Bitcoin Forum

This message is aimed at users Nejc Kodric (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=38966) and hazek (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=5266) of Bitstamp, in the hope of them reading it.

Other Bitstamp users, please feel free to add to this thread.


Dear Nejc, Hazek

I don't know if you realize this, guys, but the sentiment is turning around against Bitstamp. Until recently, everyone in here used to bash mtgox exclusively, and rightfully so I guess. For the past year or so, Bitstamp had a lot of good will on their side.

This is changing. Rapidly.

Go read any of the many threads complaining  about Bitstamp. Or a random thread on the economy or speculation subforum, and you will find more and more criticism.

I don't want to be unfair. I understand a lot of things are not under your direct control. But there are some things that are under your control, and it appears you're not dealing with those swiftly enough.

Communication: You are now officially just as bad as mtgox when it comes to communication/PR. During the entire banking software problem period, we got two meager public updates on twitter: one in the beginning, saying there is a problem, and one after it was all over. That's not enough! Keep your users updated at least once every 24 hours when the shit hits the fan! It's really not that difficult, so why do we have to beg for this?

Website speed & stability: I don't know if you're under DDoS attacks regularly, or if you just had too much of a surge of new users, but your website's performance is abysmal lately. Again, I understand not everything is under your direct control (like DDoS), but at least let us know what you guys are doing to change this. Currently, during any large rally, there's a 50/50 chance the website is either completely down, or so slow it's nearly unusable. A dysfunctionally slow website is the death sentence for any exchange, can't you people understand this? So at least say something about the damn topic.

There are more points I could add (it looks to me like you need to hire additional staff to handle your increased user base; a number of people have pointed out what appears to be flaws in your trading engine, but you guys never even once bothered to respond to their questions), but the two points above are by far the biggest ones.

Solve them. As soon as you can. Or you will end like mtgox: hated by a majority of users, and ultimately abandoned in favor of a better competitor (which, for a while, was Bitstamp).

If you cannot solve some problem immediately (like the banking software, deposit delays, etc), then at least communicate with us on a regular basis. If this takes too much time away from your core team, then hire someone for this job.

-- An formerly satisfied, now rather angry Bitstamp user.

thanks oda.krell for bringing this up.
my personal experiences so far:
site is regularly down or so laggy that it is impossible to trade there. (i suppose it's ddos, but it also happens from time to time during low volume phases, so i'm not sure what's exactly the problem)
i experienced it several times that it took numerous clicks and even more than 3 minutes until placed orders got cancelled.
not to mention the 2FA-Auth-problem when your key gets invalid because loading time of the site is too long.
shortly after the US capitol hearing and the fast fall of value i wasn't able to place any orders because site was either too slow or had repeated downtime,

imagine some bad news turn up (regulation in usa or china...whatever), you have to make a fast decision and can neither cancel nor place an order - or can't login in the first place.
this is not acceptable and can cost you a lot of coins or fiat...


oh and i won't start with the deposit/withdrawal problems. (luckily i haven't experienced it personally so far):

BITSTAMP SEPA account "no transfer" countries/banks' list (upd 2013-11-23)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270716.0

+1 and down again ...

Furthermore, when the banking and network issues were "resolved" my monthly USD trading volume was reset to 0 which means I pay a fee of 0.5% again. Even worse, I already did some trades and the trading volume is still 0 USD WTF?!

I mean seriously, is this a joke? or a scam? or what?

Really frustrated too - I was on Bitstamp before I was on Mt Gox, as I am based in Europe.

I had to fight to find an easy way to fund my account, fight to give you my custom... and I have been reasonably loyal.

However, just when we need credible and stable exchanges in a relatively new and exciting marketplace, it all goes to pot.

Awfully slow running, ages trying to log in... Trapped in trades, unable to log on to adjust - I am sure my own pain has been worse for others, but it is still enough to make me wish there was somewhere else to go.

Looking after the customers who can (and will) soon be able to go elsewhere must surely be the number one priority for you.

At least make it look like it is?

If things go wrong - communicate somehow, let your customers know - you would make us all feel a little like you actually cared.

Which would be a start if you wanted to repair your tattered reputation.

It's a bug, but for fairness sake, it only seems to affect the *displayed* values, not the actual calculation.

Check it yourself in the "transactions" window... I suspect it'll be the same as for me: the account overview claims I pay 0.5%, but in reality, my actual fee was lower.

Ok, checked the transactions log and you're right. The fee is still the expected amount.
But still, as you've written in your first post already, they *could* have communicated that. I mean if there is one thing they don't want to lose now it's credibility and that's not done by *not* communicating IMO.

Bitstamp was down once again, when there will be an exchange that cares about their long-time brand? Maybe bitcoin is shown us now that it has power to stay here awhile, maybe that will courage entrepreneurs to really make an exchange that doesn't fuck things up, at least nearly ever.

