Is Ledger Live's new feature to buy crypto a scam? (evidence provided)

[Icewallow_come4fun]

So today I discovered that one can now buy bitcoin directly inside the Ledger Live software, powered by Coinify.

But something appears quite wrong... let me show you:

Current price of bitcoin as of typing this, 7552 British pounds.

And the details of the purchase I was about to make in ledger live, at same moment that btc was 7552 pounds (as shown on kraken and bitstamp):

Your purchase
To be received:
0.11496514 BTC

Amount:
905.00 GBP

Handling fee (4.5%)
40.73 GBP

Total cost:
945.73 GBP

Transaction time
~1 hour

So what's wrong with that? Well, according to Coinify, their fees are:

Handling fee
A fee applied on top of your purchase amount.
This is a fee Coinify charges in regards to processing and administrating transactions. It depends on the type of trade and payment method.

Show details
Conversion fee
A fee deducted from the purchased cryptocurrency amount.
For all purchases done in currencies other than USD, a foreign exchange fee of 0.50% applies.

Network fee
A fee deducted from the purchased cryptocurrency amount.
It is required to transfer the funds to you. It depends on the network's current transaction volumes. You can find more information about it here.

The handling fee is 4.5% (this is shown as 4.5% in the 'checkout summary' right before clicking buy), so 4.5% of 905 pounds is 40.725 pounds. Now on to the conversion fee, 0.5%, and 0.5% of 905 pounds is 4.52 pounds. That all makes sense, and is reflected in having to pay 945.73 pounds for 905 worth of bitcoin.

But the price of bitcoin in pounds at the time of attempting to make that purchase, was 7552 pounds. Now if you multiply the bitcoin you will receive in this case, 0.11496514 BTC, by the current bitcoin price of 7552, you get 868 pounds. So you are paying 945 pounds for 868 pounds worth of bitcoin, even after already covering the handling and conversion fee yourself on top of the original figure (905 pounds in this case) that you wanted to purchase worth of bitcoin.

Number's just don't add up... there's around a 4% discrepancy that is unexplained.

From Coinify's website:

Honesty
We promise honest rates and no hidden fees. You can find details of our fees on our pricing page and we guarantee the exchange rate of the currency for 15 minutes.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The "hidden fee" is Coinify's terrible exchange rate.

Right now, if I open Ledger Live and try to buy 1 bitcoin, my base rate before any fees would be $9,955. If I open Kraken or Bitstamp as you did, then the price I am being shown is $9,626 and $9,619, respectively. That's an additional markup of around 3.3%. The rates are even worse for GBP - doing the same thing reveals a markup of around 3.8%.

If you take the £7,552 and add 3.8%, and then add the additional 0.5% conversion fee, before multiplying by 0.11496514, then you end up at £905. This is what they charge prior to their (frankly outrageous) "handling fee".

So yes, the price you pay is ridiculous, partly due to Coinify's poor exchange rate and partly due to Ledger's insane handling fees. You would be better off looking for an alternative method to but and sell bitcoin.

[Icewallow_come4fun]

So the 'hidden fee' is simply that they set their own price for what a bitcoin is worth, far above the price on big exchanges?

I will definitely be avoiding them. A shame that Ledger includes such a rip-off built into their software.

Also, the btc I purchased at these rip-off prices has shown up in ledger live, but with zero confirmations... but seems to have confirmations shown on explorer.

It's been over 24 hours... So, it's a rip-off and extremely slow. puke.

[Icewallow_come4fun]

Received this reply from Coinify:

   

thank you for your message!

Please note that card transaction's rates are locked and bitcoins are delivered within minutes. We always send what we quoted during the placing of the trade. That means the equivalent in Bitcoins to the fiat amount (EUR/USD/GBP/DKK) you decide to buy.

Let's say you buy 50 GBP, we send you its equivalent in bitcoins at the current rate at the time of processing. That amount of Bitcoins is on your trade flow confirmation, Trade History menu, Trade receipt sent by email, and Blockchain transaction log.

Because the rate changes constantly, if you look at that BTC amount in GBP, the number will fluctuate constantly too. What was £50 at the moment processing can be £55.50 or £37.80 at any given time, even if you don't use those bitcoins ever the balance in GBP will change in your wallet according to the fluctuation in the exchange rate. The amount displayed in fiat will also differ from the amount bought given that your wallet might use a different exchange rate than Coinify does.
For your order, we quoted 0.11393227 BTC and that is what we delivered

You must consider the fact that the wallet providers use a different exchange rate than ours for calculating the value of your wallet balance. Therefore, the value of your balance can differ, but the amount you will have will be the one promised on the receipt.

