Hidden Fees

I tried out MEW yesterday to make a swap and was sideswiped by fees.

I tried swapping $300 USDT to MATIC and from what I thought I was agreeing to, was supposed to cost me $12.xx in transaction fees. When it was said and done it cost over $25!

This transaction ended up with three transaction numbers with these separate fees..

  • $14.46
  • $3.39
  • $0.37

…but the real kicker was the 2.5% that was deducted from the USDT right off the top. So I ended up with $294.42 worth of MATIC, with $18.22 in fees, costing in total $25.72.

I tried contacting support and was told they would have to “contact their team” and would get back later. I received my response today and it's about as sleezy as it comes.

My manager got back to me and explained it to me. The integrated provider/partner does always take a fee, but MEW gets a part of their fee as per the partnership agreement, so technically MEW does not charge ITS OWN fee. That means you would off had to pay that 2.5% fee regardless if you did the transaction with us or directly with them.

I am still new to crypto, but it's hard to put my faith in a service that obfuscates its fees behind double speak. When you go to make a transaction, the little help blurb about transaction fees states…

“Transaction fees are charged by Ethereum miners, not MEW. We can't influence them and we don't receive any part of the transaction fees that you pay.”

So I understand the fees are the fees, but if they are hidden and there is no real way to know exactly what something is going to cost before making the purchase, it's really hard to do business that way.

Is it too much to ask to see EXACTLY what the transaction is going to cost you before agreeing to it?

Not cool.

Hidden Fees