Wirex- Bitcoin Debit Card | Buy Bitcoin | Mobile Banking | Send Money

[stompix]

All the problems I've got with the current Wirex card were small. There are some 2-3 shops that don't accept the card. So you better always have one more working card with you.
Another bad surprise was with an ATM. After about 3 or 4 withdraws at "only" Wirex fee (EURO ATM), the bank added one extra fee on top of that (luckily displayed by the ATM). However, withdrawing from Wirex card is not a good business. Spending in Europe is, on the other hand, Okay.

If your local currency is not EUR / GBP you'll have Forex fee added separately. Wirex writes you've spent 7 EUR, but you'll see in the details of the transaction 1 EUR extra for fees and actually 8 EUR missing (not too obvious).

Not planning on doing any withdrawals for cash but let's just say I would find myself in this situation in a non-euro country.
I had some bad experience with epassporte when I had something like 104$ on it, tried to withdraw 100$ equivalent, the atm told me not enough funds and I got charged 2$, not that big sum but could get annoying.

Not let me see how this works with Wirex if I'm in Hungary or Romania.
I do a transaction, they charge me €2.00, the bank charges another fee () and then there is a forex shave on top of that?

Judging by your post history you're from Romania, so a quick example taking into account the 4.75 rates(?), if I have 100 euros it's safe to say I'm not getting more than 450 out of the ATM? Or not even that?

[mrdeposit]

Guys, anyone has an idea which card issuer does wirex use for cards? Visa has terminated its agreement with Wavecrest and my last card from Shift is unstable after the email about closing cards in April.

[gentlemand]

Guys, anyone has an idea which card issuer does wirex use for cards? Visa has terminated its agreement with Wavecrest and my last card from Shift is unstable after the email about closing cards in April.

https://www.contis.com

https://www.contis.com/2018/03/14/753-2/

That's who they work with. I've never heard of them before. As far as I know they don't work with any other crypto company. They signed a three year deal with Wirex. They have a separate deal for the US with a joint named i2c who I've never heard of either.

The fact that their deal is unique might make it more resilient. I get the impression Wavecrest didn't give a shit who turned up at their door.

Not let me see how this works with Wirex if I'm in Hungary or Romania.
I do a transaction, they charge me €2.00, the bank charges another fee () and then there is a forex shave on top of that?

There'll be an FX fee plus their usual ATM fee. It's possible the bank fee will be on top but it'll depend on the bank and the country. In the US I've never found a free ATM and it was sometimes up to $5 extra. In much of Europe it was nothing.

[NeuroticFish]

I had some bad experience with epassporte when I had something like 104$ on it, tried to withdraw 100$ equivalent, the atm told me not enough funds and I got charged 2$, not that big sum but could get annoying.

Not let me see how this works with Wirex if I'm in Hungary or Romania.
I do a transaction, they charge me €2.00, the bank charges another fee () and then there is a forex shave on top of that?

Judging by your post history you're from Romania, so a quick example taking into account the 4.75 rates(?), if I have 100 euros it's safe to say I'm not getting more than 450 out of the ATM? Or not even that?

I've withdrew only 2 or 3 times in Romania from Wirex. About one year ago. And I've done some 5 other attempts in which I didn't withdraw.
In those 5 attempts the bank tried to do the exchange for me at an awful exchange rate, so, "thanks, but no".
One bank's ATMs allowed me to get Wirex exchange rate (allowed to select if ATMs bank or Card's bank does the exchange) which looked better, but back then I don't know for sure if I knew about the extra fx fees, which were not displayed as good as today.
I had to pay only Wirex ATM fee and Wirex fx fee.

In Greece, as I said, I withdrew EUR a few times at Wirex fee, then, at same bank's ATM, the bank attempted to charge extra. Then I've checked a few other banks ATMs (in one mall) and all were charging extra.


At least the ATMs started showing more clearly what they charge. The Wirex fee is clearly there charged extra, that's for sure.
Unfortunately I don't have more accurate info because I don't spend lately as much Bitcoin as I did in the first months of last year.


Edit: fixed/made it clearer

[CryptoChaos37]

Guys, anyone has an idea which card issuer does wirex use for cards? Visa has terminated its agreement with Wavecrest and my last card from Shift is unstable after the email about closing cards in April.

https://www.contis.com

https://www.contis.com/2018/03/14/753-2/

That's who they work with. I've never heard of them before. As far as I know they don't work with any other crypto company. They signed a three year deal with Wirex. They have a separate deal for the US with a joint named i2c who I've never heard of either.

The fact that their deal is unique might make it more resilient. I get the impression Wavecrest didn't give a shit who turned up at their door.

Hmm, I've never even heard of these companies before.

I also tried to get some answers from the telegram group but all the scam accusations there are very unnerving. The only responses I get are canned responses or 'I'll chase that up with the team'. It is so frustrating.

I just wanted to know if Contis is the one that deals with the money that you deposit into your account or if it is another company or bank? Is the money really safe?

