Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Duckman on May 28, 2012, 07:30 pm
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I have used Intersango a few times in the past and have even recommended them in the past.
They are currently experiencing problems with their UK banking. This problem dosent stop them taking your money, but it does stop them from giving you any bitcoins.
The problem is almost certainly genuine, but their response is basically that they will not transfer any money to bitcoins until their bank sorts things out.
So how long will this take to fix?? .. They have no idea, hopefully soon although after several days they still have no more of an answer.
Well can I have my money back?? .. No they cant do that.
I really do appreciate that they are having issues, but their way of dealing with these issues is to make the customer wait with no real ETA until things are sorted. This really is no way to do business, I mean it could be a week.. do you think they will even be dropping their commission after the customer waits?? Hell no!!
So therefore I'm warning people to not use them. I have no real issue with Intersango, however they are basically a Micky Mouse operation. When everything runs smooth they are fine, but the test of the worth of a business is how it copes when things go wrong. In this respect, Intersango simply don't have a plan, their answer is to just keep all of their customers waiting and to hope for the best.
I am sure that other exchanges are just as bad but if we dont stop using them then they have no incentive to become better.
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Quite right Duckman. I have used Intersango for a number of currency exchanges and so far so good until the end of last week when I posted currency to my Intersango account which am now unable to access.
There's no customer service, no news update- nothing. Will I get my money back? Fuck knows, but I'm sure as shit that's the last time I'm using their service. Any recommendations UK based?
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They seem to be having some genuine technical problems. It appears to me that their bot, who charges your account with the funds added, has stopped working. From what I hear, their staff is pretty busy normally, so I think they're really overflowed right now.
They say they'll probably be resolved in a timely manner. I have no reason to believe it won't.
For the time being, you need to find an alternative. However I don't see why you shouldn't use Intersango after everything has been settled.
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I will wait to hear what vlad1m1r has to say on this as he uses Intersango as part of his service and this would likely mean he has funds tied up in this technical glitch.
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goto intersango site and make a new ticket bout ur money , i got mine sorted after 11 days or so but it was 8 days b4 i opened new ticket to say funds werent going into account and then they sorted it out ,happy days need more funds again shortly lol
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I have never had issues - usually they process incoming payments several times a day. The bid for BTC is a bit perplexing at first and I guess most just pay they current rate instead of looking for lower prices.
Right now Intersango say this....
"Online banking with our UK bank is currently unavailable. Payments are being received however we cannot process them. This has happened before and was dealt with in a timely manner."
Hopefully it will be sorted soon.
It was better when you could pay through a popular UK high street branch in person - anon. Now they use a bank which is called Metro Bank. A few branches in London but the rest of us cannot just walk in and write a pay-in slip with the ref number..
There is a real need for someone here to deal in BTC but I realize its difficult.
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Honestly, the best way to obtain those precious coins is to do a direct cash deposit via Bitinstant or something similar. I use bit instant a lot, and I just walk down the street to my local Bank of America and deposit the cash. It's never sketchy and the teller's don't give two shits. Once you've made the deposit, your cash will be available on mt gox within 30 minutes or so. For those of you apposed to mt gox, BitInstant is putting out a new program that sends the coins directly to your email so you don't have to fuck with the mount.
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They seem to be having some genuine technical problems. It appears to me that their bot, who charges your account with the funds added, has stopped working. From what I hear, their staff is pretty busy normally, so I think they're really overflowed right now.
Well I agree that its a genuine problem, but if the transactions are done by a bot and the reason they cannot be performed is because of a technical issue with the bank (something they cannot do themselves) then what exactly do their staff do?
They say they'll probably be resolved in a timely manner. I have no reason to believe it won't.
I believe they will resolve the issue (in fact they now have), but lets say their bank took 2 weeks to sort out the technical issue, where is their plan to sort out their customers? There is no ETA because fixing the issue its out of their hands, but they could have requested the bank email or fax a current statement to them, from which they could have manually done all the transactions. Instead they tell you to wait with no idea of when it will be resolved.
For the time being, you need to find an alternative. However I don't see why you shouldn't use Intersango after everything has been settled.
Do you think they will now put a plan in place to reduce the problems experienced by customers in situations like this or do you think they will act just the same should the situation arise again?
