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BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

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328 points beeburrt | 2 comments | 16 May 25 06:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.422s | source
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casenmgreen ◴[16 May 25 06:40 UTC] No.44002413[source]▶
From mid-2024.

I regard all FinTech-type companies as unreliable, after incredible (in the literal sense of the word) experiences with Revolut (seven years to get an account closed and the money in it returned, and that actually happened only after I made a GDPR request, and they got it done - seems its less work for them to close than meet the request) and Transferwise (who shortly after the UA war started, blocked donations to the UA State bank military support account - yes, really, if you didn't know).

By all means have an account with them, but never, ever, ever, rely on it, and plan on the basis that the next morning you wake up to find the account, and everything in it, has gone, and that customer support is a defensive shield the company uses to keep customers at arms length.

If you want almost no-cost currency conversion (2 USD minimum, but you have to convert like 100k USD I think it is to go above that), use Interactive Brokers LLC. They won't let you have an account purely for currency conversion, but as long as you do a few trades now and then, it seems fine.

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1. HenryBemis ◴[16 May 25 08:35 UTC] No.44003061[source]▶
> all FinTech-type companies as unreliable

Please allow me to disagree (not really but yes). In the same spirit that some (fin-tech) companies prefer to _not_ do business with certain industries (e.g. porn) or countries (e.g. North Korea) for a wide variety of reason, doesn't make them unreliable. Makes them exactly what they are.

I am not trying to equate "access to my money" with "my favourite soft-drink is discontinued" because they have a very different impact to one's life (paying rent/mortgage/bills money vs sugar). I do understand though (I was working in a dairy company many-many years ago), that "we pulled this product because it costs X and makes 2x while product Z makes 5x, so bye-bye". In the same spirit many companies have profit margin requirements and they won't keep 'a service offering' that makes 'just a little'.

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2. casenmgreen ◴[16 May 25 13:28 UTC] No.44005267[source]▶
With Transferwise, one day I logged in from a new IP address (in Western Europe) and that seemed to trigger a requirement for me to re-upload identity documents.

The web-pages to upload identity documents did not work; the process would get so far, then just stop working.

I contacted Support, Support were unable to grasp the situation, let alone help.

I had 30 days before the account would be terminated for not uploading documents.

A couple of days before that happened, I tried again, and now upload worked.