Prepaid card wholesale/reseller rates & info

[jago25_98]

 When travelling cash is often king. It would be great to have access to the visa/link ATM network.

Already prepaid cards are available especially for this from people like fairfx.

Certainly too there are other firms like Entropay and Paxum/Payoneer that can be used for this goal too, but the fees in all examples are very expensive:
https://www.entropay.com/entropay-fees-straightforward-charges-no-surprises
https://www.paxum.com/payment/fees.php?view=views/fees.xsl

There are banks in America and the UK who charge no fees for withdrawing cash and use the reference conversion rate (I wonder if there's any in Russia or China like this). The problem with these of course is that you have no anonymity and all your cash is in one basket. I have even seen situations where more than the balance has been taken, sending the user into debt. This is where cycling cards like virtual credit cards would be useful.
There are other companies especially for people who can't open bank accounts... I feel it very harsh that these are the very people who have to pay the highest rates! Some have to pay per domestic cash withdrawal and on purchases!

Before Bitcoin was invented I wondered, why isn't there a egold to cash card? It's a global market I thought, surely a bank in Panama etc could offer this?

With some research I found that there were people offering them but it was all very dodgy, and how it works was very hush-hush.

One way a cash card might be able to be achieved is to write a card with virtual (debit) card details... but this sounds sketchy, especially as we don't know much about the virtual card system.

What I'd like to know is how do these cards work? What does it take to be a reseller?
I have a gut feeling that if one has a bank one can do it... but visa/mastercard can block it at any point.

One way I can think to do it would be expensive and without any anonymity - register as a credit union and purchase cards for members from ...I forget the name of the company now... they were associated with Caxton......
 but unfortunately these cards charge ~£3 per withdrawal. I wondered what it would take to go direct to VISA instead.

I'd just like to know more about how things work (would be nice to know what happens to our money when it comes out the wall right?)

 but like most things related to banking, all the information is hard to come by, either for security of due to the people who know keeping the info to themselves because they profit from it.

[1714037322]

1714037322

[Stephen Gornick]

Before Bitcoin was invented I wondered, why isn't there a egold to cash card? It's a global market I thought, surely a bank in Panama etc could offer this?

Incidentally, AurumXChange now offers an "instant load" debit cards:
 - http://blog.aurumxchange.com/2011/07/new-instant-load-cards-are-here.html
Which you can load using funds from either Liberty Reserve or using Mt. Gox USD redeemable codes / vouchers.  Using MTGUSD there is a 5% load charge.

Mt. Gox's CEO has said Mt. Gox will be issuing a Bitcoin branded prepaid card as well, though no dates or other details have been disclosed yet, as far as I know.

There are also competitors:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Gift.2FDebit_Cards
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Gift_Cards

Additionally, American Express has a prepaid debit card with no fee (or low fee, depending on how you use it) which can be funded with Green Dot MoneyPaks.   There are people wishing to buy bitcoins who will pay using MoneyPak.
 - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/6672058553

either for security of due to the people who know keeping the info to themselves because they profit from it.

Don't know any more about it, myself.  I suspect if involves figuring out who to speak to and being able to guarantee a certain volume to make it worth the issuer's while.  Oh, and capital.  Mt. Gox bought an embossing machine to issue the cards, I believe.

[jago25_98]

will be issuing a Bitcoin branded prepaid card

Wow!!

Mt. Gox bought an embossing machine to issue the cards, I believe

hmm... so I guess one could purchase a virtual credit card and quite easily write the info to a blank card...
 sounds very sketchy though; this is exactly the equipment card cloners use...

It would be in use at ATMs, that have cameras so there is a record. I wonder if the magnetic stripe needs to be written or if a chip needs to be supplied too. That's a good point, how would the pin be specified for a virtual card...

From wikipedia:

Chip and PIN systems can cause problems for travellers from countries that do not issue chip and PIN cards (most notably, the USA) as some retailers may refuse to accept their chipless cards.[8]

However, United Nations Federal Credit Union UNFCU will be first issuer in the US to offer credit cards with a high security chip, although one must be a member of the United Nations to apply.[9] While most terminals will still accept a magnetic strip card, and the major credit card brands require vendors to accept them, poorly trained staff may refuse to take the card under the mistaken belief that they will be held liable for any fraud if the card cannot verify a PIN

^perhaps this isn't a problem if only used for cash machines.

[Aggro]

Before Bitcoin was invented I wondered, why isn't there a egold to cash card? It's a global market I thought, surely a bank in Panama etc could offer this?

