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Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#151

Post by ewillbefull »

adrianmacneil wrote: post #123
ewillbefull wrote: post #19

You can now use Bitcoin anywhere VISA is accepted, so long as coinbase doesn't close your account, ignore you and close all the tickets you open. Even if you painstakingly collect and compile sensitive documents for them to review, which was a gigantic waste of my time, thanks! I have for months encouraged everyone I know not to use coinbase and will continue to do so.

This might be a silly question, but did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions? The team there really cares about customer experience, so generally if they are ignoring you it's because your account has some connection to illegal/banned activity, which they can't disclose due to ridiculous financial laws.

They only appear to care about the customer experience when someone complains on social media, until then they have a history of being jerks to their users.

They closed my account after I made a (relatively small) wire transfer after not using their service for a while. The year before I made much larger transfers that didn't seem to concern them. Suddenly I needed to provide them with lots of financial information.

The law sucks and I don't blame them for this. But I have provided them with more than enough information to prove all of my income is legitimate, including years of tax forms regarding the income and other crap they absolutely did not need to look at.

What bugs me is that they continued to ask me for this information, which took time for me to compile for them, and they ignored me anyway after I provided everything.

Another thing that bugs me is that (they claim) their support desk software is the most secure method of sending them sensitive documents. Ridiculous. The icing on the cake will be when their system is hacked and I lose a lot of important documents that I was under the impression they would be removing, but clearly haven't.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#152

Post by mirimir »

bpicolo wrote: post #140
mirimir wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples of "illegal transactions"? Under what jurisdiction? Arguably, anything is illegal somewhere, and is also legal somewhere else. Also, what do "conduct" and "some connection to" encompass? Are VPN services considered "illegal"? What about anonymous VPS rental? And what about gambling, in jurisdictions where it's legal? I get the sense that Coinbase is about as capricious as PayPal. And ought to b…

The jurisdiction in which Coinbase operates? This is a pretty lame argument

Where it's headquartered? Or where it's doing business? Microsoft, for example, is making a strong distinction between its operations in the US vs Ireland.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#153

Post by Eleopteryx »

mikkom wrote: post #115
baby wrote: post #111

Seems like nobody understands how this can work, or why would they do that. Easy. You swipe your card, Coinbase pays with $, then Coinbase tries to sell enough of the bitcoins you have there to make it even (there might be a fee). So you need to have a bitcoin balance in Coinbase when you want to use this card. Now why would you do this? If you're asking yourself this question, there are high chances you are not the…

> There are a lot of people who made a lot of money in bitcoins, and who hold a LOT of bitcoins. This is going to be an easy way for them to spend it on a normal day-to-day basis. It's a wonderful way to laundry your drug money!

As long as their business was conducted ethically, I have no problem with that means of obtaining bitcoins.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#155

Post by kuschku »

caskance wrote: post #150
kuschku wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit, that’s horrible. Where I am, PIN and Card arrive in different letters, and the Card letter is only sent once you confirmed via your online banking interface (which uses 2FA) that you received the PIN letter. And you need to confirm online in your banking interface to have received the card to be able to use it.

Which is itself horrendous on a different axis.

How so? It means you need access to the online account, to the 2FA device, and to both letters to abuse the card.

If the attacker already has access to the online banking account, then he/she can do much worse things anyway.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#156

Post by omni »

mirimir wrote: post #137
adrianmacneil wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a silly question, but did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions? The team there really cares about customer experience, so generally if they are ignoring you it's because your account has some connection to illegal/banned activity, which they can't disclose due to ridiculous financial laws.

What are some examples of "illegal transactions"? Under what jurisdiction? Arguably, anything is illegal somewhere, and is also legal somewhere else. Also, what do "conduct" and "some connection to" encompass? Are VPN services considered "illegal"? What about anonymous VPS rental? And what about gambling, in jurisdictions where it's legal? I get the sense that Coinbase is about as capricious as PayPal. And ought to b…

> a bunch of waffling and trying to dodge the question

Gonna go out on a limb here and assume that, yes, you did a bunch of illegal shit.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#158

Post by caskance »

kuschku wrote: post #155
caskance wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is itself horrendous on a different axis.

How so? It means you need access to the online account, to the 2FA device, and to both letters to abuse the card. If the attacker already has access to the online banking account, then he/she can do much worse things anyway.

Different axis aka not security. The security is much better. But it's slow and inconvenient.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#159

Post by gregmac »

So

* you lose the psuedo-anonymity of Bitcoin (the card has your name on it). * It's a "debit" card, so it also has none of the protection of a normal credit card (eg: if someone steals my card or over-charges or whatever, my actual money is not touched). * It's not even real Bitcoin, it requires a Coinbase account (where, from what I understand, they manage your private key, so really own your bitcoins)

What exactly is the target market for this? The people who have no credit cards, the bulk of their cash in bitcoin, and also don't care about privacy?

I'm not into bitcoin, but even so, I am just not seeing the appeal.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#160

Post by adrianmacneil »

mirimir wrote: post #152
bpicolo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jurisdiction in which Coinbase operates? This is a pretty lame argument

Where it's headquartered? Or where it's doing business? Microsoft, for example, is making a strong distinction between its operations in the US vs Ireland.

Unfortunately, both. Because that is how financial laws work.
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