Hello everybody,
Just registered to warn you about using Intersango/Britcoin.
Couple of weeks ago I was pleased to see bitcoin exchange rate going up again so decided to buy some bitcoins. I put some money into Intersango account on the 17th January.
The funds did not get credited to my account so I tried contacting Intersango support and got a reply on the 19th Jan:
Hi,
UK banking is currently offline.
We do not have access to online banking due to a technical error on LLoyds' side.
We await a resolution from LLoyds.
Patrick
I read later on Intersango/Britcoin thread in Project Development that all issues were resolved on the 20th Jan.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4984.msg704313#msg704313Unfortunately, even today(28th Jan) I have no access to my money. I tried sending another 2 messages to support on 24th and 26, but now they are just ignoring me.
What's more, this morning I received an email from Intersango saying:
Dear users,
We have enjoyed providing people for many months now with a safe and reliable place to buy bitcoins. We are proud to be the only exchange owned and operated by core bitcoin developers. This is why, despite not charging any commission, we have proven ourselves to have the highest level of professionalism, security and customer support in an industry where it is not the norm.
In a week however, we will be monetizing and charging a small 0.65% fee on trades as of 2012-01-03 24:00 GMT to keep Intersango running. This will allow us also to develop Intersango even further and provide even faster responses and more importantly faster resolutions to support inquiries.
We are proud of our long history since our inception as Britcoin; a free and safe way for people in the UK to buy and sell bitcoins. It was an early experiment and its unexpected growth forced a rethink.
Patrick Strateman led the development of the new platform; Intersango. Over several months with a fulltime team of 3 programmers it was crafted to take us from our humble basement origins with the experienced gained from operating Britcoin.
Due to it's success and growth we are proud to keep Intersango in operation. We will continue to provide fast, secure and honest service without underhanded marketing and with absolutely no hidden fees.
Intersango
So now not only that I don't know if I ever get my money back, but even if I do, I will be charged to use it.
In my opinion, this is beyond a joke.
My advice to you - use other exchanges to buy bitcoins.