Incidentally, AurumXChange now offers an "instant load" debit cards:
 - http://blog.aurumxchange.com/2011/07/new-instant-load-cards-are-here.html
Which you can load using funds from either Liberty Reserve or using Mt. Gox USD redeemable codes / vouchers.  Using MTGUSD there is a 5% load charge.

Mt. Gox's CEO has said Mt. Gox will be issuing a Bitcoin branded prepaid card as well, though no dates or other details have been disclosed yet, as far as I know.

There are also competitors:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Gift.2FDebit_Cards
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Gift_Cards

Additionally, American Express has a prepaid debit card with no fee (or low fee, depending on how you use it) which can be funded with Green Dot MoneyPaks.   There are people wishing to buy bitcoins who will pay using MoneyPak.
 - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/6672058553

either for security of due to the people who know keeping the info to themselves because they profit from it.

Don't know any more about it, myself.  I suspect if involves figuring out who to speak to and being able to guarantee a certain volume to make it worth the issuer's while.  Oh, and capital.  Mt. Gox bought an embossing machine to issue the cards, I believe.

Hi Stephen!

Just to clarify, we are going to be selling new cards hopefully by the end of this week. At this time, we are only sending cards to our members that need replacement.

The 5% fee is really there as a placeholder since you can't load the cards just yet. The fee for MTG to debit card will be more in the vicinity of 3%.

Thanks!
Roberto
 

[jago25_98]

Update::

 Aurumxchange are now offering cards rechargeable direct with a MT Gox code. But they are expensive (loading fee, withdrawal fees & more). They also need a copy of enough of your documents for it to be an ID fraud risk. This risk is both in getting the documents to them, them storing the docs and then them sending your docs to the bank. Your ID could be intercepted at any of these points. It's great to see the service but Aurum don't have much reputation to go on for securing your data both physically and digitally.

Alternatively there is Moneybookers. You can trade BTC for Moneybookers and cash out with thier card. Again there are withdrawal fees but also the German bank they use is about to go bust.


Somebody could step in at any point, forming a credit union to take BTC and linking that to a card... either the easy way with reselling a prepaid card designed for credit unions or the hard way, trying to find an issuing authority from Panama etc

[Aggro]

Update::

 Aurumxchange are now offering cards rechargeable direct with a MT Gox code. But they are expensive (loading fee, withdrawal fees & more). They also need a copy of enough of your documents for it to be an ID fraud risk. This risk is both in getting the documents to them, them storing the docs and then them sending your docs to the bank. Your ID could be intercepted at any of these points. It's great to see the service but Aurum don't have much reputation to go on for securing your data both physically and digitally.

Alternatively there is Moneybookers. You can trade BTC for Moneybookers and cash out with thier card. Again there are withdrawal fees but also the German bank they use is about to go bust.


Somebody could step in at any point, forming a credit union to take BTC and linking that to a card... either the easy way with reselling a prepaid card designed for credit unions or the hard way, trying to find an issuing authority from Panama etc

Hello, we have been collecting and storing digital documentation from our customers since our previous card program (which was started on January 2010). We have never had a loss of data, or a single complain.

As per our reputation, our company has been incorporated in 2007. Our e-currency exchange business has been in service since January 2009 (that I believe is older than bitcoin, and this forum).

Finally, speaking of security, we offer AUTOMATED ecurrency exchanges, which means ALL THE API KEYS for all the ecurrencies we handle are on our servers, and have been in there since 2009. Anybody getting ahold of this keys can empty our accounts in a matter of seconds.

Since 2009 we have had 0 security breaches, and we normally hold balances fluctuating between 40K to 200K USD available for autoexchange, so you could say we know a thing or two about security.

I am curious as to why do you believe we do not have enough reputation on the market since been in this area since 2007, its a really long time.

AurumXchange

[jago25_98]

I got the impression that it's the first time the exchange has dealt with people's sensitive documents and I had a hunch that it wasn't thought through because the focus would have been on getting the cards up and running first. Although I didn't search that hard I couldn't see a mention of the data protection act stuff. As a user you tend to just go on 1st impressions and hunches and it seemed more like just a guy sitting at home rather than a company handling thousands.

First impressions for me to hand over ID have to exceed that of how Paypal was in it's 3rd year. That's a big ask.
Perhaps there's a 3rd party holding company out there to help SME's and small businesses for this situation that could be employed for handling docs / ID verification.

[jago25_98]

Is the pin for a cash card stored in the chip or is that functionality somehow involved in the transaction an ATM makes?

I wonder if a pin could be added to a virtual card.