Intersango is a fair weather company being run out of someones bedroom. When things are running well they are fine, I have no reason to ever think they would steal my money, but if a problem arises they would rather make you wait then to sit down and manually do the transactions. They are not putting their customers first and if people dont vote with their feet there will never be a reason for them to put you first.
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It was better when you could pay through a popular UK high street branch in person - anon. Now they use a bank which is called Metro Bank. A few branches in London but the rest of us cannot just walk in and write a pay-in slip with the ref number..
I know!!
Could they have picked a more obscure and inconvenient UK bank?
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I will wait to hear what vlad1m1r has to say on this as he uses Intersango as part of his service and this would likely mean he has funds tied up in this technical glitch.
Hi UKMJ,
Thanks for thinking of me!
Yes, this was a real issue for me as not only did I have several pending orders but £400 of my personal money was in some kind of limbo. Intersango couldn't confirm receipt and when I tried contacting them on IRC I had no response.
Fortunately I anticipated a problem like this might arise and used my own stock of Bitcoins to process any pending orders. It would seem things are back up and running now but I think it'd be wise to stick to small amounts of transfers for now until we see if Metro bank can handle the volume of transactions required.
Ironically if it's true that the bank's systems were overwhelmed by numerous transactions, the less popular Intersango becomes the more reliable it will be. What I don't understand is why their computers couldn't handle it - as far as I know we use a standard software set in the UK which hasn't had any major revisions since the eighties. Certainly we have Brokers at my bank who might make several hundred transactions a day and I've never heard of any technical difficulties but then mine is quite a small bank!
Still, all's well that ends well I suppose. My customers will be pleased to hear I am going to build a fund of Bitcoins to make sure that orders are processed quickly even if there is such a problem in future!
V.
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Fortunately I anticipated a problem like this might arise and used my own stock of Bitcoins to process any pending orders.
That is why Intersango is what I refer to as a bedroom operation or a fair weather company.
If things go wrong, Vlad1m1r has a plan for when things go wrong, and things do go wrong.
However Intersango have no contingency plans. When things go wrong their only answer is to tell everyone effected that they must wait until its fixed, they also have no real idea of when that might be.
Did anyone get a reduction in transaction fees from Intersango after they failed to deliver? Of course you didn't. They are a fair weather company. When things run smoothly everything is fine, but when things go wrong they have no plans in place and they do not take any financial responsibility when they fail their customers.
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Fortunately I anticipated a problem like this might arise and used my own stock of Bitcoins to process any pending orders.
That is why Intersango is what I refer to as a bedroom operation or a fair weather company.
If things go wrong, Vlad1m1r has a plan for when things go wrong, and things do go wrong.
However Intersango have no contingency plans. When things go wrong their only answer is to tell everyone effected that they must wait until its fixed, they also have no real idea of when that might be.
Did anyone get a reduction in transaction fees from Intersango after they failed to deliver? Of course you didn't. They are a fair weather company. When things run smoothly everything is fine, but when things go wrong they have no plans in place and they do not take any financial responsibility when they fail their customers.
+1 to Duckman for his kind words. To clarify, I will guarantee any orders placed by my service, if a BTC exchange goes tits up your order will be honoured.
I've only been using Intersango for around six months and don't remember a problem like this occurring before. Would those of us with longer memories care to clarify?
Thanks,
V.
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The other big problem I had with Intersango was when they changed their UK bank and didnt make it really really clear on their website.
One of the joys of internet banking is that you can save payment details so you dont have to re-enter them every time.
Having used Intersango successfully a few times I stopped checking their banking details each time and of course the payment went to a bank account they no longer used.
Now some might say I should have been more vigalent in checking, but I really felt that Intersango should have done far more to warn people. Vlad1m1r its the equivalent of you changing your postal address and not making sure everyone was aware of that. Common sense will tell you that if you did that then people who have sent you money a few times before probably wont bother to check if your postal address has changed, why would it?
Its just another instance of their lack of a plan. You look on their website and it gives the impression of professionalism, but I have never dealt with any company that changed their bank details and didnt make an effort to publicize that. They updated the instructions but didnt stop and think that peole who have used this a few times before might not read them especially since you can store all of these details in your own online bank account.
