Any info on coin.mx?

[Ren13B]

I've seen coin.mx pop up a few times and it looks like they allow you to buy bitcoin with a debit/credit card with a 3.5% fee.  But before you can buy you have to get verified which requires the last 4 digits of your social security number.  Sounds a little crazy to me.  I've never had to give out my digits on a credit card transaction before.  I know they don't want to get ripped off but that's taking it a little too far imo.

Anyone dealt with this site before and know if they are trustworthy?

[1713250592]

1713250592

[1713250592]

1713250592

[Automatic]

Only the last four digits? I don't see how this protects them in any way, sounds more like a security question.

If you really feel like you don't want to give it, research on the format of SSNs (All 'official' numbers have formats to avoid typos) and just give a fake last four digits, but, make sure to save it in case they ever ask for it again.

[Ren13B]

Yeah only 4 and if I use random numbers there's no way I'll be able to answer the questions to get verified.  I'm assuming it works like the id verification does on coinbase but their site has hardly information on it and they have only been around for 3 weeks.

[Edward50]

What kind of questions does it ask?

I wonder if this links with a credit reporting agency so that if you have froze your credit reports, you can't get verified.

[Ren13B]

I have no idea.  I was hoping someone had experience with them and could tell us if they are legit or not.  The site doesn't explain how the verification process works.

[coinsocieties]

I have seen that recently. But did not have noticed clearly what to with that. Need help to use it. Also need a real suggestion to buy bitcoins from a better place.

[ivroer]

Anyone dealt with this site before and know if they are trustworthy?

I haven't dealt with them, I just saw them mentioned on another thread and found this thread.

It wouldn't be comfortable dealing with an Exchange service that has a "private" domain name registration (do a whois lookup).

From their "About" page, https://coin.mx/about

Coin.MX was started by a group of members within the Collectables Club Association. The Collectables Club is a Private Member Association located in the United States of America. Who can Join? Anyone!

Probably good intentions, but private registration + wildcard SSL certificate, give me the impression it's a more of a hobby site than a serious business venture (at this stage)

Also, the image of the 6 guys, Google is suggesting that none of them are named "John". Smells a bit fishy!

Perhaps one of the club members is on this forum? Wanna jump in and enlighten us?

[LupinS]

Seem to me like a fishy site too.

[ivroer]

Also if you search the avatar images of the testimonials none of the names match up.

Stephanie = Sarah, Trent = Deividi, John & Sammy = Jamal, Jeff = Kristian, Ronald = Richard
They have "As seen on: CNBC, Forbes, Fox News, NY Times" ... can't find any reference to coin.mx or their association.
So it's probably all bogus marketing "stock" material.

That's my 2 satoshis worth, be careful who you trust.

[MonkeyCMonkeyLend]

I think it's a scam. If you put bs info in the fields other than name and address it continues without missing a beat. That suggests to me that it's pulling a man-in-the-middle between you and an identity verification service.

And sure enough - I received an email from iVeriFly.com stating that I successfully set up a certificate with them. Contacted them to report it.

I'll add more details if they respond. Otherwise, looks shady so far based on what everyone is saying in the thread and what their verification process actually does.

[armenmerikyan]

Will keep you posted

I just Sent them $250, So far It looks like a scam

I have deposited my Money, bought the Bitcoins, transferred the BTC to my local Wallet and I don't see anything in block chain. it's been 2hrs already

Update

I got my Bitcoins in about 4hrs

if your feeling adventures go for it

[billingham]

Coin.mx sure is mysterious.  But they aren't a scam by any normal definition.  There's a lot of nuts and bolts polish and the site actually works from end to end.  For example, their verification process is very sophisticated including immediate access to my credit report which was used to generate questions that only I could have answered. 

I spent a couple of days fiddling with small trades back and forth between dollars and bitcoins.  I sent money to the site using a credit card.  I also transferred bitcoins to them and got them back typically within an hour or less.  The trading system works, though the activity on the trading site seemed really slow and at one point over the Thanksgiving weekend I had the feeling that maybe only a few people were actively trading. 

In the end I bought a couple of bitcoins and transferred them to my local wallet.  On one of my transfers, I wasn't sure that I'd done it correctly and tried to cancel - which I could not do.  So I wrote to them, and they cancelled the transfer order on their end. 

Their credit card charge refers to something like "kids toys baku az"  Baku is a city in Azerbaijan - but nothing else about the site suggests that they are connected with Azerbaijan.  AZ also could mean Arizona.  One way or another, someone may be using an existing credit card processing system -- so much for "polish." 

Overall, it looks like this started with a bunch of wealthy guys from all around the USA who set this trading site up up to help them pay each other for various hobby items.  The Florida address might just be the home or work address of one of these guys - but I didn't dig around to see if that makes sense.  The site is also associated with a "picker" antiques business in North Carolina, and this may just be another wealthy guy in the cobbled pie.  In short - as far as I can tell, until some point recently Coin.mx was a private bitcoin trading site that went public without any real marketing plan or PR campaign and most of the quirks and loose ends stem from the ad hoc roll-out.  This lack of clarity is a concern - yet nobody that I've seen has reported being scammed.

It would really help if they invited a few financial reporters to look the setup over.  Also it would help if they made a better effort at presenting exactly how all the pieces fit together.  Or better yet, they should straight out incorporate and make this a free-standing business with a clear paper trail and without all of the potential red flags.

I won't recommend them because I don't know enough for sure - but based only one my own experience, I won't try to talk anyone out of giving them a try either.  (Just keep it small, and assume that until they earn a positive reputation they could be gone tomorrow).

[Ren13B]

I went ahead and got verified on coin.mx and did a little trading.  I'll share my experience with those that are interested.

