in this situation gets the user their money back in most cases, if not always. Send me the ticket ID to andrew@advcash.com and I'll have a look at what's going on.

Then there's nothing we can rely on to secure the card in case of fraud? No security mechanism that will prevent situations like this from escalating and completely draining our balance? Not even a warning? Since Advcash doesn't do that shouldn't the card vendor or something do it like most banks do? Or like even Payoneer does. Xapo also sends a notification to my phone whenever the card is used. This means one simply can't have any peace of mind if s/he has any money in his Advcash account. If I hadn't logged into my account yet since June 21 I wouldn't even know my card had been drained.

My aim in posting this here is to warn people of this possibility because this is really really terrible. I used to kinda trust and recommend Advcash to people, now I regret it. I highly recommend anyone to leave as little money as possible in their advcash card if they have one to avoid this type of situation. Consider it is lost money.

I will surely send you the ticket id.

Cheers

(Btw, funny how I got a quicker response here than in the ticket system)

[AdvancedCash]

What kind of 'fragility' are you talking about exactly? How are we involved in your card transactions? Because we are not. We do not make them for you, we do not block them for you, we have literally no say in this. It's all between you, your merchant, and our card vendor. We simply show you the balance taken from their system. I'm not even sure why you decided to complain about it here in our thread. What exactly are we supposed to do, you think? We did not take a single cent from you. There is no such thing as blocking the card because of certain transactions, there is literally no information about this anywhere on the website. The chargeback fee, however, is openly listed, and it's what our card vendor charges according to their internal policies. So please explain what exactly in this is our fault? I am sorry you became a victim of card fraud, but I don't really see how we could possibly have prevented it. We give you the card with the chip, the PIN, the block button inside your account, and the ability to move the funds freely between the card and the wallet at any time. What else do you expect from us that made you make us the bad guys in this situation?

Matter of fact, as far as I remember, raising a dispute with the card vendor in this situation gets the user their money back in most cases, if not always. Send me the ticket ID to andrew@advcash.com and I'll have a look at what's going on.

Then there's nothing we can rely on to secure the card in case of fraud? No security mechanism that will prevent situations like this from escalating and completely draining our balance? Not even a warning? Since Advcash doesn't do that shouldn't the card vendor or something do it like most banks do? Or like even Payoneer does. Xapo also sends a notification to my phone whenever the card is used. This means one simply can't have any peace of mind if s/he has any money in his Advcash account. If I hadn't logged into my account yet since June 21 I wouldn't even know my card had been drained.

My aim in posting this here is to warn people of this possibility because this is really really terrible. I used to kinda trust and recommend Advcash to people, now I regret it. I highly recommend anyone to leave as little money as possible in their advcash card if they have one to avoid this type of situation. Consider it is lost money.

I will surely send you the ticket id.

Of course there are notifications for card transactions. They are very easy to find in your profile settings. They can be both via email and SMS. Once again, the combination of the chip, the PIN, the ability to block the card at any time, to be notified whenever the card is charged and to move the funds to and from the card at any point are a pretty solid set of features, if you ask me. You did not set up those notifications, obviously.

What exactly do you regret, I still don't get it? What trust did you lose and because of what? Again, what is that we should have done or that we claim we do and we did not do in your case? I don't understand the nature of your complaint to us, to tell you the truth. It's an unpleasant situation to be in, I completely understand, but I feel like we gave you quite a few tools to get at least somewhat protected from it. Unfortunately, these things happen in today's world.

[xissburg]

Of course there are notifications for card transactions. They are very easy to find in your profile settings. They can be both via email and SMS. Once again, the combination of the chip, the PIN, the ability to block the card at any time, to be notified whenever the card is charged and to move the funds to and from the card at any point are a pretty solid set of features, if you ask me. You did not set up those notifications, obviously.

What exactly do you regret, I still don't get it? What trust did you lose and because of what? Again, what is that we should have done or that we claim we do and we did not do in your case? I don't understand the nature of your complaint to us, to tell you the truth. It's an unpleasant situation to be in, I completely understand, but I feel like we gave you quite a few tools to get at least somewhat protected from it. Unfortunately, these things happen in today's world.

I haven't seen the notification options in the profile before, so that's my fault.

I regret trusting that my money was relatively safe, that in case of a fraud like this it would get stopped, there would be some sort of intervention, or it would be straightforward to solve. As I said earlier I would expect the fraud to be detected and stopped before it escalated at least, but as you said that's not something Advcash does, so... Now I have to risk losing another $1k trying to get my money back.

[xissburg]

By the way, one thing I still don't understand is how did my balance become negative? Are you allowed to spend more than you have or is that a bug? What happened?

[AdvancedCash]

Of course there are notifications for card transactions. They are very easy to find in your profile settings. They can be both via email and SMS. Once again, the combination of the chip, the PIN, the ability to block the card at any time, to be notified whenever the card is charged and to move the funds to and from the card at any point are a pretty solid set of features, if you ask me. You did not set up those notifications, obviously.

