A few weeks back, I started a thread about 0Fiat.
So, 0Fiat is supposed to be a platform for making payments on sites like Amazon and eBay. Unfortunately, I’m here to share some not-so-great news about them. I can’t just stay quiet after what happened.
Seriously, avoid using 0Fiat. They’re not trustworthy at all. I lost $450 trying to buy a monitor on Amazon. The way they handle payments is super confusing. They convert your crypto into an Amazon gift card for payment, and they never made that clear until it was too late.
Amazon doesn’t even recognize 0Fiat, which raised all kinds of flags for them. Consequently, my account got banned. The 0Fiat team provided this lame proof of purchase, but it wasn’t convincing at all.
Here’s the so-called proof they gave me.
But this doesn’t count as a proper receipt for that Amazon gift card. I tried explaining why this wouldn’t work, but they just told me to deal with Amazon and ended up banning my account.
I felt it was important to share my experience here after using their service. It really stings because I saved up for that money after my old monitor kicked the bucket. Sorry to bring this up without having tested them properly first, but I was influenced by the positive feedback about their services and rushed to share this.
You shouldn't share something on the forum that you haven't tested. There are a lot of innocent people who would jump to use it without verifying anything, and at the end of the day, they might be deceived. You should move your old thread to archive and lock; you must apologise for that as well. You really can't trust all the discussion or reviews on the internet; they could be manipulated easily.
There are a lot of crypto cards; if you have KYC issues, then you can choose a non-KYC-reputed card to purchase from the online shops. It's easier than using a third-party payment solution like this. If something went wrong, then you can solve your issues by yourself since you will have all the access. Make sure you aren't sharing something in the future on the forum that you haven't tested.
You have a point, this is my bad, I did it because I have watched many crypto YouTubers promoting 0Fiat, it was a massive campaign, and some of them even use the service to pay on Amazon, and it went through, mine went through too but Amazon decides to say no this time.
What I believed that 0Fiat did wrong was not informing or working with Amazon itself just as how Bitpay worked with many online stores, I will never risked $450 on something that I just read about online.
You can do me a favour and type 0fiat on YouTube and see for yourself, I will make amend on the old thread immediately.
I once had an Amazon gift card that I bought with crypto deposited into my regular amazon.com account. It was an account with around 10 orders over the span of maybe 5 years. I don't live in the US so an item would have to really be something special for the purchase to be worthwhile.
Anyway, minutes after I deposit the card. Account is restricted. Nothing can be done. It's essentially view only mode.
I contact support and they say the only way to unlock my account is to FAX IN my documents. That was in the year of our lord 2018. I'm pretty sure Amazon still continues to use fax as an anti fraud practice today.
Anyway, the crypto to goftcard pipeline was never meant to be reliable.
Literally nobody knows if these cards were purchased with stolen money. Now the 0fiat people have your crypto and good luck getting anything back from them.
Given that Amazon isn't an anon service if you intend to ship to your home, might as well use a bank card next time.
Hopefully working with Amazon now you can recover your funds in your account. Good luck.
If you are using a third party app, then it is only understandable that you are not going to get what you desire. It has been clear since day one, if you use something that is not amazon approved, then you are taking a huge risk trusting that place and you did, and you learned the hard way.
It's good that you share here though, because this means that you are going to help other people who have not used it yet but thinking about using it, so that they could be getting more ready to it.
I think I will compare it to watching unauthorized movies, sports from a third party app or website who are most likely just stealing from the source and giving you views which most times can expose you to big dangers like bugs or you can get hacked.
If third party app are you only option then don't get it until you can find and alternate to it.
Although I think it is important we talk about the fact that because it works doesn't mean it's safe, as long as it is an unauthorized third party then it is not safe.
Sometimes when these services launch they recruit people to speak positively about them online just to create the impression like they are offering good services and have been tested by individuals organically But sometimes these reviews are not to be trusted except you can verify the source of where the review is coming from otherwise you did not need to trust it completely because companies can influence the opinions of individuals. So before you recommend a service, try to make sure that you have reviewed it to avoid leading people to bad companies or apps that will steal from them, and then at the end you may be blamed for it.
Am glad you were brave enough to share your experience with other users of Amazon here, to avoid a repeat of such scenario.
It is also of no consequence to note that Amazon don't joke around about banning accounts that use unverified gift cards and this just proves that.
I still think that the account can be recovered if you can contact the Amazon support and be honest about how you used a third party payment processor without realizing it was fraudulent in its operations.