[gentlemand]

Hmm, I've never even heard of these companies before.

I also tried to get some answers from the telegram group but all the scam accusations there are very unnerving. The only responses I get are canned responses or 'I'll chase that up with the team'. It is so frustrating.

I just wanted to know if Contis is the one that deals with the money that you deposit into your account or if it is another company or bank? Is the money really safe?

I don't know anything about i2c. Contis are regulated by the FCA and seem to be British based so I presume they'll be covered by bank insurance if they themselves keep the money deposited.

By far the biggest risk will be them giving up on operating the cards. In which case you apply to them and receive whatever fiat is left on there via cheque. That's how Wavecrest handled it.

What are the nature of the scam accusations?

Whatever they are treat the card like it's going to die any second. Don't leave anything on there and definitely don't depend on it as your one source of spending.

[stompix]

I've withdrew only 2 or 3 times in Romania from Wirex. About one year ago. And I've done some 5 other attempts in which I didn't withdraw.
In those 5 attempts the bank tried to do the exchange for me at an awful exchange rate, so, "thanks, but no".
One bank's ATMs allowed me to get Wirex exchange rate (allowed to select if ATMs bank or Card's bank does the exchange) which looked better, but back then I don't know for sure if I knew about the extra fx fees, which were not displayed as good as today.
I had to pay only Wirex ATM fee and Wirex fx fee.

In Greece, as I said, I withdrew EUR a few times at Wirex fee, then, at same bank's ATM, the bank attempted to charge extra. Then I've checked a few other banks ATMs (in one mall) and all were charging extra.


At least the ATMs started showing more clearly what they charge. The Wirex fee is clearly there, that's for sure.
Unfortunately I don't have more accurate info because I don't spend lately as much Bitcoin as I did in the first months of last year.

Thanks for the feedback.

I did travel twice in eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania ending with a Bulgarian resort) and my experience with the ATM there wasn't quite satisfying let's say. Both of them only showed me how much in local currency I want to withdraw, no commission, no extra fees, and no exchange rates. But was quite a long time ago and seems things have changed for the better.

Anyhow, I'll use the wirex card for cash as the last resort possible, if I lose my card or it gets blocked, if I run out of cash, if I can't pay directly with it, almost no chances of it happening, but it doesn't hurt to know what you might be facing.

Whatever they are treat the card like it's going to die any second. Don't leave anything on there and definitely don't depend on it as your one source of spending.

Lols, this is exactly my plan also 
Probably I won't leave there more than 10-20 euros or something like that.

[NeuroticFish]

I did travel twice in eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania ending with a Bulgarian resort) and my experience with the ATM there wasn't quite satisfying let's say. Both of them only showed me how much in local currency I want to withdraw, no commission, no extra fees, and no exchange rates. But was quite a long time ago and seems things have changed for the better.

The exchange rate is not shown. But since I withdrew round amounts (200 EUR iirc) it was easy to calculate. The bank fee is shown. And if you are lucky you are asked which bank you prefer for conversion. Also if you are lucky the ATM will work also in English 

However, Wirex is most comfortable at using for PoS payments in shops. Use it for that, instead of withdrawing cash. You can get cash from your normal card too.
And if you pay in shops, Wirex shows the transactions quite fast, so if anything unauthorized happens, you'll see it and you can block the card right away. (My normal bank card started having such features only this year).

Anyhow, I'll use the wirex card for cash as the last resort possible, if I lose my card or it gets blocked, if I run out of cash, if I can't pay directly with it, almost no chances of it happening, but it doesn't hurt to know what you might be facing.

This is a risky approach. There's a chance, and not a very small one, that your Wirex card gets rejected.
I used to use Wirex for payments (as long as I had money on it) and my normal bank card as backup.

I want to add a correction/clearup:

The Wirex fee is clearly there, that's for sure.

The Wirex fee is clearly charged (not displayed on ATM; probably displayed in-app). At this read I've seen that the way I wrote it may imply something else.

[stompix]

Anyhow, I'll use the wirex card for cash as the last resort possible, if I lose my card or it gets blocked, if I run out of cash, if I can't pay directly with it, almost no chances of it happening, but it doesn't hurt to know what you might be facing.

This is a risky approach. There's a chance, and not a very small one, that your Wirex card gets rejected.
I used to use Wirex for payments (as long as I had money on it) and my normal bank card as backup.

Why is this risky?
I'll treat the wirex card as not being in my wallet at all and when all normal options I use today are no longer available I'll try that, just like finding some old bills stashed in my socks.

My current ING card works flawless, I get instant app notifications for transactions, they have a hotline that works pretty well, and it's a bank, not some Panama company.
But until I can load it with BTC directly I'll use this wirex to spend a few extra satoshis when there is no direct BTC option.

Normally I wouldn't take this approach but filling my tax forms wasn't quite a cheerful event  

[CryptoChaos37]

Hmm, I've never even heard of these companies before.

