Fair fx prepaid travel cards

ankspon

My wife recently applied for one of these cards,it says they will send an e-mail an to click on the link to confirm application.After doing this i tried to add money to the card but it declined the transaction,i tried again using another card,again declined.I e-mailed Fair fx and they wanted me to send passport numbers etc to confirm identity,this worried me,are they genuine?

2010

Have you activated your FairFX card?

ankspon

Yes, i clicked on the link that was sent with the e-mail but it didn't make a difference,i am wary they want passport details as confirmation of identity

dzug1

FairFx are genuine, very much so.

The only point of doubt is are you communicating with the real Fair fx.

2010

davidhwdn wrote: »

Yes, i clicked on the link that was sent with the e-mail but it didn't make a difference,i am wary they want passport details as confirmation of identity

Give them a ring.

020 7778 9300

ankspon

I presume they are genuine,it was a link through MSE which saved the initial cost of the card

jimimaseye

I have been through the same process for registration and purchasing the card. I too had the 'online identity check' problem

This was the sequence:

1, Receive the failure notice on the website
2, send an email (as suggested by the website at time of failure) to enquiries@fairx explaining the situation
3, Receive an email in reply informing you to provide passport or drivers license details. You can email or ring through the details.
4, Ring them and give your details.
5, Confirmed. No problem
6, Buy your card

As the woman on the phone explained, they perform a security check to prevent fraud. Possible reasons for failure are lack of tracing of your name on the electoral role (for example) due to moving house recently (which was the case for me), or missing/differently listed middlename/initials compared to the reference agency listing, etc. They took my drivers number and whilst on the phone entered it into their computer and received confirmation immediately from DVLA confirming my name and address and that I was me! From then on all was good.

I had no reason to suspect anything dodgy having spoken to them (and indeed it was doubts that made me call in the first place instead of sending the ID reference by email to ensure I wasnt speaking to some hooky guy in Nigeria!) Of course it was still a phone call, and I cant see who I am dealing with but I was sufficiently confident this is genuine (as genuine as anyone can be without physically working for them!)

Hope this helps you all.

By the way, other info:

If you use the POUND ("Anywhere") card to buy outside of the UK, or the EURO card ouside of Euroland, there will obviously be a exchange rate conversion from the local currency to your cards currency. I asked them what tha rate is. She told me that it will be the Mastercard Wholesale Rate, however Mastercard (unlike Visa) never publish that daily rate. She did tell me though that they (FairFX) think that based on experience the rate is about 0.3% off the daily market rate. Even if its 0.5%, this is still very comparable to Visa and acceptable. I suspect they are very similar to Visa anyway so why not check Visa's rate-of-the-day which is pretty much the same as appearing on yahoos currency converter: uk.finance.yahoo.com/currencies/converter/?u#from=GBP;to=EUR;amt=1
(visa's recommendation: visaeurope.com/personal/travellingabroad/exchange.jsp )

You should also know (I confirm) that their telephone number was 020 7778 9300. I tell you this because it doesnt seem that they publish any phone number on their site other than being embedded in some 'corporate client FAQ' (which for me is annoying).

Hope this helps people. It certainly gets my vote.

silverhairgranny

This happened to me, I gave them a ring.
No problems
Loaded and used card twice.