What exactly do you regret, I still don't get it? What trust did you lose and because of what? Again, what is that we should have done or that we claim we do and we did not do in your case? I don't understand the nature of your complaint to us, to tell you the truth. It's an unpleasant situation to be in, I completely understand, but I feel like we gave you quite a few tools to get at least somewhat protected from it. Unfortunately, these things happen in today's world.

I haven't seen the notification options in the profile before, so that's my fault.

I regret trusting that my money was relatively safe, that in case of a fraud like this it would get stopped, there would be some sort of intervention, or it would be straightforward to solve. As I said earlier I would expect the fraud to be detected and stopped before it escalated at least, but as you said that's not something Advcash does, so... Now I have to risk losing another $1k trying to get my money back.

Straightforward to solve how? What's more straightforward than submitting a dispute claim saying these transactions were fraudulent?

Fraud detected and stopped how? It's just a prepaid card you got for 4.99 with $0 fees per month or year, there is no complex security analysis behind it, being realistic. I believe it's the same with literally every prepaid card out there. Could happen with any card like this. Once again, we do not say anywhere there is any sort of on the fly fraud detection. That's not something our card vendor has.

I believe it's a good idea to get familiar with all these things and with how notifications work before you decide to keep any kind of money on the card. Normally people just fund their cards when necessary.

I received your ticket ID and we'll have a look into it.

[z0n0]

By the way, one thing I still don't understand is how did my balance become negative? Are you allowed to spend more than you have or is that a bug? What happened?

I would also like to hear the answer 

[AdvancedCash]

By the way, one thing I still don't understand is how did my balance become negative? Are you allowed to spend more than you have or is that a bug? What happened?

I am not going to post account-specific information on a public forum. Please use the ticket system if you have questions related to your account and/or transactions. Typically, card balance can go into negative if the transactions have been made in a different currency and the final debit amount was larger than the initial pre-authorisation amount because the exchange rate changed. This is a normal situation.

[redvex]

So is there any other way to deposit money from outside the EU til swift/wire is back again? Paypal? I've really enjoyed to use your service and I am a bit sad that I can't deposit funds on it anymore.

[AdvancedCash]

So is there any other way to deposit money from outside the EU til swift/wire is back again? Paypal? I've really enjoyed to use your service and I am a bit sad that I can't deposit funds on it anymore.

Everything is inside the account, there are no hidden or secret methods that we are not showing you Today we added a section that lets you find an e-currency exchanger if you are lacking funding or withdrawal options. Check inside the account, perhaps you'll find something.

[Wolowitz]

Normally it's the merchant/bank who's being charged a chargeback fee, not the consumer - to be honest I personally never heard about this before starting with AdvCash. For example with Payoneer there is no chargeback fee and my two banks doesn't charge any chargeback fee as well, so I really find this $35 fee quite high, specially when it's per transaction like in the above case. I do understand the frustration of this guy for sure. Maybe it will be possible for AdvCash to speak with WaveCrest and have it reduced, at least in cases like this with 29 transactions.

[AdvancedCash]

Maybe it will be possible for AdvCash to speak with WaveCrest and have it reduced, at least in cases like this with 29 transactions.

I got in contact with that user right away and we are going to discuss this with WaveCrest on the CEO level. However, this is the set of rules and fees you agree to when you order the card. All the fees and policies are openly listed on the website so that people know what to expect. Another complication here is that it's not easy to initiate a dispute when it's an ATM transaction where the PIN was entered. Entering PIN is deemed to be the ultimate authentication method with little to no possibility of a reversal, not just for WaveCrest, for traditional banks as well. Point of sale transactions are reversed all the time, but this is more complicated. Anyway, we are on the case and we will do our best to resolve this in the favor of the user.

[reb0rn21]

People should know the banks are not safe at all, they just hide all the bad stuff under a rug, so far I see only Wavecrest and Mychoice as only providers most third parties use...

The charge back should be done by the ATM that was hacked to clone a card, but I guess it might be hard to prove what happened

Also as soon you plan to move BTC/$ there you must check all security options and only then chose if you like to use their service!

[AdvancedCash]

People should know the banks are not safe at all, they just hide all the bad stuff under a rug, so far I see only Wavecrest and Mychoice as only providers most third parties use...

The charge back should be done by the ATM that was hacked to clone a card, but I guess it might be hard to prove what happened

Also as soon you plan to move BTC/$ there you must check all security options and only then chose if you like to use their service!

If you only fund the card before using it and don't keep a lot of money on it and have immediate notifications set up for withdrawal (=card) transactions, I believe this is secure enough for most people.

[z0n0]

Any ETA on IOS/Android app?
Can't wait for that

[AdvancedCash]

Withdrawals to external Visa/MC cards around the world in USD are back. Check the news inside your account for more info.

[z0n0]

Any ETA on IOS/Android app?
Can't wait for that

Not sure if ignored...

 

[AdvancedCash]

Any ETA on IOS/Android app?
Can't wait for that

I understand a lot of people may be interested in that, but I'm afraid there's no ETA at this point.

[Roquene]

Don't know if that was asked before, but are there any plans for 'direct' BTC deposit to the card?
Without detour via the fiat-wallet.