The ID verification requires the last 4 digits of your social security number and they use it to ask you questions like coinbase does and various other sites.  That was a simple process.

The credit card verification was the annoying part.  They require you to get a video of yourself with a government issued ID and the Credit Card you are going to use to make purchases.  The site has the ability to connect to your webcam and record the video for you but I could not get it to work.  They have an alternate method that uses your cellphone but my Windows Phone was not supported.  I used their chat support and they asked me to send the video to an email address they supplied.  After doing that I got verified and was able to deposit money into my account.  The charge showed up as "KIDS TOYS".  They deducted 3.5% fee from the charge.

At this point I was all set to buy bitcoin which I did.  Buying was an easy process and so was withdrawal.  I chose to transfer it to another wallet and they charged 0.001 BTC for the transfer.

It's not the cheapest way to buy bitcoin by far but it's another option and that is a good thing.  If you need bitcoin in a hurry it's not a bad way to get it.

[billyjoeallen]

I've done some business with Coin.MX . I was looking to do some arbitrage and take advantage of their higher trade prices. I ran into some problems. There trade volume was so low that it took over 4 hours to sell one bitcoin. I sold for $915, but after there fees it ended up being about $907. Then I tried to pull my money out, but I needed to go through there verification process, which was a little weird considering I was the one taking all the risk. even after getting verified, I coundn't withdraw because there was a ridiculous $1,000 MINIMUM withdrawal limit (contrasting to Mt Gox's $1,000 MAXIMUM withdrawal limit). Considering Mt Gox handles over 1000X the volume, this makes no sense at all.  even the guy on their support Live chat agreed with me. The live chat was supposed to be with some gal named "Jen" but I know it was a dude, because when I called them on the phone some dude answered and admitted being the same person. He was pretty apologetic and polite, but that still didn't get my USD out.  Another problem was that the only option to get the money was a domestic wire transfer with a $20 fee. I didn't want to pay that much, so I asked them to mail me a check. The guy said they probably couldbut he's have to check first.

the next day the price of BTC dropped so much, I decided to just buy back in and take my profit in bitcoin. I figured it would also be easier and cheaper to withdraw BTC, but there were still problems. There was a delay by one day due to an "internal server error" which made me really nervous. I noticed that the phone number was from an Ohio area code but the exchange was supposed to be based in West Palm Beach, Florida. It turns out that the OH area code was the only way they could have a XXX-GET-COIN phone number, so no problem there. It's also a little funny that they "MX" in Coin.MX stand for "money exchange" when pretty much everybody knows that it means it's a Mexican domain name. The internal server error was fixed the next day and I was able to withdraw my one bitcoin with a 0.33 profit after fees.

It's my impression that this is a legit exchange, but I still don't plan on doing much business with them until the following problems are fixed:

1. Volume is tiny. I could fill their entire buy order book with the BTC on my phone.
2. They are not a licensed money transmitter. They claim they are a private club and don't need a license but I really don't know if that loophole in the regulation will hold up.
3. they need options for less expensive and more convenient USD withdrawals. A five day wait for a wire xfer takes as much time as mailing a check domestically. With their small trading volume, it would take days to generate the minimum $1,000 profit for a withdrawal and you'd have to pay $20 to do it.

Having said that, there are some advantages that make Coin.MX worth watching for the future:

1. Ability to purchase BTC with a credit card. They absorb the risk of charge-backs. Sellers also enjoy highers BTC/USD exchange rates.
2. Live chat and live phone support- an almost unheard of service with bitcoin exchanges.
3. These guys seem like they are open for input to improve both their website and there business practices.

Hope this helps.

[Dini]

Fees are one of the first things I look for when considering a new exchange, and I could not find any on the coin.mx site, at least without first signing up (which I didn't and won't do).  Not making costs obvious would immediately make me suspicious of any company.  They have a FAQ link but there is zero mention of any fees or limits as of now at least, just info on what bitcoin is.  I also look at mechanisms and costs for withdrawal before using any site (withdraw of either cryptocurrency or dollars) and of course that info is also not available, at least without first signing up.  Withdraw of cryptocurrency is free (or essentially free) on many sites and it is annoying to be charged for it. Also, having a minimum $1 k for withdrawal is not a trivial detail (and would be unacceptable to many if not most people) and should have been made obvious to any new user.  Maybe they are not quite criminals (yet) but I definitely would not trust them. At the very minimum, it is misleading not to be straightforward with basic details.

[billyjoeallen]

If I recall, their fees are more or less comparable to other exchanges, about 0.5% per trade, no fee for BTC deposit, etc. I honestly don't remember exactly and I haven't been back. I don't think they are being dishonest, just new and figuring things out. Still, It's real money on the line and the fail rate for new exchanges is worrisome. All I can tell you is that I made a small profit and got my coins back out. As always, your mileage may vary.

[Bl4ckw00d]

A few guys in my pools have dealt with them and I havent heard overwhelming great feedback with their services.  A lot of frozen or really delayed transfers that sat in limbo for days.  They all eventually got their coins/money it was just a much slower process then advertised

[billyjoeallen]

A few guys in my pools have dealt with them and I havent heard overwhelming great feedback with their services.  A lot of frozen or really delayed transfers that sat in limbo for days.  They all eventually got their coins/money it was just a much slower process then advertised

Yes, that was my experience also. The aritrage isn't worth the hassle IMHO for sellers (yet), but if you want to buy with Mastercard, then other than a complicated conversion into Linden Dollars on Virwox, they are the only game in town.

[Maddin]

Best Market Price at the moment at 883 USD. (Bitstamp 804$) Crap!

[Smileyftw]

Withdraw of cryptocurrency is not free on many sites and you can be charged 0.0001