I ve been considering the e-coin card for some time, and this thread helped me decide, so i signed up in order to mention my experiences, and potentially help others.
Like many people already mentioned, the fact that there is no info about the company, no real address, and that they dont mention who are the partners and methods used to provide the service, indeed makes them look shady. If I didn't know people who had ordered the card and it worked, I would be sure that it was a scam. I'm sure many people are turned away by those issues. It should be fixed in my opinion.
Anyway, I ordered the card, paid with paypal funds, and it arrived 7 days later in Greece (5 work days, as mentioned on the site), on an unregistered (no signature or tracking) envelope.
The card is plain black, it doesn't look like the designs on the site. The actual provider of the card is
MyChoice. The numbers and info are 3d/relief printed. The name printed is the "name on card" option filled in on ecoin, not the real name.
The card is easy to activate, by inputing the last digits on the ecoin site. In order to get the pin for ATM/POS transactions you need to call a UK number and go through a very easy and fast automated proccess, for which you need the card number and your birth date.
Loading bitcoins on the ecoin site takes quite a long time. For 0.9BTC It took about 2 hours, going through 6 confirmations (this might be expected, I didn't have much experience with bitcoin before getting this card)
After that, converting BTC to currency on the card is instant.
The card works perfectly with any online transaction I tried, including paypal. The fact that the name on card is different than my paypal name wasnt a problem. I did give my real name on the registration proccess though, so perhaps Its listed, just not printed on the card. Also keep in mind that after adding the card to paypal, It will try to convert currency to Gibraltar Pounds, with its own exchange rate. You should definitely disable this feature since there are no Gibraltar Pound ecoin cards, paypal just assumes this due to the fact that the card issuer is based in Gibraltar. The 3% rate of mychoice for currency converting should be better than paypal for other conversions too.
I haven't used the card for any ATM or POS transactions yet, but It probably works fine with them too.
The mychoice site for managing the card is really useful and well designed. You need to sign up for it independently from ecoin though. It includes free instant notifications through mail and sms. The transactions are listed immediately, much better than many regular bank cards.
It seems that mychoice is completely independent from ecoin, and that you can load the card with other methods too (like bank transfer). Ecoin only does the automated conversion of BTC to fiat currency and the loading of the card. It seems like that money in the card is safe, I would be more afraid of the Ecoin site/wallet.
I have owned the card only for a day so I cant know what will happen on the long term, but it seems everything works as advertised, and the commissions are really low.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs such a service.
