Bitcoin Forum

Well I got scammed by coinbase as of now. Sent like 7 emails. No response. Level 2. Bank verified. SSN Verified. Bought $6k before when price was pretty stable without a problem. Recently, Bought $20k worth of bitcoins a week ago. Now they're worth around $40k. Got, you guessed it, high risk emails.

What should I do? I tried emailing support but they aren't responding!

All I can say is..... stop using Coinbase. Day after day, these "high risk" cancellations pile up. If I had to get $20k in an exchange to buy coins, I'd wire to Bitstamp.

Would've posted this in the scam accusations section but can't cuz im new. But oh well, i hope Olaf sees this and fixes my issue. Though he did reply to one of my 7 emails but totally irrelevant information. Apart from that, coinbase support has been largely ignoring my issue.  :(

It seems like this becoming a common occurrence with many places these days. These companies are ramping up their due diligence for singing up their customers and dealing with high risk transactions. All I can say is make sure you are properly verified with proper identification and pray for the best!  Not much you can do at this point but switch to some other place.

Not much else to do but pray? Lawyers would beg to differ. :)

You would wire Bitstamp $20,000 from the US?

I have no reason to do that. I'm not buying more coins at these prices, even if we're going to $4000 on this run. But if I had to get $20k on an exchange? Yes. Though, depending on my financial ability to deal with having $20k potentially tied up, I might do it in increments of say $5k or $7k.

Same boat here, guys. I still have faith, though, that Coinbase will make things right. I just imagine they're a bit swamped right now.

what is coinbase?

The easiest place to buy bitcoins for people in the US, as you can reserve/buy with ACH transfer. But, obviously, they are plagued with complaints that they are cancelling people's reserved bids left and right, which obviously upsets people when bitcoin is rallying to the moon.

I think Coinbase is pretty bad. I had a problem with them before and it took them 6 days to respond to an email. They should really get their support team in shape.

I've had nothing but good experiences with them.  They were the first people I signed up with 4 months ago, and I've never had a problem. Everyone cries "scam" but if you get in contact with them, they honor the transaction and take you off the "risk" list.  I think there's just an algorithm lots of folks get caught up in.

If this is true, I'd feel a lot better. Unfortunately, I haven't seen many reports of a satisfactory resolution to this issue. Then again, on forums, people tend to scream very loudly when they have a problem, and once it has been resolved, they don't update on the situation...

I'm starting to feel that coinbase is turning into MT.GOX.
Do they still have your money, if they don't even offer a refund, sue their ass :P
Cheap, cheap cheap.

As much as I'd love to believe that they'll honor their side of the deal and stay lawful, as every day goes by, the future becomes more and more bleak. I've sent them tons of emails. Tweeted them a billion times. Messaged their facebook page a gazillion times and all I get is what? No response. I'm not sure if I should take this to court, but if this prolongs any longer, I'm not backing down and getting ripped off by this company.

They haven't done this to "instant" buyers, only delayed, correct?

Incorrect. I'm Level-2, fully verified, made several successful buys in the past (both instant and non-instant), and my two "Instant Buys" this past weekend were both canceled as "high risk."

I don't think they're scamming -- I just think they're having some issues right now. Hope they get things sorted out soon because I've recommended Coinbase to everyone I know and I've loved them until these issues.

use an offline wallet. coinbase also stole 6$ worth of BTC from me once,never came back. these sites are just like banks,they can take your money when ever they want.

They sought applications for remote based support team, never called anyone back from what ive seen. A shame, if more orders could be filled the price would be even higher right now.

Instant buyers get coin instantly.

source: I am instant verified. Feel bad for the folks unable to get coins during this run.

In a perfect world, yes. With Coinbase, not always.

As I noted above, I'm Level-2, fully verified, and my "Instant Buys" this past weekend were still canceled as "high risk."

The most I've spent on Coinbase at a single time was about $9,000 and it went through fine (delayed). I also bought about $4,000 in another transaction (instant) and it went through fine.

Maybe it also depends what bank you're using? or how long you've had your coinbase account? If you're comfortable answering these 2 questions online maybe we can figure out what's going on, like if there are specific banks that are constantly having problems getting Coinbase to accept them, etc.

I've never bought through them yet, but do they promise a price when you send the funds, or do the funds end up in your account (MtGOx style), then you use those funds to make market or limit order purchases?

Then I don't understand why they would have a high-risk cancellation at all?

~BCBT~

Online wallets are turning out to be a horrific experience. It's better to create wallets with desktop clients and stay low-key.
 Just my .02BTC
:)

I'm instant verified, have made several trades, and I've never had a problem. Is it possible that your bank could be flagging the transactions as high risk and CB is just reacting to that?

One suggestion for folks who are having this problem and haven't received a response from CB support: consider posting your experience on Reddit. I've noticed several users who have posted about these problems get the attention of CB staff who watch BTC subreddits. At least it's worth a shot.

Here are a couple of recent examples:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1pwbk9/coinbase_support_is_nonexistent_when_a_problem/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qha4e/coinbase_order_cancelled_because_i_was_considered/

Good luck!

Yeah I was thinking that too. If most of your transaction activity is $5 payments to Pizza Hut, and then Coinbase tries to pull $20,000 from your account, your bank is going to flag it. Also a lot of US banks don't allow you to wire more than a $x,xxx without you physically being at the bank, so you could check if that's the reason - the transfer will appear to initiate in Coinbase but then your bank will block it.

Why does everyone still ignore us when we say "don't fucking use web wallets"?  ???

Speaking as a bitcoin noob, if we don't use Coinbase, what better way is there to buy bitcoin with USD? Coinbase seems like the best/easiest solution.

Why don't my friends west of the river use BTC-e? As a brit it seems like the most obvious choice for anyone with access to USD.

if you can trade p2p, do that. check the marketplace for offers. localbitcoins too. if i wanted money on an exchange, i would do it p2p. personally, if i had to fund an exchange conventionally (bank wire, etc), i would do it knowing that my funds would not be available until received/cleared. these "high risk" cancellations are happening far too often.

I tried using BTC-e and it was virtually impossible to get USD into the account. The info provided on their site for US wires is incorrect and US banks don't accept it. So when I wanted to buy LTC on BTC-e, I bought BTC on Coinbase instant then immediately transferred the BTC to BTC-e and traded it for LTC ... which sort of makes BTC-e quite useless for us Americans.

i guess i just come from a different perspective. when i first started investing in crypto, i never attempted to fund an account conventionally. all those payment processor services come off SUPER shady. i would never touch them. cash is king -- teller deposit or cash in hand <-> bitcoin or btc-e code! there are so many people looking to buy and sell p2p, why do it any other way?

of course, if you want to market buy $20k, you may need a bank wire......