When you place a trade form a Ledger, the amount of BTC to be delivered to you is shown before you enter your card details and etc., if you decide to proceed, we deliver the amount we promised - same in your case, we delivered the amount which was promised 0.11393227 BTC

In addition, please note that we are not an exchange ourselves, we offer payment processing and brokerage services for individuals wanting to buy/sell bitcoins.

Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Best Regards,

^^ not sure it says much beyond 'you received what we promised to deliver for x price'. Price was also stable at the time on exchanges so not sure why they bring that up at all.

[sunsilk]

I've made a thread about this update and found out that the fees were totally ridiculous through a reddit discussion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/h837g0/question_regards_buying_through_coinify/

Next time, use a better exchange than this feature to avoid those fees.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So the 'hidden fee' is simply that they set their own price for what a bitcoin is worth, far above the price on big exchanges?

Pretty much. Coinify have always been very secretive with their exchange rate. You'll notice it isn't visible anywhere on their website, their fees pages make no mention of their mark up, and even when you trade with them like you did on Ledger Live, at no point does it actually tell you the exchange rate. They do all this to try to hide the fact that they rip people off.

I will definitely be avoiding them. A shame that Ledger includes such a rip-off built into their software.

Agreed. I'm also against the fact that a hardware wallet provider, which should respect and value their users' privacy, built a KYC requirement in to their software. Very not cool.

Price was also stable at the time on exchanges so not sure why they bring that up at all.

That's their poor excuse to justify their rip off prices. It doesn't even matter if the price wasn't stable - you lock in the price whenever you hit the buy button. The issue is the price you lock in is nowhere near what it is on every major exchange.

[hugeblack]

This is the problem of buying from a broker between you and exchange platforms. Unfortunately, the majority of those who are deceived by these methods are the beginners because they do not know much information and want to use the same application interface to purchase.

The difference in exchange rates may not be "hidden fees", but the exchange rate fluctuation between several platforms provides them with a logical argument for obtaining some "hidden gains."

Therefore, we cannot describe it as a scam as much as the exploitation of inaccurate information.

[Lucius]

Did anyone think this service would be cheap? The more seemingly easier it is to buy or sell BTC, the more expensive is the service. And as they explained later, they protect themselves from sudden price changes by setting a higher exchange rate - just like all crypto payment intermediaries do.

It is a known fact that buying via crypto ATMs has been considered at least until now most expensive buy/sell crypto option, and maybe now Ledger will take that position. As others have already noted in their comments, two companies are still involved here, and neither of them do not deal with charity work.

This is not a scam, but it is a service that has a very high fees.

[Harlot]

From Coinify's website:

Honesty
We promise honest rates and no hidden fees. You can find details of our fees on our pricing page and we guarantee the exchange rate of the currency for 15 minutes.

You have this text highlighted already and you must know "honest rates" isn't the same as "fair rates" and usually companies like this use safe statements like this to screw some of their clients and Coinify did it to you. As far as I see it with how you explained things Ledger really has nothing to do with it since Coinify is really the one where you are buying your BTC from aside from the outrageous fees you can see that they don't also have a "fair rate" for your money so really you as a buyer must have check on it before you push that buy order.

[Pmalek]

The exchange rate is what it is. You can either accept the offer or reject it. I agree with you that the fees are way toooo high. I would never purchase my Bitcoin using the Coinify + Ledger dream duo. But I don't consider that to be a scam. You are not getting scammed. It would be a scam if they showed you one rate and amount, and sent you a completely different one. The offer is a joke, but not a scam.

[notblox1]

Looks like a ripoff to me, more than a scam.
Terms and percentages should be more clear and visible for everyone.
Crypto newbies will sadly only get burned if they buy crypto this way.

[btc_angela]

Looks like a ripoff to me, more than a scam.
Terms and percentages should be more clear and visible for everyone.
Crypto newbies will sadly only get burned if they buy crypto this way.

Yes, those middle man are really making a good money out of this newbies. 3%-5% is really huge, and if you don't look closely or scrutinised things as what the OP did here, it won't raise a red flag in the community. So good catch and I do hope that next time we should look very closely as not to fall for this very simple and yet effective rip-off.

[williamshennie9]

Personally, I do not like a hardware wallet that promotes its own products (which it offers in addition to the actual hardware wallet). I prefer to have a wallet which is completely open source, and easily let's you integrate it into other applications, such as electrum.

Nevermind the fact that their fee is ridiculous, the fact that you can buy bitcoin from them is a bad thing. A hardware wallet should be as decentralised as possible in my opinion.