I thought that stamp would be better when I moved from gox few months back, but it seems that bitstamp didnt have enough users/volume back then to show us what it truly is. Now would be very crucial time to upgrade hardware/software so that bitstamps brand doesnt take anymore hits, because when you lose your brand you don't get it back.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r4d6t/bitstamps_streaming_api_and_exploitation/ This is also interesting, thoughts?

I wanna tell and here my story. I sent 4400 euro to Bitstamp on 11 november. They receive my money on 12 november (i know this because i have delivery receipt issued from my  Ing Bank office).  After all this time Bitstamp dont put my money on balance. I sent them alot of emails and tickets and no one cant tell me why they dont give my money. So i personally cant trust this exchange anymore.  Bitcoin is 800$ now. So who will pay my time and all money i loosed because of them?!!

First Ukyo, then TF at inputs, now Bitstamp?
the media is gonna have a party.

From http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r4d6t/bitstamps_streaming_api_and_exploitation/

...the stream I'm watching includes both order and trade events, and I typically see orders on the stream anywhere between ~2.5s and ~8s ("the window") before they match and produce a trade; if you're only trading by watching BitcoinWisdom and others, I see things happen as much as 18s ahead of you.

So if you are not trading looking at the undocumented API you are beign ripped off by those who do. Very nice feauture!

Bitcoinity have started using the stream since I made that post.  BitcoinWisdom are at least aware of it (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1raa7f/big_thank_you_to_bitcoinwisdom_from_bitcoinity/cdlcxgb), perhaps even using it by now.  Clark's rtbtc has used it for a while.  The Reddit post has partly solved the lack of documentation of the stream; the bigger issue here is the sniping window.  It seems it's being actively exploited now (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r4d6t/bitstamps_streaming_api_and_exploitation/cdldvx7) too.

Another minor movement on MtGox, and Bitstamp is borderline unreachable.

I'm this close to being fed up with it and taking my business elsewhere. This close: >|--|<

Edit// No, it is _completely_ unreachable.

Edit2// Lol this is how their engine looked as they came back online. No way this is how it's supposed to be, imo.

https://i.imgur.com/ppChcvs.png

Also, I don't get it.. Don't they understand how much they miss in fees by being offline during high volume volatile movements in the bitcoin market? Would this not be enough incentive for them to get their shit together?

Yeah, I'm sure it's just a matter of "Oh, now we really need to focus!" and suddenly everything falls into place and the servers run smoothly! ::)

I did not realize that hazek is part of Bitstamp.

Just like ~davout/Instwallet (which has cost someone I know of upwards of $1M.)

My rule of thumb is the more hard-core a libertarian someone is, the less I trust them to not try to steal my money if/when times get tough.  Except for a handful of non core dev admins on this forum (e.g., John K. and BadBear) I consider involvement here on bitcointalk.org to be a slight negative in terms of instilling confidence.

I'm about done with this shit. You can synchronize an atom clock with it. Any god damn trade above 500 BTC on MtGox, and Bitstamp is god damn offline.

You just can NOT daytrade there. This shenanigens has cost me several hundred dollars already.

I'm at the verge of calling faul play with them being 'in on it', for all we know they benefit most by lagging their site when people are putting in market orders through their API's. As is now publically known, the orderbook doesn't give a shit about order of operations anyway, so they could easily inject some of their own orders to catch large market orders.

In fact, I'm rather sure this is exactly what happens. Big moves everywhere happen, Bitstamp trading engine is lagged (by DDoS or inside job, who knows), the order book fills with a large volume of orders which are not executed immediately due to the lag/DDoS, and during this ample time the attacker simply puts his order in a sweet spot. Order book doesn't give a shit about order of operations, so the orders of the attackers at the sweet spots are filled and they make an easy profit, lifting DDoS.

It's disgusting.



Bottom line: Fuck you Bitstamp, I'm taking my business elsewhere. As soon as you're back online, which may be god knows when.

I think it's a fair bet that all exchanges cooperate closely with insider friends and always have.  This is an entirely unregulated market after all.  Anyone who is trying to trade and does not have visibility into dark-pool and secondary market activity is begging to be ass-raped.

Sure, they're all manipulated to fuck, but that doesn't matter as long as they stay online. Seriously, a trading platform that goes offline every time it's actually the most important time to trade, well that's just a joke.

At least BTC-e doesn't usually go down during prime-time.

It has been five days now, but they have finally acknowledged the report of sniping hole (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r4d6t/bitstamps_streaming_api_and_exploitation/cdmupe7).  Not dealt with it.  Not responded to it.  Just an ACK.

Another user tells me he has found and privately reported a minor denial-of-service attack directly on the engine which looks real to me.  Again, that report has been acknowledged.  I think I will publicise it if he doesn't get a response back in a reasonable amount of time.