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I was just about to use Intersango and thought i'd search them on this forum first, and found this thread.
Are the banking problems at Intersango now rectified as i still would like to use them as they seem to be the most convenient for myself?
Cheers
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I got fed up with Sang as well. They never froze my account or anything like that but they kept fucking about on some other things. You can tell that they are just essentially 3 geeks in their garage trying to run a business while simultaneously play World of Warcraft or some bullshit like that.
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I got fed up with Sang as well. They never froze my account or anything like that but they kept fucking about on some other things. You can tell that they are just essentially 3 geeks in their garage trying to run a business while simultaneously play World of Warcraft or some bullshit like that.
+1 This is exactly how I think of them! Every time I have attempted to do a smooth transaction with them they seem incapable of actually providing the service they offer consistently. I always have to contact them to ask for my money and any response from the exudes incompetence. As such I refuse to use them.
You guys above should find alternative means of getting BTC. By accepting shoddy service (which you're also paying for) you're buying into our culture of non-existent customer service. They think they have you over a barrel - show them they don't and take your business to a company that won't make you wait weeks for your money (and more importantly, drugs) and then charge you for the privilege!
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Lol yeah that's why I parred them off mate, if they don't wana do their job then they ain't having my money.
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hey all :)
I used to use mtgox but found it was 3 days min from fastpayment transfer to deposit in mtgox account
intersango is like the same day for me, never had a problem wiv em...
so if gox is out and so it intersango, who shud us uk folk use?
any one got any recommendations :)
peace
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I got fed up with Sang as well. They never froze my account or anything like that but they kept fucking about on some other things. You can tell that they are just essentially 3 geeks in their garage trying to run a business while simultaneously play World of Warcraft or some bullshit like that.
+1 This is exactly how I think of them! Every time I have attempted to do a smooth transaction with them they seem incapable of actually providing the service they offer consistently. I always have to contact them to ask for my money and any response from the exudes incompetence. As such I refuse to use them.
You guys above should find alternative means of getting BTC. By accepting shoddy service (which you're also paying for) you're buying into our culture of non-existent customer service. They think they have you over a barrel - show them they don't and take your business to a company that won't make you wait weeks for your money (and more importantly, drugs) and then charge you for the privilege!
Hi Ali,
I don't mean to hijack this thread but as most of you know I offer a service selling Bitcoins for cash in the mail to people in the UK & Europe. Anyone who's interested should message me for details.
I wanted to respond to your post as I mention on my thread below that users are given Bitcoins at daily Intersango rates. I have been let down twice now by Intersango and just want to clarify that I now have a reserve of Bitcoins to draw on in case the exchange isn't playing nice (which is never) - as such anyone using my service can rest assured they will receive their coins in good time even if Intersango is playing silly buggers.
I don't know if the point has been raised but using an exchange which only accepts wire transfer is also risky at the best of times as of course anyone with access to the exchange's records will see the BTC address where your coins were sent and can then trace future transactions. I admit it is a small risk but would strongly advise people to use cash to buy their Bitcoins - even if you don't go through me!
V.
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I got fed up with Sang as well. They never froze my account or anything like that but they kept fucking about on some other things. You can tell that they are just essentially 3 geeks in their garage trying to run a business while simultaneously play World of Warcraft or some bullshit like that.
The fact that they are based in the UK and British, yet call themselves "CEO" and "CTO" basically confirms this.
Noone seriously calls themselves CEO of a company of 3 people, and in the UK it's not used very often anyway unless for multinational corporations, Director sounds much more professional.
https://intersango.com/about-us.php
"Having never suffered a break in or major technical error, we are confident in our abilities to lead bitcoin into its rightful place in the real world",
haha, that's a good one, he should go and work for RBS / Natwest, they need spin doctors like that.
"Donald believes that, just like clean water, food, basic shelter and education, people should have..."
Vomit!!
He has been developing free software fulltime for 10 years.
Jesus Christ that's a long time to be living in your moms basement.
If you look at their Companies House page then you can see they haven't actually filed any accounts yet, which is interesting, although they have to file next month, so I can't wait to see how much they're making.
