Bitcoin Forum

I tried to buy some bitcoins from a popular/trusted website

the payments had charged from my card , and my bank support told me : the purchase done successfully

but the website system released this message : failed to charge the card

the website support told me that they did not take any payments and their explanation

Visa is a middle man , it takes the payments and check some conditions
if the conditions as expected , it will send the payments for them
if not , it return the payments for me in a few days

2 days passed and I did not take back my money

I don't want to mention the website name , I'll do it only in case I really stolen

But your bank verified that the transaction was done successfully? I think its on the end of that exchange or website you bought your bitcoins.

Any update regarding this transaction?

Things that I recommend to do
1. Ask your bank if the transaction is really valid.  I experienced being charged to something that I bough online twice.  I just waited a few days and the 2nd transactions that never happened was corrected.
2. Try to contact the exchange.  May there is just some errors or hiccups along the way.  Or better check the address that you use.  Sometimes the issue is having a wrong address.

Hoping that the problem will be solved soon.

As long as the website confirms they didn't receive any payments, neither did they confirm the payment, then definitely your cash will be sent back to you, as long as there is actually no fault from your end of the deal,this should actually be some error in the confirmation/transaction

Just give it a few days, if still nothing new, then you can try reaching the website.

I'm sure this is a mistake and the money will be returned to you. It happens several times to me with regular store purchases. So don't worry. Specially if the transaction is still pending on your card

It will help if you name the service, because some sites are scam sites and they will use excuses like this to scam you out of your money. A name might be well known to you, but it might not be well known to the community, because it might be regional based.

We have a bunch of local exchanges that are well known, but the rest of the world will not know about them. What does the Bank say, can you chargeback the money? <Credit card?>

I suggest that you show some proof of payment to the support. If they refuse to pay , they are probably scammers...
However, you need to be sure you actually paid. Sometimes a visa authorization may look like a payment is not


If you give us the name of the service, it would probably help, as kakmark said.

There are some legit websites such as coinmama and cex.io that allow you to buy with credit card.

You can make a support ticket from with that exchange. It was a mistake they will fix it. Online bitcoin buying is safe if you choose a legit site like coinbase, cex etc. But there are a lot of scam sites. Please make sure your site is scam or not.

what site was it you used? it'd be good to know both as a possible warning and if it's actually a legitimate site, they'll surely help you solve it if you contact them.

I tried to contact the support again , they closed the support ticket with no answer
I tried to contact them again , but no answer
the website is : Coinmama.com

I'm afraid that I don't agree  with you . When you are scammed, you can not return your money as you don't know who is your seller.you can share any experience to come over that problem

I don't know the concrete service you mention in your last post. I hope you get your money back, buying bitcoins online is a safe way (it's the main way ever used) but you can't trust unknown services to do that. There is a good number of big exchanges already that everybody knows their names: if you can, always try to use these as the chances of something being wrong are minimal in comparison. Or find one not so known but that works for you and stick to it.

Anyway, again, I hope you get your money back, and I hope it wasn't a big sum of money after all.

Hi there Frodoe,

Sorry to hear about your trouble with the payment! Without knowing the specifics, it sounds like the the charge you see is only an authorization hold. This is an automatic hold, requested after every payment attempt, in order to "save" the amount for when your payment is approved. If your payment doesn't go through (this can happen if your order is canceled or fails), we ask your bank to immediately void the hold.

Generally, it takes 2 business days from when the order was created for the funds to be made available to you again. But this can vary depending on your bank.

If you send us an email or PM us your order number (it starts with BBT for Bitcoin transactions), we'll be better able to investigate what happened and make sure that you receive your coins or funds as soon as possible.

Feel free to leave a reply below as well, so others can know how you're getting along.

If you confirm that the funds have been paid, you can try to send a screenshot of the payment to Customer Service. If they ignore it, you should expose it to more places, which can encourage other traders to prevent being deceived!

if you can choose trusted site then it's OK. After that you worry about your card information then you can use trusted payment method like as Paypal, Neteller to upload your money from your card after that you can buy it using your balance from any exchanger site. If you don't have exchanger web link then you can choose from bestchage site. There you can see many trusted and reputed site.

How can you say "there is no specifics" when OP said you're not responding to his ticket?