That shouldn't be the case if you use Ripple to trade Bitstamp IOUs.

I will add that bitstamp public API is very poor. Two reasons:
 - there's no way to get historical trades (by id and/or time)
 - there's no trade type (sell/buy)

Those two are very important features, also very easy to implement.
I have no idea how it's possible to be comfortable with things like that (because they know about this, I've send some requests).

BitStamp has always worked great for me. The only issue I experienced was my fault (although their support would not get my full marks). I can't say the same of MtGox for sure.

In regards to the missing transfers problem, here my conspiration theory based only on posts in this forum:

* there has been a software fuckup starting 12.11.2013 and ending 15.11.2013.
* they communicated about it first on 18.11.2013 and then on 20.11.2013 said it's all resolved.
* it's not resolved for some and support has gone unresponsive on them: some transfers on 12.11.2013 seem to have ended up a black hole.

Now fixing this one is a delicate matter and depends on why and how the data is missing (hardware fuckup? insider theft? bank stole the money? do lawyers need to be involved?). Every cent needs to be accounted for. Some people are surely trying to scam BitStamp by claiming they sent money they never sent.
Also they need to be careful about their communication because admitting the fuckup might be damaging for their business. And so would be hiding their heads in the sand and hoping it all goes away.

Once more BitStamp has always worked great for me and I hope they do the right thing and restore everyone's faith quickly.

I agree, in principle I'm not giving up on stamp yet. I've tried other exchanges, and followed the news about those that I didn't use yet, and I'm still quite sure bitstamp is my best option right now.

But that's what I tried to communicate in my original post, no? That they need to turn ship *now*, because they're losing a lot of goodwill. Recurring downtime, transfer delays (which seems mainly to be solved now), and most importantly, lack of regular communication.

Goddamn it, and engine bugs that mean you're being robbed.  I am stunned that people aren't really furious about this!

I am, but what can you do other than leave bitstamp? If you piss them off enough I'm sure they will find a way to run with your coins as this is an unregulated pile of shit.

I was essentially robbed for a few hunderd dollars yesterday evening.

As I said before, Bitstamp can suck a fat one.

Just to be fair, while stamp posted that they upgraded their hardware, I got to say indeed it seemed quite stable the last couple of days and the fees are also shown correctly again. So definitely a step in the right direction!

someone at Bitstamp, please resolve ticket #28362, it has been almost a week with no response whatsoever.

I am missing a large fiat withdrawal from Bitstamp since November 20 and nobody there replies to my support tickets.

Can anyone suggest a course of action?

not sure if that's the ideal way to go but i'd normally throw tickets and mails on staff every 12 hours.
after third time with no response i'd start getting grumpy and start decently phrased rants mentioning something about involving a lawyer.

i have the assumption that your withdrawal got probably lost during bitstamp's banking software issue recently.
if you got a withdrawal mail you could also forward it to support mail address. (better cover all channels to reach staff)

from my personal experience after mentioning a lawyer a company usually gets moving to prevent further costs. (helped me quite often in my life)

Thank you  hlynur

I am going to have to threaten legal action. I hate to say this but I don't recommend using Bitstamp anymore because whatever issue that might have caused this doesn't excuse ZERO communication on their part.

yea support is still a joke compared to the money these exchanges make, if it's bitstamp or gox.
good luck, i hope playing the lawyer card wakes their support staff up.
no response to a withdrawal problem after more than two weeks is simply not acceptable.

I'll say as much in their defense, I never had deposit/withdrawal problems (apart from waiting for a few days before some amount was credited), but if what you say is true, that's not good obviously.

You're verified, I assume, so that cannot be the problem. I suggest opening another thread in this subforum, or adding a comment to one of the "main" Bitstamp threads (you can find them, the ones that have a lot of pages), to my knowledge hazek (forum user associated with Bitstamp), responds to the more urgent posts sometimes.

Good luck, and let us know how/if it was resolved.

I'm a verified user and have been pleased with Bistamp so far, but now I'm starting to get pissed..
I've received two withdrawals from bitstamp before and had one sepa-deposit received to my account in just a matter of days.

Now however, I've been waiting for over a month for my sepa-deposit of 1400€ to be credited to my account. I got a response to my ticket more than two weeks ago, promising that "they'll look for my deposit". After that, nothing - no response to my further inquiries.

I sent the payment on the 29th of November, and now ordered an investigation at my bank. It was "good" (in a way) to read in another thread that there are two banks with the same BIC/SWIFT-code, maybe that's the case - but it would be weird since my first deposit was sent to the correct one..

> Edit, received my funds on 31st of December. Thank you Bitstamp! Communication wasn't perfect and it took it's time to be solved, but in the end all's good.