bitrefill conversion rate

[figmentofmyass]

anyone know how their rate is determined? they're giving me prices 2% below bitstamp rate, and oddly the rate keeps getting worse as the price is slightly increasing. i've kept checking over the last 20 minutes and it's consistently 1.9%-2.1% worse than actual spot prices.

is it normal to get rates this bad? this is the first time i've used them. i assumed i would get the actual spot price (like bitpay) but i guess not?

[AdolfinWolf]

anyone know how their rate is determined? they're giving me prices 2% below bitstamp rate, and oddly the rate keeps getting worse as the price is slightly increasing. i've kept checking over the last 20 minutes and it's consistently 1.9%-2.1% worse than actual spot prices.

is it normal to get rates this bad? this is the first time i've used them. i assumed i would get the actual spot price (like bitpay) but i guess not?

Yep. I think i've seen this what you're mentioning as well. It might be their business model?

Something i've also noticed, and can't really explain, is the fact that some Giftcards have (or had) a significant difference in fees. (Amazon PIN vs Amazon card.)

For example; Zalando 25EUR = 0,008051BTC is 1:1 with the preev rate.

Amazon card: 25 EUR = 0.00896BTC ~10 % fee?



Not entirely sure if this is intentional or not, but there's a large enough difference to point it out..

[STT]

One percent would be a normal but quite high forex charge so two percent is bordering on excessive I agree.   Problem is alot of people wont check this exchange rate that closely (or have a way to quickly check correct spot price), its an easy way to levy the majority or all of the fees and then claim free service/ 'we charge no fees'    I see this done all the time so its quite likely on purpose sadly

[leowonderful]

Bitrefill does have an active bitcointalk account here (click to go to link), just sent the account a message regarding how the conversion rate's calculated to the account. Hope we'll have a response soon. I did some searching and I found a tweet from the Bitrefill Twitter account from a while back stating they took their exchange rates from Bitpay's highest ask rate or something of the sort plus a certain %- pretty sure that's not the case now, but it's something.

[figmentofmyass]

is it normal to get rates this bad? this is the first time i've used them. i assumed i would get the actual spot price (like bitpay) but i guess not?

Yep. I think i've seen this what you're mentioning as well. It might be their business model?

Something i've also noticed, and can't really explain, is the fact that some Giftcards have (or had) a significant difference in fees. (Amazon PIN vs Amazon card.)

For example; Zalando 25EUR = 0,008051BTC is 1:1 with the preev rate.

Amazon card: 25 EUR = 0.00896BTC ~10 % fee?

i assumed it was like a normal gift card mall (like egifter or gyft), which just convert at bitpay's current exchange rate. it seems like they indeed have a different business model. maybe these differences in spreads is their attempt to hedge against the market instead of instantly liquidating on exchanges. maybe they charge worse rates for cards that are harder to get? for example, egifter and gyft stopped carrying amazon gift cards.

in any case, egifter still seems like the best option if they carry what you need. they seem to be the only mall left that actually pays discounts on top of the bitpay rate. they don't offer amazon or several other useful cards though.

[figmentofmyass]

Perhaps the costs (when Bitrefill buy/obtain the gift cards) are different, even though it has same value (25 EUR). If you check other similar website (such as egifter, gyft or steamgamesbtc.com), price of gift cards with same value for different services are slightly different.

i've been using egifter and gyft for several years now. neither of them does that. like most merchants, they both give you the exact dollar price through bitpay, who uses bitstamp prices. no fee added. nothing like this where bitrefill generates their own conversion rate which is obviously way different than spot price.

the only difference with egifter is they award you points with each purchase which effectively work like discounts. each gift card and purchase method (bitcoin vs paypal) yields different rewards. but no matter what, you would never be charged more than the spot price, only less.