Hey Frodoe after reading all the comments all I can say you'll be lucky if you get your funds back, I had never heard of this exchange before so decided to a quick search, and it's pertinent to note there're many positive comments I'm going to highlight the ones that match fredo case, in this link http://bittrust.org/coinmama
 if you see from the top there's a similar story, and that user I suppose didn't get his funds. As I see there's a coin mama representative here I'm sure we'll get some answers.

For all newbies whenever you buy online do a quick google search, read about them here, avoid exchanges you can buy here using escrow just a quick search here will list all escrows, and reputed sellers.

Fredo do let us know what happens if you're not refunded or credited then simply open a scam accusations thread.

There are some risks in buying bitcoin online. You are not allow to reverse , it mean that you can not take your money turn if the website is scammed , there is no third part in is case , you yourself have responsibility for your action

I checked this link http://bittrust.org/coinmama ,
Yes , there's too many users scammed and many complaints - that's make me more worried ,
unfortunately , I'm the only one will afford this loss

While we're all for free press, it's worth realizing that Bittrust is an uncensored, anonymous feedback service that allows for all kinds of creative misrepresentations - whether it's to pad your own company's ranking or smear its competition. As an anecdote to this, while they have much to improve, it should be clear that Coinbase is no scam - and yet, there are countless Bittrust reviews claiming just that. Without a credible source, there is limited credibility (which, as a side note, is also why we're replying officially as Coinmama).

Regarding the matter at hand, Frodoe was able to provide identification and we can see that not only did we answer all emails we received (most within minutes), but can confirm that the money in question is currently being held by their bank, and will eventually be freed. Once resolved, I hope Frodoe will provide their perspective.

What you're saying is different from what your client is saying. According to him the money disappeared from the account. If the bank was holding the money the funds would remain locked on his account and show as pending. One of you two must be mistaken and I sincerely hope it's him.

Did someone recommend this exchange to you, frodoe7? It isn't even in the top 100 by coinmarketcap which says a lot about its popularity and volume. If you don't get your money back, be sure to leave a negative feedback wherever you can so that more people won't fall for this.

A misunderstanding we've rectified over email as well as here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5051904.msg47114988#msg47114988).

Sadly, from dealing with banks in 180 different countries, we know that not all of them display the correct status of transactions (charge, pending, authorization, refund etc.), which leads to frustration and misunderstandings like this one. A neat example of the middleman friction Blockchain technology is attempting to remove :)

All my money returned back and the problem was not because of them - sorry about that
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5061797

I would say no it is not entirely safe to purchase bitcoin online there have been cases of fraudster defrauding people online you can limit your risk by getting an escrow agent involved in the transaction but even at that it's still not completely safe. The best is getting it online

You should ask bank and contact the site where you bought bitcoin to give them transaction details. I think is safe to buy bitcoin online, but check before if site is legit, if  have reviews search on google and read them, maybe some % of them aren't safe and can steal money and data. I bought until now bitcoin on exchange only.

The problem there occurs most likely to the exchanges, you better send message to their support.

where you i buy coins?? is there any sites??

Yes it is safe, just make sure that you are buying bitcoin in legal way and into a trusted exchanges.

I don't think so. Buying bitcoin online is not safe at all. You should not believe in anyone you have not met before, there are a lot of scam out there, you should be careful.

No, it is not safe. It seems to me that Buying bitcoin online has so many risk, we should not buy bitcoin online.

did you receive your money now? You should mention the website name in order that other people will not make this mistake again.

To what I know, you should not believe in any popular/ trusted website. In fact, there is nothing completely trustworthy in this world.

Most of the platforms are safe because within the industry that's full of scams, for them to get more people inveting is to provide trustworthy access  ;D ;D

Some times situations like this happen and in some cases the transactions has not gotten to the exchange who is the final destination of the money and the visa network as a middle man will have deducted money from your bank account, this has happen to me before I hard to go to my bank to complain before their now trace the transaction to Visa and my money was returned but it took a long time and processes.

which website is it?

Usually there are certain restrictions on the way you buy on the website. You can consider choosing some exchanges, some C2C transactions supported by the exchange, they can become your middle party, and it is safer for them to supervise your trades.

Firstly one should be knowing if their country has legalized it or not. If not than it is illegal to buy the crypto currency. If it has legalized than sue the most trusted exchange or if government has issued any licences to such exchanges so that you would not be scammed.