I also tried to get some answers from the telegram group but all the scam accusations there are very unnerving. The only responses I get are canned responses or 'I'll chase that up with the team'. It is so frustrating.

I just wanted to know if Contis is the one that deals with the money that you deposit into your account or if it is another company or bank? Is the money really safe?

I don't know anything about i2c. Contis are regulated by the FCA and seem to be British based so I presume they'll be covered by bank insurance if they themselves keep the money deposited.

By far the biggest risk will be them giving up on operating the cards. In which case you apply to them and receive whatever fiat is left on there via cheque. That's how Wavecrest handled it.

What are the nature of the scam accusations?

Whatever they are treat the card like it's going to die any second. Don't leave anything on there and definitely don't depend on it as your one source of spending.

I feel like it just needs to be a little clearer on whether Contis themselves keep the money deposited or not.

Yeah, it would be far better to deal with the card operations themselves. Exactly, I don't put too much stock in these kinds of things anyway but am certainly going to tread cautiously until the negativity I'm hearing disappears.

Regarding the scam stuff, the state of the telegram chat is just...poor. People have been putting money in or transferring money around and it has disappeared. Support tickets are taking days to respond to and admins keep saying they will chase it up but nothing is being done about it.

[NeuroticFish]

Why is this risky?

Because with your approach, when you may need Wirex card the most, it may not be accepted.
But maybe I'm too pessimistic 

[BitMaxz]

~snip~

Just want to ask if you pay for your Wirex card delivery? Do you receive the card without paying any amount? Do they ask for KYC?

Just notice their fees that they only ask for a monthly fee of $1.50 and others are free I don't find their Card pricing.

Edit:
Looks like they don't allowed Asian countries?

Code:

Service is Unavailable
We're working hard to improve our worldwide coverage. Check in regularly — your country may soon be on our fast-expanding list.

[stompix]

~snip~

Just want to ask if you pay for your Wirex card delivery? Do you receive the card without paying any amount? Do they ask for KYC?

Just notice their fees that they only ask for a monthly fee of $1.50 and others are free I don't find their Card pricing.

I did not pay for delivery, I never deposit any funds before activating the card, I've deposited a few coins (a small sum) and not a single cent was taken yet.

As for KYC they did ask for a pic of my face with my id card and phone verification (sms code).
Nothing about the address and I must add at this I made a mess out of it and erased the second name of the street and the street number but I still got the package intact and I can say in time.

[NeuroticFish]

Just notice their fees that they only ask for a monthly fee of $1.50 and others are free I don't find their Card pricing.

Please read the fees carefully, iirc the transactions from USD cards used to have an extra fee, compared to EUR/GBP.
Also the first month may be free, depending on when the card arrives. After that, at about 20th they withdraw the monthly fee.
Although only the monthly fee is usually displayed, their conversion rate (BTC<->fiat) is not great, so you can consider it as an extra fee.
And if your local currency is not GPB/EUR/USD there are fx fees.

So no, it's not 100% true that "others are free" (on the other hand, not awfully bad either).

[redsn0w]

@Wirex,

Is there any possibility to have an instant conversion from crypto to fiat (like the old xapo and coinsbank, former bit-x)?

Bump for my question.

[audereyy]

Guys, your service is great and I am happy customer of yours, but... seriously... FIX GOOGLE CAPTCHA ON THE LOGIN PAGE OR JUST REMOVE IT, FFS!! It takes ages to make a login then to login again due to a new device confirmation, because google captcha on id.wirexapp.com is poorly configured with a very reduced timeout (that means even if you solve captcha in 1-2 minutes, you will have to do it again) and no session control at all.

There is a good alternative THAT IS WORKING and does not disturb UX, called Funcaptcha. It is more elegant, user-friendly and less annoying. Github adopted it already for registrations, please consider moving to it as well if you think that putting captcha on a login page is SO critically important (check it here)

TL;DR: Google captcha is completely ruining UX on your site, please do something urgently.

[mrdeposit]

Any news regarding the card sign ups? Their support doesn't respond to my emails. Looks like VISA created new troubles for their card provider.

Service is Unavailable
We're working hard to improve our worldwide coverage. Check in regularly — your country may soon be on our fast-expanding list.

[gentlemand]

Exchanging to USD, GBP and EUR is 'temporarily disabled'. I can't say that's the best of looks. I dunno if Wirex was fully operational during late 2017 but this is not an encouraging omen if you want to make use of your, y'know, money when things are hot.

I get the feeling that the next bubble will be an even bigger seizure for the services than last time. I've seen little evidence of them getting ready, and of course not many can afford to either.

[stompix]

Indeed not the best thing I want to read launching my app
Hope they didn't finance the wrong movie like my last debit card.

At least I managed to buy an ice cream ad a Redbull can with it.....

[gentlemand]

The wirex app is now crashing every single time after staying open for about ten seconds. I think it's a new update. It's a V unique feature which saves them lots of hassles.