Also they address they give, "3rd Floor 14 Hanover Street" is a virtual office, although to be honest that's not surprising, many small businesses do that, and it wouldn't be hard to find the real addresses of the Directors (Sorry CEO & CTO) anyway.
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Yeah lol that's the funny thing about it, they have ideas way above their station because really they are just 3 twats with silly name tags. This could come off as a bit of a generalisation but I find that people that are into I.T (which these guys are if you check their backgrounds) find it hard to grasp business/economics because the former is logic based and the latter is generally a subjective that is subject to irrationality/whim etc/emotion. Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule for example people like Steve Jobs (not Bill Gates though, he isn't that impressive if you think about it). I think the mindsets that you need to be one or the other are rarely compatible in an individual.
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Yeah lol that's the funny thing about it, they have ideas way above their station because really they are just 3 twats with silly name tags. This could come off as a bit of a generalisation but I find that people that are into I.T (which these guys are if you check their backgrounds) find it hard to grasp business/economics because the former is logic based and the latter is generally a subjective that is subject to irrationality/whim etc/emotion. Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule for example people like Steve Jobs (not Bill Gates though, he isn't that impressive if you think about it). I think the mindsets that you need to be one or the other are rarely compatible in an individual.
Yes indeed Lim; entrepreneurs also need to have strong social skills; I don't personally handle the loans to business start ups but we do have a "hall of fame" at work for the more amusing pitches from people who have decided their idea will revolutionise the world. Probably my favourite thus far was the 17 year old who decided he'd come up with an idea that was "bigger than eBay" but we couldn't read his business plan. Not because he hadn't written it (perish the thought!) but we might steal the idea and do it ourselves.
When he was turned down he magnanimously offered to secure the loan on his house which we later on found out belonged to his mother's husband. Plus se change...
V.
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sounds like an amateur to me vlad1m1r, he should have had your entire workforce sign a non-disclosure agreement in advance so that you couldnt steal his idea for eBay2.co.uk, im suprised he even told you his business plan existed, shit like that is top secret, need to fucking know basis, and just because you were going to fund it certainly doesnt mean you need to fucking know.
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sounds like an amateur to me vlad1m1r, he should have had your entire workforce sign a non-disclosure agreement in advance so that you couldnt steal his idea for eBay2.co.uk, im suprised he even told you his business plan existed, shit like that is top secret, need to fucking know basis, and just because you were going to fund it certainly doesnt mean you need to fucking know.
Thanks for reminding me UKMJ - he asked to sign a pact of secrecy, there were small amounts of bloodletting involved. Eventually after uttering terrible oaths and irrevocable promises we were made privy to "the plan".
Of course his conviction in his idea wasn't so strong that he saved up a few grand on the side (which he could easily do considering it transpired Mummy didn't charge him rent) and injected his OWN money into his bedroom operation...
I don't get overly worked up about Intersango as their current dragging of heels along with the RBS fiasco gave us Bitcoin traders in the UK a brief monopoly but I really don't understand their reasoning on the website which says that the bank's server was overwhelmed by numerous small deposits/withdrawals from Intersango's account - I work in a bank as you know and brokers for instance will make thousands of minute transactions every day in some cases, pull the other one I say!
V.
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Lol it's called lying Vlad, they are doing it in an attempt not to look like 3 incompetent World of Warcraft addicts.
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Lol it's called lying Vlad, they are doing it in an attempt not to look like 3 incompetent World of Warcraft addicts.
Your plan for an offshore exchange is looking more attractive with every passing minute... so long as you could daisychain it to a business account here in the UK... :-D
V.
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Lol it's called lying Vlad, they are doing it in an attempt not to look like 3 incompetent World of Warcraft addicts.
Your plan for an offshore exchange is looking more attractive with every passing minute... so long as you could daisychain it to a business account here in the UK... :-D
V.
I have actually been working on my b-plan for that in my spare time a lot lately. And LOL, yeah I could do that with my eyes closed dude, that's kid's stuff. ;)
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Lol it's called lying Vlad, they are doing it in an attempt not to look like 3 incompetent World of Warcraft addicts.
Your plan for an offshore exchange is looking more attractive with every passing minute... so long as you could daisychain it to a business account here in the UK... :-D
V.
