Visa crackdown on bitcoin debit card providers - Jan 2018

[operator55]

Hi,

As many of you have probabbly seen, Visa told WaveCrest to suspend all prepaid cards.

So i wonder, what services are affected and which ones are still working?

Affected services i know of:

• Wirex
• Bitwala
• ShakePay

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7oabzl/all_bitcoin_visa_debit_cards_are_now_cancelled/

[1714065235]

1714065235

[ShadowBJ21]

Yes, just received an eMail from Shakepay to that issue.

Too bad. I had signed up with Shakepay recently and their offer looked very good. Luckily hadn't deposited ... wanted to do this weekend.

We just received notice from our issuing partner, Wavecrest, that all VISA card programs have been permanently closed.

Unfortunately, this affects all Shakepay users. All cards issued are no longer operational.

What does this mean?
Effective immediately, your cards will no longer be accepted for in-person or online transactions.
The balances will remain on your card but cannot be spent.
Any funds that you send us will not be added to the balance on your card.
Should I be worried?
No.

All funds are safe and will be returned to you. All pending loads (funds you’ve sent us but haven’t been loaded) will also be returned. More information about the refund process will come shortly.

We’ll be keeping you in the loop with any updates to the situation. If you have any questions, feel free to send us a reply.

– Shakepay team

[serveria.com]

Would be great if we could make a list of cards which are still in business. I guess that would be quite helpful for many (including myself). 

[Credde]

Spectrocoin is in the same boat.

I think one needs to find providers that use ie. Mastercard as a provider

[Winstar78]

ADVcash still working, but has a bad funding management (all BTC deposited are converted into money immediately).

Looking for another similar to wirex (better if with better exchange rates)

[alani123]

Anyone know what's up with Coinsbank? I haven't heard of an update from them regarding the cards but the most recent one wasn't good either. Reducing limits for lvl 2 verification just recently:

As much as I like CoinsBank, this isn't up to the spirit of holiday spending. All cards are getting reduced limits unless verification lvl 3 is reached. From my experience, their verification procedure can be quite fast but AFAIK they rely on own resources instead of a third party app that does verification with better uptime so if you're after verifying your card do so quickly before Christmas holidays.

Please note on January 17th, 2018 new card limits will go into effect.

For customers with cards levels 1 and 2, each card will have a spend limit of 250 USD/250 EUR/200 GBP per card life cycle.

Point of sale transactions, e-Commerce transactions and ATM cash withdrawals will affect the remaining balance of your card limit.

Customers desiring higher limits, will need to complete level 3 verification in a timely manner in order to avoid any service interruptions.

Please contact Support if you have any questions.

Best regards, CoinsBank team

Whoever would like to find a list of bitcoin debit cards for potential alternatives could look at my thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1242788.0

[Winstar78]

Nice list but, sorry, near to useless in today situation, if we don't know at least which ones were issued by wavecrest

[serveria.com]

Nice list but, sorry, near to useless in today situation, if we don't know at least which ones were issued by wavecrest

Exactly, besides some cards issued by WaveCrest are still working (like ADVCash). Why? I really don't get it...

Mistertango card also works reportedly can somebody confirm? There are also rumors that TenX have switched the issuing bank and their new cards also work but no confirmation on this as well.

[Winstar78]

Don't think ADvcash is by wavecrest, anyway it's a mastercard, I have it

edit, I just checked, that's a wavecrest like you said.

To be honest I don't have used it today so I dunno if it's working, but no warning emails have arrived from advcash

[serveria.com]

Don't think ADvcash is by wavecrest, anyway it's a mastercard, I have it

Contacted them today and they confirmed it:

 Anna V. (Advanced Cash Ltd)

Jan 5, 15:58 MSK

Thank you for contacting Advanced Cash support center.

It`s Wave Crest.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please let us know and we will be happy to help.

