First prepaid card to exchange Bitcoins

[bbit]

I'm going with scam on this one.

[jbreher]

::le sigh::

I suppose this is my fault, for introducing discussion of a fully licensed entity, affiliated with MasterCard, in a thread that started with a bogus claim that some other entity is the first to offer a prepaid card to exchange bitcoins.

"Dagensia Finance s.r.o is a company based in the Czech Republic, you can look this up on the Commercial Registry website. Dagensia Finance s.r.o. is registered by the Czech National Bank as a payment institution under the payment services regulation and it is fully authorized to provide payment services."

In the words of the aggrieved party (take them for what you think they are worth) upon login:
"Dear client,
our ecardone.com domain was seized among 34 other exchanger domains by the United States simply because there was a link reference to our website. We had to switch to a European domain Dagensia.eu today. All client funds in our system are safe in insured and monitored European bank accounts and all operations remain active without disruptions.
We apologize for any inconvenience this quick change may have caused you."

I can't seem to follow their link to the information I looked into a couple weeks back. I guess that would not be unusual for an org who had their Domain Name stolen in the last 48 hours to not have completely reconstructed their links. However, bearing in mind that I have no specific knowledge of EU Finance Law, it did lead me to several authoritative-lookng sites dedicated to business registrations - seemingly governmental in nature.

So while I cannot vouch for the absolute integrity of eCardOne/Dagensia, I see nothing to indicate that they are a scam.

As far as the OP, I agree that firm looks like it may be scammy. I was just trying to redirect latent interest to what looks to me to be a better alternative.

As far as the google maps posting is concerned, I have no idea whatsoever what that is all about. Looks like any small office front anywhere in the developed world.

[franky1]

bitcoincard linked to a french guy, using a UK domain...

with the price conversion on the website as dollars.

hmmmm... amateur.. he aint gonna see any of my coins. nothing seems legit.

[BCB]

new domain:

http://dagensia.eu/

[xhoud01]

Dear clients, since the U.S. government unlawfully seized our ecardone.com domain even though we are licenced and fully compliant and haven’t done anything wrong, we now had two options. Either spend hundreds of thousands on US lawyers to defend ourselves - but what is the point if they gave no time and the domain has been seized already. Or move to a European domain. We came to the US to attend the first Bitcoin conference. And we wanted to promote our services. Unfortunately we found out that it is nearly impossible and highly dangerous to offer services in the US as a foreign entity, and we sincerely apologize to our US clients.

[Insu Dra]

new domain: http://dagensia.eu/

+1
Have a card with them, account moved to new domain, everything still seems to work fine ... from eu customer using card in Sweden.

[Welsh]

This had great potential. But, it was ruined by the professionalism of the owner. They have gone by making their website mostly private which required you to sign up and reveal email etc. Then they have got closed down, many times and have continued to open up their website.

[BCB]

The recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance  basically requires anyone dealing in buying or selling bitcoin to comply with the US Treasurey's Bank Secrecy Act's guidlines for Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and to implement a Customer Information Program (CIP) which requires them to collect:

(1) the name;
(2) date of birth (for an individual);
(3) an address, which will be a residential or business street address (for an individual), an Army Post Office (APO) or Fleet Post Office (FPO) box number, or residential or business street address of next of kin or another contact individual (for an individual who does not have a residential or business street address), or a principal place of business, local office, or other physical location (for a person other than an individual); and
(4) an identification number, which will be a taxpayer identification number (for U.S. persons), or one or more of the following: a taxpayer identification number, passport number and country of issuance, alien identification card number, or number and country of issuance of any other government-issued document evidencing nationality or residence and bearing a photograph or other similar safeguard (for non-U.S. persons). 


Welcome to the new world of bitcoin in the US.

   

[jbreher]

The recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance  basically requires anyone dealing in buying or selling bitcoin to comply with the US Treasurey's Bank Secrecy Act's guidlines for Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and to implement a Customer Information Program (CIP) which requires them to collect:

(1) the name;
(2) date of birth (for an individual);
(3) an address, which will be a residential or business street address (for an individual), an Army Post Office (APO) or Fleet Post Office (FPO) box number, or residential or business street address of next of kin or another contact individual (for an individual who does not have a residential or business street address), or a principal place of business, local office, or other physical location (for a person other than an individual); and
(4) an identification number, which will be a taxpayer identification number (for U.S. persons), or one or more of the following: a taxpayer identification number, passport number and country of issuance, alien identification card number, or number and country of issuance of any other government-issued document evidencing nationality or residence and bearing a photograph or other similar safeguard (for non-U.S. persons). 