I have actually been working on my b-plan for that in my spare time a lot lately. And LOL, yeah I could do that with my eyes closed dude, that's kid's stuff. ;)
Nice one, best of luck - I've been toying with the idea of (re)offering the investment opportunity I mentioned to users on here as I've now got my own trading account on LSE, was thinking maybe offering a return of 6% over a 30 day investment period what do you reckon? I realise this isn't nearly as lucrative as the "pirate" bonds on GLBSE but if I offered this as a PPN* I thought it might attract more buyers. I took your advice and decided against salting my funds away in Belize and thought maybe I could use them as a surety against investors' deposits, do let me know what you think. I want to make it clear I won't be encroaching on your territory here - returns would be in BTC only :-D
V.
*Principal Protected Note for the benefit of anyone else reading this - simply put it's an investment where you're guaranteed to get your original capital back.
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It was better when you could pay through a popular UK high street branch in person - anon. Now they use a bank which is called Metro Bank. A few branches in London but the rest of us cannot just walk in and write a pay-in slip with the ref number..
I know!!
Could they have picked a more obscure and inconvenient UK bank?
...reasons most likely Metrobank were new on the scene new branches opening in and around London boroughs (don't actually know if their
presence is just greater London..?!), they want more accounts opened and intersango needing to form new relationships; just like any
established business tend to get a big head and pick and choose customers..until customers avoid them or their products who eventually
close and are forced to move on...lesson is look after your customers no matter who they are or their social standing.
Peace
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Excellent and speedy service from Intersango. About 6 hours from deposit to receipt of BC, so no complaints here...
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Excellent and speedy service from Intersango. About 6 hours from deposit to receipt of BC, so no complaints here...
Like most things, when it works, it works well.
However when it screws up your left waiting for days on end.
There is no way of knowing if there will be a problem before it occurs, but when there was a problem Intersango had no plan in place to get bitcoins to their customers.. so we all had to wait for about a week. No chance of a refund, no chance of them manually performing transactions, no idea of an ETA.. just wait until its fixed.
If you are happy with that... cool, carry on.
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I have used them many times and the funds have always hit my account really quickly, the last few times they have been there within the hour. Be sure to check the deposit page to make sure you are sending to the correct account, and the support page to make sure they are processing deposits.
I agree that, like alot of bitcoin businesses, it's a little bit 'wild west'.
Does anyone know of a better option in the UK where I can go online banking >> bitcoins quickly and cheaply? I can't find anything else.
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I have used them many times and the funds have always hit my account really quickly, the last few times they have been there within the hour. Be sure to check the deposit page to make sure you are sending to the correct account, and the support page to make sure they are processing deposits.
I agree that, like alot of bitcoin businesses, it's a little bit 'wild west'.
Does anyone know of a better option in the UK where I can go online banking >> bitcoins quickly and cheaply? I can't find anything else.
They can be very fast as we said, whether they're safe or not is a different story - please see my posts above for more info.
V.
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I understand where you are coming from wrt safety. Clearly intersango is no good if you are keen to remain anonymous. I'm just buying a few bitcoins for some personal though, so I see no need to be worried.
I'd be interested to find a good alternative, in case they go down again. But I'm personally not comfortable sending cash in the mail or buying coins through the road.
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I understand where you are coming from wrt safety. Clearly intersango is no good if you are keen to remain anonymous. I'm just buying a few bitcoins for some personal though, so I see no need to be worried.
I suppose it depends whether you're using them to buy something illegal or not. If what you mean is you're buying personal quantities of drugs I'm afraid the fact you've bought Bitcoins can still be held against you... Of course if you're trading on the Bitcoin stock exchange or buying BTC for web space etc. then you have nothing to worry about.
As for sending cash in the mail, by all means use your local Craigslist if you'd rather buy your coins in person. However I would go so far as to say my own service is now more reliable than Intersangos as unlike them I keep a stockpile of Bitcoins to honour my customers' orders in case they f*** up again! :-)
V.
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Fair enough dude, guess it comes down to what the customer is comfortable with. Can't say I'm worried about the police tracking my coins and busting my quarter of weed :)
Might need you if Intersango tanks again. Good luck in your business!