Bitcoin Forum

Posting this in Newbies, to help anyone new to bitcoin, decide where to buy/sell bitcoins.

I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH COINBASE OR ANY OTHER EXCHANGE.  THIS IS JUST MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.


I was looking for a place to buy and sell small amounts of bitcoins, and I was recommended Localbitcoins.com.  I went there, and there are no sellers in my immediate area, and being a father of a few young children, plus employed full time, I do not have the time to drive 150 miles to make a trade in person.  So this caused me to start exploring alternative options.  I found coinbase, and gave it a shot.

I signed up on coinbase.com on August 9th.  Upon signing up, I received an email to verify my address.  I did so, and everything went very smoothly.  I proceeded to enter all of my personal information, including my banking info.  Coinbase advised me that they would be depositing 2 small amounts into my bank account, in a few business days, and that I was to return to the site at that time, and enter the amounts, to verify I was in control of the checking account.  It took about 2 business days for those to show in my account, and I was able to verify.

Upon verifying that part of my coinbase account, I was able to place an order.  I placed my order, and was told I would receive my bitcoins in 5 business days.  The reason for this, is so that they can pull the funds out of the account, and make sure that they are not immediately charged back, and to ensure that they receive their funds.  This is acceptable, especially since down the road, you will have the ability to buy instantly, with no hold time.  So, now, I wait.

On the 5th business day, I get a cancelled order notification.  My order was not cancelled due to high risk, as many have complained of.  My order was cancelled because I used my checking account I use through work (My work sets us up with a debit card, and deposits our check into it.  There is a routing and an account number linked to it, just as a checking account.) Apparently, this account is not set up to be able to handle ACH withdraws through it.  I confirmed this through the issuing bank, apologized to coinbase for the mistake, and attached my main checking account to my coinbase account.  I had to wait another few business days to verify, but that was my fault.

I was able to verify and place a new order, and this one went through fine.  I was very happy with their service.  I did have a few hiccups, and they are listed below:

Problems:

1: Verifying the identity by answering the personal questions can be tough.  They asked me for a phone number from like 10 years ago.  Also a few obscure questions from so long ago, I had to guess.  I failed the first time.  The second time (after a 24 wait period) was easier, and I was able to pass it.  Be prepared for some obscure, very old questions.  They asked me to name the street closest to an old address of mine, from like 2000.  I only lived there for like 3 months.  I had no idea.

2:  Support.  As widely reported, support can be slow to respond.  I sent 3 emails, PM'd Olaf here, and tried to call (voice mail full, no response).  I finally received a response, and all was fine.  Just a little slow.  They are actively hiring people though, and this will probably get better soon.  They are swamped, I can imagine.


Praise:

1. Fast:  Able to buy bitcoins quickly, once verified and through the waiting period.  Also, not a huge markup, and easy to sign up.  All you need is a checking account.  Most people have that already.  And, no need to worry about meeting a stranger, or being scammed.

2: Easy:  As above.


I think this is a great option for a new comer to bitcoins to use.  They are doing a great job.  I know there are a lot of hate threads out there, saying they cancelled orders, but this is because they need to be careful about making orders, as they could be opened up to people using stolen bank accounts, etc.  Or just buying and never paying.  I sincerely do not think they are cancelling orders as high risk, because of a price move.  They are backed by huge venture capitalist firms, I highly doubt that they are trying to gt one over.

Give it a shot.  If you have any questions, post here, and someone should help. 

I have found coinbase to be a great and easy way to buy BTC.    Its a lot easier than going down the high fee moneygram/zipzap route.

Just received my first small purchase from them last night, came through as expected in 5 business days. Need to purchase more so now I know what to expect. Kinda wish I had purchased more as the waiting period is a bit annoying.

My only question is how do I spend my balance? I figured I'd receive a new address with the balance in it, but the new address is empty. I'd like to send a payment, but how would I tell the recipient what the sent from address is to confirm? Would it be the new 0.00BTC balance address that was created? ???


Thanks for any help :).

When you receive your order, you go into your account, click on TRANSACTIONS, then click on Send Money.  You can then send to any bitcoin address.  I sent to my personal address, then send from there to whoever I wanted to get the btc.

Thanks. Yes I thought about doing this, but was wondering what would happen if you sent straight from the Transactions -> Send Money tab to the address of the recipient you'd like to pay. Would there be no way to confirm with them that it was sent by you? I'm not sure why a new address is even created for your purchase if it's empty.

If you send directly from your coinbase to another person, they would know it is from you.  Go to blockchain.info, enter the persons address after you send, and it will show your transaction, and you can see what address it was sent from.  Coinbase creates a new address for every transaction you make.  That address is also permanently yours, so if anyone ever sends anything to it, it goes into your coinbase account. 