You can always check out the FAQ inside your account in the Support Service section (https://wallet.advcash.com/pages/faq) to quickly get answers to most common questions about how Advanced Cash works. The FAQ is also available at http://advcash.com/en/faq/.

Best Wishes,   
Anna V. 
Customer Support Service Engineer
Advanced Cash Ltd

So I guess WaveCrest Mastercard cards are still working?

[Verdena]

Nice list but, sorry, near to useless in today situation, if we don't know at least which ones were issued by wavecrest

Exactly, besides some cards issued by WaveCrest are still working (like ADVCash). Why? I really don't get it...

Mistertango card also works reportedly can somebody confirm? There are also rumors that TenX have switched the issuing bank and their new cards also work but no confirmation on this as well.

Also TenX cards seem to be iussed by WaveCrest-Mychoice...

https://support.tenx.tech/hc/en-us/articles/115000952011-What-are-the-KYC-limits-

[serveria.com]

Nice list but, sorry, near to useless in today situation, if we don't know at least which ones were issued by wavecrest

Exactly, besides some cards issued by WaveCrest are still working (like ADVCash). Why? I really don't get it...

Mistertango card also works reportedly can somebody confirm? There are also rumors that TenX have switched the issuing bank and their new cards also work but no confirmation on this as well.

Also TenX cards seem to be iussed by WaveCrest-Mychoice...

https://support.tenx.tech/hc/en-us/articles/115000952011-What-are-the-KYC-limits-

Yes, found that too. Just heard rumors they have switched the issuing bank lately so the new cards are not affected. Wonder if somebody can confirm this?

[warningsigns]

Did they suspend their entire cards? I know they suspended those of cardholders from non-EU countries. Is this a new crackdown aimed at those living in Europe too?

If this is a total and global suspension of all Wave Crest cards, we have limited alternatives left. Mistertango is a good one.

I wonder what triggered this much more intense crackdown. Must be the U.S. again hating on bitcoin.

[chris200x9]

Did they suspend their entire cards? I know they suspended those of cardholders from non-EU countries. Is this a new crackdown aimed at those living in Europe too?

If this is a total and global suspension of all Wave Crest cards, we have limited alternatives left. Mistertango is a good one.

I wonder what triggered this much more intense crackdown. Must be the U.S. again hating on bitcoin.

Yes, this suspension is for all the cards issues by Wavecrest cards and not restricted to any country or region. It looks like the card issues didn't follow some of the VISA guidelines so all off a sudden they closed the service.

[operator55]

Note suspension only affects VISA's Wavecrest cards. Mastercard is ok.
That's why advcash is working, similarly to others with mastercards.

[erk]

So what is VISA's reason for suspending pre-paid cards?
After all they are pre-paid so there is no credit risc.

[serveria.com]

So what is VISA's reason for suspending pre-paid cards?
After all they are pre-paid so there is no credit risc.

Governments and tax offices whining about money laundering and tax evasion I guess?

[erk]

So what is VISA's reason for suspending pre-paid cards?
After all they are pre-paid so there is no credit risc.

Governments and tax offices whining about money laundering and tax evasion I guess?

In which case it should effect all pre-paid Visa cards, not just crypto related ones.

[serveria.com]

So what is VISA's reason for suspending pre-paid cards?
After all they are pre-paid so there is no credit risc.

Governments and tax offices whining about money laundering and tax evasion I guess?

In which case it should effect all pre-paid Visa cards, not just crypto related ones.

I guess this time it's the issue between WaveCrest and VISA. But who knows what will happen next? Perhaps other banks are to follow but I hope not...

[Samarkand]

...

Mistertango card also works reportedly can somebody confirm? ...

They work, because they offer a prepaid MasterCard and not a prepaid VISA
and therefore are completely unaffected by the decision to suspend all
cards issued by WaveCrest.

However, as you have already posted in the other thread, the fees are
too steep for Bitcoin deposits at the moment (possibly partly caused
by the congestion of the Bitcoin network?).