Yeah, obviously because of legal restrictions they can't just open accounts under a client's name, so they came up with this little workaround where they just open a massive pile of accounts in their own names and then hand them out to clients one by one...
Kevin Morris12 said:The issue is they restrict how you spend your balance—it's strictly limited to actual retail transactions, whether you're shopping online or walking into a store. You can't use their card to top up a Chime account or any other similar service; you'll get an instant notification in the app telling you that the transaction isn't allowed. At first, I thought it was just some glitch or a temporary block within the app, but then their customer support confirmed that this is actually intentional behavior.
The card is a Visa debit Prepaid (available both virtually and physically). The BIN and IBAN are based in Poland, though you share those identifiers with other users. As for currencies, you can choose from USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, and PLN.
By the way, has anyone here tried signing up for Expensify? They are incredibly popular in the States, and they've finally expanded into the European Union, having started shipping cards across the EU earlier this month. They even offer crypto options. Looking at their Twitter feed, it seems like Europeans are absolutely thrilled that they've finally arrived, even if the service isn't a carbon copy of what they offer back in the US...
Huh, according to their website, they say something else entirely:
Do I get a unique IBAN with DiPocket? We provide unique IBANs for every customer for every currency of customer’s accounts.
Kevin Morris12 said:So, if I’m remembering this correctly, there's just a one-time setup fee for the card and then everything else is free on a monthly basis?
But yeah, you're right—it's a lot. That kind of pricing might fly in the US, but it's a bit harder to swallow here.
The fee schedule for American cards is actually pretty interesting. There are a ton of line items, most of which are just zeroed out. I bet other American card processors charge for all of that, so these guys probably just go with the "pay once and everything else is free" model...
It’s a one-time thing. Even though the website and the app claim the membership fee for that essential card is just 25 bucks, when you actually go to checkout, it tries to pull 50... either it’s a glitch or there’s some hidden fee they aren't being upfront about. For cards issued in the EU, there's a currency conversion fee of 0.57 bucks plus another 1.5% (but if you're using a US card, it's free). They claim to support a ton of different currencies (including the old local stuff), but all I see in my app is USD, EUR, and a literal mountain of random crypto...
electricbadger89 said:I mean, if you can just use Chime to pay for things virtually, why bother hitting an ATM at all?
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That was a whole ordeal for me too. At first, my Chime account kept rejecting everything because apparently, my address verification wasn't clearing. I ended up reaching out to Western Union support, and they spent some time back-and-forth with Chime—they even looped me into the email chain. After a few weeks of waiting, things finally started working. Honestly, I have no clue if it was because of all that complaining or if it just fixed itself after enough time passed...
That’s the total. But you can bump that number up if you send over some extra paperwork—like proof of address or showing where your money's coming from. The basic tier is always free and there's no hard ceiling on how much you can move, other than that initial limit...
I’ve only ever messed with the virtual one. Honestly, I haven't used it much besides trying to move some top-up funds back over to Chime. You can't even link it to PayPal. One weird little detail, though—they actually use 3D Secure via SMS, which is kind of an odd touch... As for the physical card (which I don't have), it's pretty interesting that ATM withdrawals are fee-free, though they cap you at about $2,700 a year.
I signed up, but I don't really use the site. I tried that whole thing where you send $1.50 to different cards—tried it from a bunch of different accounts too—but couldn't get it to work once...
I only ever use it to shuffle money between my own accounts at different banks just to dodge those transfer fees. I'm definitely not using it for credit card cash advances or anything like that.