It's not easy for most people...  I think they only sell bitcoins to the US, other people in other countries don't get the benefit :/

I am form the USA and can say so far my experience has been good. I purchased it a few days ago and it is still pending but I have seen the USD withdrawn from my bank account. It feels much safer than going with an overseas company since many more problems could occur. Will update if any problems occur but so far I will be using them for all my USD --> BTC transactions and vice versa

I just signed up. I verified my bank but I couldn't verify my id, they had questions from a while ago. I'll try again tomorrow.

Hey, this is Olaf from Coinbase.

If you have any questions about our service you can post here or PM me. Thanks for your interest!

And as some of you first-timer (like me) had experienced, you bought your first coins, waited five days, and tada--your first coins. You leveled up, bought another batch, and dang--you were flagged as high risk with your transaction revoked!

I emailed Coinbase about this, and I was pleasantly surprised Olaf manually reviewed my account and whitelisted it so that I would not have future problems. My second transaction was also being processed at the price of my original order.

So great experience after that short ordeal!

The sad story is that Bitcoin price is now lower than that purchase price--urgh...

Yea I bought at a high point also. Not coinbases fault though ;)

Yes of course not!

Why are my transactions now cancelled because they are high risk? This is really annoying. I am a level 2 customer who made successful bitcoin purchases via Coinbase in May, June, and July, and now all the sudden I am high risk.

I sent an email to customer support two days ago and haven't heard back yet.

Sorry about that! Just reviewed your transaction - you are now whitelisted. Apologies for the false positive!

they are good i used them before +1

I love Coinbase! I love that you can verify your ID and purchase instantly.

@Olaf: Thanks for the wonderful service CB provides, along with the API's.

Thanks Olaf. I can confirm that Olaf took care of the issue ~2 hours after receiving a PM from me.

Nice to meet you Olaf! I'm a happy Coinbase user. My initial application went though without any issues.

Olaf is very good at getting problems solved, just remeber that they are understaffed, and are hiring people to help get support times up.  But if you contact them, they will definitely get your issues solved.  Great company

Here is my experience with Coinbase.

The sign up was good and I appreciated the complexity of the questions to move me to level 1. I also failed the first time, but second time I got my answers right. I was a little concerned about entering in my bank account info to a company on the net, but I did it with an account that has very little funds and no overdraft protection; so I felt OK. My first transaction went off without a hitch. Didn't like the 5 day wait, but that is their policy; so fine. After the first went through, I felt more confident; so I place my second order and third order. After 4 days, I got a cancellation notice that I was "high risk" and that they would not be issuing me my coins. To top it off, they said that they would be issuing me a refund of the amount in another 3-4 days. The capricious nature of the email made me feel like I was a bad guy even though they were the ones keeping my funds for 8 days. After I complained, they released the funds immediately, but I would rather have had the coins (wish I had known Olaf!). Still waiting to see if my third order goes through today.

My biggest complaint is that the last of communication during the holding time. If they consider my transaction "high risk", place it on hold and let me know what I can do to get me off the high risk category. Need more info? Need to talk to me personally? Whatever they want they can have. If I don't supply them the info, they have every right to protect themselves and cancel the order. I just didn't like how it all went down.

All in all, I like the service. I don't mind waiting for the coins as I am not in a hurry. But the way the cancellation was handled, left a *very* sour taste in my mouth.

***Update*** The third transaction went through with out a hitch. I think that part of the issue on the second order was that I was attempting to upgrade myself to Level 2 and was having some difficulty. If you have an order pending, don't muck with trying to change your status. Either up your level first or wait for all of your transaction go through and then up your level.

I have been using them for a while now and for the most part have no issues. Back when the price fluctuated a lot when the price went down considerably I could never buy any bitcoins. Something about they reached their limit or something but cashing out has always been pretty easy. Fortunately I never had a need for support.

Awesome review! I agree on all fronts. It took me four tries over five days to answer their verification questions correctly. It was also tough to get my address entered correctly—just keep trying different versions and spellings if you're having trouble. My problem ended up being that I needed to spell out the word eleventh in 11th avenue.

Let's log a complaint here.

I am not sure what is going on, but i bought 1btc last monday for x amount of dollars. They said i would have my btc on friday. I said ok, that is fine. Come friday, i juat found out that i dont have my btc but a fraction of it. What the hell? I bought 1btc at a set price on monday, i am expecting 1btc on friday. Apparently, they deposited enought btc in my account to cover the money they withdraw on monday, and since the price has gone up, the money does not buy 1btc today. What the hell again? I emailed them, so let's see how long it will take them to reapond and fix the problem. If they dont, i will log a complaint with my bank and with the state attorney general because that constitutes theft. It is ridiculous.

What criteria does Coinbase use to determine if a user is "High Risk"?

I've never used CoinBase, but most BTC gurus I know seem to avoid it.

