The new Wirex card has arrived! I was thinking of creating an unboxing video, but there wasn't too much to "unbox", so I will do it in the written post manner, adding a couple of photos of the card itself.
This is my second card from the Wirex company as I had the old one for over 2-3 years (activated in May 2018). As we were in the bear market almost all the time, I didn't use it too many times, but still, I did it 50-100 times probably... It worked flawlessly every time, except the gasoline stations because of their weird rules of "locking" more funds than needed, but that's not the card problem but my problem that I didn't have enough funds on the card...
The old VISA card worked like many others in that time... You had to convert your crypto into fiat and transfer to the "card wallet" and that's it... There were rewards for using the card in the "Cryptoback" program where the users got some % in Satoshis back to the account... One of the problems was the monthly fee that you had to pay regardless of using, or not using the card... In general, it worked well, and I was a satisfied customer...
The thing that I didn't like, and still don't like, is the customer support... Of course, they have a KYC policy and that's not a problem if you are OK with that... The problem is that every now and then, they have randomly asked me to confirm my current address or re-send my ID documents... Just to clarify, my previous documents didn't expire or they didn't have any problem... So, it was just a bit annoying to re-send these things every couple of months...
The other problem with customer support is that they reply on tickets VERY SLOW, or don't even reply... I had a problem with my physical address not showing properly in my member panel, and my ticket was constantly closed by automatic responses... It's almost impossible to get some "human being" on the other side in the support desk... Unfortunately, most of the tech companies have that problem which can be very annoying and can pull off some clients...
Back to the new card... Wirex has started with issuing new cards just a month (or so) ago... It is a Mastercard and it has an interesting design, a bit unusual, but innovative... On the front side of the card, there are no personal details at all (as you can see from the photo), and all important details are placed on the backside (name, card number, expiration...).
The main difference between the old card and the new one is how it works (before the payment)... As I said earlier, the old one needed funds in FIAT money pre-exchanged before use... The new one doesn't need that! You have a special part as a "Card wallet" where you can link your separate crypto wallets (from your member area)... In order how you link them, your funds will be automatically changed to local currency at the moment of the purchase at current rates! So, there is no need of exchanging funds before the use (you can do that if you want and link FIAT wallet) so it comes very handily if you don't want to exchange your precious crypto :)
As I said before, support was bad (in my opinion), and finding some simple things on the website can be confusing... For example, I wanted to share more details about the current fee schedule for the card and I had to search for a couple of minutes to find them... Written by small letters and hidden in T&C page... When I was ordering the new card, there was literally ZERO details about the fees... The only thing that was promoting that there are no fees... Actually, there are, if you pick some of the plans where you can get some additional bonuses... To spare you losing time searching it, you can check this plan table with fees...
Before ordering the card, I would suggest you check if it is supported in your country... That's another thing that I couldn't find on the website, so you will have to DYOR...
So, in conclusion, my old card was working fine, so I suppose that it will be the same case with the new one... It's nice to have an option to spend your crypto directly in bars, stores, etc... The only bad experience was the customer support, but maybe you will not need it so no worries... ;)
Official website: https://wirexapp.com/
Thank you for your valuable time,
ph
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