I tested out Steem.Cards today, and It's awesome.
I recently read about a service provided by @xtrodinarypilot where he provides an easy way to buy gift cards with Steem! If you can't pay with Steem directly then this is the next best thing. So, I decided to test it out with an itunes gift card today. It only took about 7 minutes to get my gift card after my payment was confirmed.
The Steem payment method uses Steem Connect which is super easy and fast. It figures out the correct amount for you, and you can just click to confirm payment in either Steem or SBD. This means there's no accidents when entering the amount needed to pay.
As far as the itunes cards go you'll be e-mailed a link, and then asked to redeem the card. I assume this is for in case you mess up entering your e-mail, and you need it sent again? In the case of itunes you'll be given the code which you can then pop into your Apple account. Here's to show that the cards actually work.
Just a note, that unlike other gift card sellers these are new giftcards sent from an Amazon partner. That means you don't run the risk of getting one that could be emptied or purchased with a stolen credit card! Third party sites might offer a discount, but there's a big risk associated with it. Where as Steem.cards does not have this problem since your gift cards will not be second hand.
When buying a gift card make sure to read carefully! I see that he has added Amazon cards for multiple countries. If you buy the wrong one it won't work on your version of Amazon. So, be sure that the card you buy will work in your country.
He also offers prepaid Vanilla Visa cards up to $500. These are physical cards that need to be mailed, but that means you can use them at gas stations or grocery stores! I've used these before (not from steem.cards though), and they're pretty nice honestly. You can use them almost anywhere, they have a pin number, and the website allows you to check the balance and see where you've spent money just like a bank account does. I'll be trying out one of these soon, and thanks to @xtrodinarypilot for providing a great service.
PS. If he reads this I'd love to see giftcards added for more restaurants and eBay. Or virtual visas that can be used without the 7-10 waiting period for the physical cards to buy stuff online. : )
This is great! A direct way to 'spend' our STEEM for cash cards. Way to go xtrodinarypilot this is extraordinary indeed! @ironshield
Thanks @ironshield I still have that Silver Teddy ;) Hopefully this helps me stack lol
I'm so glad to hear that these are actually working. Thanks so much for testing them out for us.
Is there a fee for the vanilla cards, do you know? Since they have to be physically mailed. I wonder how long it takes to receive one. With a $500 card I'd definitely be biting my nails until it arrived.
They do have an activation fee (this is imposed by Visa whether you buy them at steem.cards or at a store like Walmart). The fee is $7.95 plus shipping. I'm going to be testing one of these out at the grocery store soon probably. :-)
I tried to see the shipping cost, but it seems I've encountered a bug. I can't seem to get past the part that asks you to "include the activation fee". It just keeps refreshing it for some reason?? I believe the fee for shipping was $3. That puts it at a little over 2% total for the $500 card which is pretty good.
PS. It's been reported 7-10 days shipping time for the physical visa cards.
Those fees seem pretty reasonable, all things considered. That's about what merchants have to fork over just to process their credit card transactions.
Still, I hope crypto can eventually lead us to no-fee exchanges. Like, you know, handing someone a dollar bill.
That'd be nice, but it's tough to escape plastic cards since everyone accepts them. Until we can break away from that somehow crypto will still be at the mercy of processors like Visa and their fees. Hopefully more stores follow newegg, overstock and craigslist to offer crypto options. I read that ebay is dropping paypal in favor of Ayden which means crypto might finally be accepted there since they work with bitpay! Baby steps in the right direction.
OK, whoa, what? I missed that story somehow. Off to Google....
Thank you for the review. We are working on the Virtual Visas and adding more items. I wanted to wait and see how the community responded before adding more items. Our goal is 100 items by Valentines Day.
That's awesome. I look forward to seeing you improve the usability of Steem. :-)
Mine came in the mail today and I used it for the first time.
Steem is taking over, no doubt
I am really happy this service exists. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I will give this a try some day.
Does this site still work?