Anybody have any issues selling bitcoins through them, particularly larger amounts? I theoretically have a 50 BTC/day selling limit. I wonder what would happen if I tried to do that?

I've heard that their wallets aren't the most secure option, but what about the buying process? I'd like to here some "gurus" chime in on that aspect. For novices it's probably the easiest broker.

Literly just placed my first order for 1btc with coinbase. It says that I will get it on the 3rd of Dec. I will keep you guys posted.

I have also used them and have had a good experience so far and hopefully it stays that way. As mentioned in other replies, make sure you are ready to verify your identity with very old info.

Dear Olaf,

As mentioned above, I made my first purchase last night at the price of 916$. I am expected to recieve my bitcoin on the 3rd of December. I have been reading certain OLDER reviews about issues in which your company will arbitrarily claim that a transaction was "high risk" as an excuse to refund the payment and capitalize on the rise in price of the btc from the time the purchase was made by the customer and the 5 days or so that you release the btc to the customer. 

I hope this is no longer  your company's practice. I have no problem proving thy my transaction is not fraudulent, and if necessary, I hope you ALLOW customers to prove their legitimacy as opposed to conducting the arbitrary practice discussed above which is essentially and arbitrage scheme at the expense of customers.

We will see how this turns out.

I welcome a response.

Thanks

After research with the goal of identifying the best online bitcoin service site I selected Coinbase.com. It is US based and offers the services I needed to buy and sell bitcoin. Not knowing for sure just what I migh need, I wanted level 2 status. As other members have stated, the questions for level 2 are real tricky! It took me 6 tries but I made it. Jeez! I was asked when I bought a truck but what they wanted is the dated of the title transfer not the purchased date. I was asked which of 4 roads was near my home - I've never heard of any. I could go on but I mentioned this to encourage users to keep trying.

Thus far I've only purchased BTC - it went as expected. Time will tell.

I have had excellent experience with Coinbase. The couple of times I was confused they got right back to me. The only think I question is allowing you to stay logged in. That seems a little risky for a bank.

Coinbase has definitely improved.  Last April I bought 10 bitcoins through coinbase at 120.   When the coins finally arrived, I only received 7.3, because the value had gone up.  A week later, I purchased another 10 bitcoins at 230.  When the bitcoins finally came in a week later, I got ten bitcoins, even though the price has dropped to about 120.  In other words, Coinbase just gave you bitcoins at whatever price it felt like.

I would like to know people's experience with selling BTC at coinbase.  I have my first big power bill coming soon and don't want to have any issues selling a few hundred dollars worth of BTC.  Are there delays and will they keep the quoted sell price even if the transaction happens at a later time? 

I have done a few sells all but one went through to my bank account on the exact day they promised. The other one was inexplicably canceled and the BTC put back into my account, but I can't complain because the price at that point was higher than when I sold.

But in the future, you never know. I would not count on perfect execution to pay your power bill. Start the process with some extra time and make contingency plans "just in case."

Unfortunately I have found Coinbase to be one big bad joke. It took me 3 weeks and endless emails to verify myself to the teeth, providing all my personal and financial information, just to have transactions cancelled and told I'm high risk. I'm extremely annoyed! And of course no advise or help on how to get this fixed. Not happy here!  >:(

Same as me. I'm now not able to buy or sell,cause because :-\

It seems like coin base just doesnt really accept whitelisting to buy larger amounts, since they want to avoid fraud.

Which is understandable from a business perspective, but there should be something to allow have a bit more purchase power.

So what if a low key millionaire decides to buy btc? lol.

It seems that Coinbase has come quite some way since 2013. They have now established themselves as the major bitcoin exchange for beginners and merchants in this space. I've written up a review about Coinbase https://www.bestbitcoinexchange.io/coinbase-review/ which takes these factors into account, while advocating the the work they have done to make purchasing BTC easy for everyone.


Yeah it seems like some community members dislike certain aspects of Coinbase. I've found that this usually boils down to Coinbase's early involvment in the block size debate, their delaying of access to Ethereum Classic coins after the DAO hardfork, and perhaps an over-patenting of terms such as 'bitcoin exchange' and other commonly used expressions like 'tip button'. 

Nevertheless, let's not forget that Coinbase provide access to customers over North America, Europe, and some parts of Asia - including credit card purchases too. They also offer insured bitcoin wallets, and multi-sig valut wallets for advanced bitcoiners.


Olaf Carlson-Wee became really successful within Coinbase. He no longer works there as he has founded his own altcoin investment company. There's actually an interesting interview done recently of Olaf on the epicenter bitcoin podcast where he talks about his early days at Coinbase with Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam.

Overall I had a positive experience with Coinbase, but I had friends sign up and experience slow support and difficulty raising limits.  The fees are also extremely high compared to Gemini.

The only problem I have is that it says that it can't verify my card info. I have to use bank transfers.