All of which they were collecting at the Bitcoin Conference to open a new account. Alas, it was to be insufficient. I just logged into my account to load my newly authorized Bitcoin MasterCard with a bitcoin payment for the first time, where I was met with:

Dear client, We apologize but due to regulation requiring all foreign entities to register with the US Fincen and IRS authorities, and the administrative high costs involved, we have to terminate services to all our US clients. Please withdraw any remaining balance in your account to Bitcoin, and your account will be closed by August 1st. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please contact our support if you have any questions.

Such wasted promise....

[BCB]

According to recent US regulation they are and unlicensed Money Transmitter and as such will not be able to operate with in the US until they register with FinCEN as a Money Service Business and obtain Money Transmitter Licenses in any US state in which their clients reside.

MSB registration is free.

Money Transmitter licensing is required in 48 of the 50 State and in addition to extensive personal and financial background checks bonds are also required to be posted in each state.  In California it is aproximately $1.5M USD, New York State is $500,000 and these bonds amounts can fluctuate relative to the volume of business you conduct.

Essentially any business or individual you want to legally buy and sell bitcoin will be considered a "Financial Institution" and regulated as such.

[moni3z]

Just open an account at rietumu bank in latvia remotely, withdraw from Gox or p2p here or on IRC, then withdraw from ATM using their card. Though they may have cut off Americans like every other financial institution lately

[thebitcoinpages]

Attention! A company named: Dragensia ( dragensia.eu ) former ecardone.com who was seized by the US Gov. for money laundering!

This company posts in forums and article comments related to our card that is better to order with them!

We suggest to be highly warned, we TheBitcoinCompany are not in any relation with this company from the Czech Rep.!

It's very sad to see how this company use our reputation for a nice product to scam people with highly illegal business pratices, our lawyers are informed and do the required steps now on.

Please don't trust them at all, the practises they do confirm us how they work. If you order a card there you do that at your own risk!


Regards


TheBitcoinCard.co.uk

[minimalB]

I found only one user in this forum using this card successfully.

Is there anyone else who is using bitcoincard or ecardone with success?

Seems quite suspicious...

[naphto]

I found only one user in this forum using this card successfully.

Is there anyone else who is using bitcoincard or ecardone with success?

Seems quite suspicious...

I would call it scam, but I did not use it

[fluffypony]

I've decided to chip in and purchase one:



Initial impressions: there is a distinct lack of automation on the site (they're using a single payment address instead of hitting the getnewaddress RPC function, and presumably confirming transactions manually). That doesn't preclude the service from working, nor does it indicate it's a scam, just that it's very new. I'm interested in seeing how I load funds into the card, at what rate, and what the costs are. The initial cost of the card is exceedingly high, but from the FAQ it seems that after 24 months when the card expires you can opt to get a new one - and there's no indication that there's an additional charge for this. I'll update with further info once the card arrives etc. etc.

[Skinnkavaj]

I've decided to chip in and purchase one:



Initial impressions: there is a distinct lack of automation on the site (they're using a single payment address instead of hitting the getnewaddress RPC function, and presumably confirming transactions manually). That doesn't preclude the service from working, nor does it indicate it's a scam, just that it's very new. I'm interested in seeing how I load funds into the card, at what rate, and what the costs are. The initial cost of the card is exceedingly high, but from the FAQ it seems that after 24 months when the card expires you can opt to get a new one - and there's no indication that there's an additional charge for this. I'll update with further info once the card arrives etc. etc.

Thank you. Keep me updated.

[deadserious]

I bought one today as well.  We shall see how it goes.

[pitan]

Marked and waiting for updates
Thanks

[fluffypony]

Ok, so my cards arrived:



As you can see, no special branding, these are straight TransCash cards. You have to activate them (in French!) using a translation table provided by the site, heaven forbid there's an error message. This is far from seamless. Once you've activated them, you can buy coupons: http://thebitcoincard.co.uk/index.php/coupon - the rates are about 10% below spot (not sure if they've been updated recently?) - mtgox last is at 68.94 EUR, and they're buying the coins at 100 EUR for 1.611594 BTC, which is 62.05 EUR per BTC. All in all, the card is overpriced, the process is not seamless, and for an unbranded French card I'm not convinced it's worthwhile.

[deadserious]

I bought one today as well.  We shall see how it goes.

Nearly 1 month later and still no card.