You should also be aware that Amazon can see the card history and that should be a point for you to hold onto when making your claims to the Amazon support, because you were clearly just a victim and you can prove it and they can be lenient to recover your account if you show you have opted for a different more genuine payment method to use for future transactions.
This is why before you share any thing either on social media platforms or even on the forum, you have to make sure that you are sure of what you sharing with people. The reason is because anything that you share which eventually leads people to losing their money the trust people have on you will gradually fade away. On the forum you will be seen as a scammer and a potential threat to others so you need to be very careful and very verify every information before posting on the forum.
But , it good of a thing that you are coming back with this counter Post, do that people who most have come across your thread will take note and be more careful and have no dealing with the said payment platform.
It is a tough lesson learnt that even when a site or product is being recommended we should be able to do proper researches before using it. Sorry about your lost but next time try before you markets or recommends a website try as much you can to verify its legitimacy so that you don't blindly mislead others.
You also did well to come out here and condemns your attitude but then you have become the scapegoat after being victimized by same illegal site you recommends for others.
You must be lucky that others from the forum did not fall the victim otherwise as your Amazon account is being banned so your forum account should had be at stake too because it would be assumed you were part of the scamming team.
Just be careful with what actually feel to be to golden and achievable.
It seems I should be careful too, after hearing about your experience. so Id also like to thank you for sharing your experience with one of the services youve tried. Because of this, I might have to remove this one from the list of services I previously wanted to try. And to be honest, this has even made me hesitant to use third-party services again. although, personally, I rarely shop on Amazon, there are times when I have to shop there for items that are hard to find on my local marketplace. Fortunately, I rarely make large purchases. Maybe Ill just stick with my Mastercard as usual.
Haven't experience it yet. I mean getting a bug or to get hacked from watching movies offered by a 3rd party but ads maybe (plenty of them). But it is understandable since we are using their service for free. We can only treat it like a fee to them. As for the games, maybe it is the ones that had more risk, especially if we are using a PC or a laptop because I think phones are more robust. But, these are still not that harsh when compared to our main topic, since there is direct involvement of money there already.
Finding alternative may seem not different from using a 3rd party though. Unless you mean if we try other big shops too like Alibaba, Shopify, Temu, etc.. Yes mate that a 3rd party app or service may be legit but other problems may still arise if they are not authorized. However the chance for this is still small I believe. Meanwhile, being scammed is still the worse.
Are those YouTubers influential? Have you shared your story with them publicly? Maybe they'll put pressure on this new service so they can reimburse you somehow, although the chance is quite small. Personally, I haven't been following crypto social media lately, so I don't even know which YouTubers are known for promoting scams or not. Maybe they'll promote something shady like the previous Honey scandal, so we need to be extra careful if they're advertising something like this.
Honestly the level of scam platforms online is actually very very alarming and one really needs to be very careful and cautious while using any of this platforms, most times I try to get informations about very reputable casino here on the forum and that's why informations about a platform should be verified by yourself before asking people to use the platform anyways it's a very good one you have come out make us see how unreliable and deceitful they can be and by so doing you have been able to save people falling into the same mistake that also made and that is a very good thing to.
When you are leaving all of your money at the hands of someone you are not sure about, you are taking exactly the risk as OP is taking. Literally same situation as gambling or exchanges, if you deposit money to some exchange or to some casino, you are just hoping that you will be allowed to withdraw, but you can never be sure all the way until you actually do withdraw. That is why I do suggest that you always search online and get to see what other people say about it at a third party place so you can be sure.
Or, you can simply take the advantage of bitcoin, specially designed for all cross border payments. A little knowledge on how to handle payment and on how to get in and get back to fiats in safe methods can help you get rid off relying on random people.
There is no any crossborder payment system that is as based as the use of Bitcoin on a decentralized platform, because this will give us the control to which we have to make our transaction more conveniently, fast, and at cheaper rate without the alteration from any centralized authority or institution, that is why bitcoin was introduced to be used as a more suitable digital currency for cross border payment and many other transactions that we may try to perform within the financial economy.
This is a painfull experince to bear. Imagine what $450 would do for you in this currenet economic? But thats by the way though.
The mistake you did was to trust the YouTubers and linfueneers promoting 0Fiat. In this era, no promoter is to be trusted, because they are there to make money. When there is something new, always do a personal review on it, even with an amount that is afford to lose before using it for bigger transactions.