Podex, a company who have been running Linden Dollar Exchange Services for a while are now offering a VISA Electron Card that can be loaded with Linden Dollars and then used as a normal VISA Electron Card outside of Second Life.
This is a novel move, it’s a prepaid card, you can load it via bank transfer or via an inworld Podex exchange, it’s also as far as I’m aware, unchartered territory, and with no announcement of Linden Lab of the existence of such a card, it’s a move that will raise questions regarding its legitimacy, as exemplified by this thread on the official forums asking if it’s a scam.
The card isn’t free, you pay L$10,000 at a Podex terminal, or you can purchase it via Paypal for 30 Euros, USD$40 or £25. The cost of the card is explained here. However, with Podex being relatively unknown outside of Second Life, and not that well known within it, this is something that will make people nervous.
The blurb informs us:
Anonymity. Podex Card is completely anonymous. No personal veryfication is required. You simply pay into the card with lindens from Second Life and use it in Real Life.
Wide use. You can use it for Internet transactions, payments in real shops or withdraw cash from any ATM worldwide. Just like any other VISA credit or debit card.
Easy access. You can check your account balance and history by SMS as well as a telephone Helpline (24 /7 in English, Spanish and Polish).
No fees for L$ exchange. You do not have to pay any fees or royality fees to Linden Lab or Paypal. You receive exactly what you earn for your Second Life linden dollars.
No fees for currency exchange. Podex card is in your local currency (EURO, USD, GBP) so you are not charged for currency exchange.
Fast charge. No more waiting to obtain funds from exchange. You sell your lindens and money is on your card usually within the same day.
Perfect gift. The Podex card is no-name and transferable. You are able to give it to someone and the person becomes next legal owner of Podex Card.
Free shipping. The Podex card is delivered directly to your door or postbox for free.
This isn’t a card for within Second Life only, there’s a picture of the card on the website and on the back it has the InSL logo, it just seems to me to be a novel way of loading a pre-paid visa card, whether it’s good value for money isn’t something I could comment on and I certainly can’t comment on how trustworthy Podex are, but I don’t think this is a scam, Podex are linked to a Polish bank, whom I’m not familiar with!
The concept is one I quite like, it seems like this sort of card could be an alternative to Paypal for getting money out of Second Life and using a pre-paid card to go shopping on the Internet but I couldn’t vouch for reliability here, it will be interesting to see how this pans out, hopefully very well. However there is one point, people have difficulty paying tier and memberships with pre-paid cards!
i can happily say i have been using podex fo rme second life withdrawels for the last few weeks with no problem, money is sent to my bank within about 3 days, i recently paid for the podex visa card about a week ago and it has just arrived this morning, yet to use it though.
Hi,
there is a way to see online “History Transfers” and “Balance” ?
If yes, where?