Bitcoin Forum

In times past Bitcointalk used to be the go-to for finding the skivvy on scammy, flaky, or otherwise unusual behavior of established services.  Now I find a fair number of references to the below described issues on Reddit (which I won't patronize) and other places, but nothing here.  Oh well.

I suggested to a friend to give Bitstamp a try about a month ago.  Friend has been trying unsuccessfully to get a test wire and a 5-fig USD wire to a SE Asian country for nearly a month now.  I know the situation well.  The friend is 100% clean as are the BTC.  The initial KYC stuff went well and quickly.

Friend has gotten various indications via ticket responses of when the wires would come through, and they have not.  When the dates came and passed there were no follow-ups on the tickets.

As some other users have experienced, when a wire is expected there is instead a request for yet more information like birthdays and tax numbers and such.  But still no money.

It looks like what Bitstamp does when they get a withdraw request is to sit on it for a while then hand it off to an unnamed processor.  When they hand it off they indicate that the request 'finished' via e-mail and on their UI, but that doesn't mean that a wire has even been attempted.  At that point the customer (and Bitstamp themselves?) have lost reference to the money.  Requests for tracking information go unanswered and/or unfulfilled, but that could mean that there has been no wire attempt and thus there is no tracing information exists.

In my own experience I got the same kinds of behavior from Mt. Gox before they went tits-up.  I made one small-ish wire request (which is to this day not complete) and took the rest of my money out via BTC before they collapsed.  My friend has done this today upon my suggestion.  Friend left the 5-fig wire transfer in place since it seems doubtful that Bitstamp could cancel it even if they wanted to.  The single redeeming feature of government sponsored fiat money is that it is subject to claims via a government operated court system should push come to shove.

Seems that Bitstamp has recently sold to some Korean gaming/investment firm.  The excuse that Bitstamp gives to some is that they are having troubles with their new payment processor which I don't particularly doubt, but the boilerplate 'can you PM me your ticket number so I can look into it' thing which the reps use on Reddit seems phony and suspect to me.  I mean why not just be responsive and honest on the ticket itself?  Looks to me like it's 'for show' to indicate to the world that they care.

If anyone has been getting wires, it would be interesting to try to reverse-engineer who the payment processor might be.  Especially if Bitstamp themselves goes dark a-la Mt Gox.

A suggestion I have for Bitstamp would be clear about how their hand-off process for withdraw requests works and name-names about who has the money at the present time when a query has been made.  Many people cannot afford to have tens of thousands of USD in limbo for weeks and months since a lot of them (such as my friend) have obligations for the money and were basing their operations around information about timings as presented by Bitstamp.  Few people expect a wire transfer to take anywhere near a month.

It may not at all apply to Bitstamp, but to me these cases reek of insolvency.

I remember that Coinbase at some point went through very similar delays, where they came up with all sorts of excuses to justify why it took so long. Don't forget that there is way more crypto in circulation than actual fiat, especially after a bull run that stimulated people to cash out, which basically means that the fiat reserves of exchanges are on their lows, maybe even completely exhausted.

As you said yourself, there is no way to fact check whether or not they actually process withdrawals as long as the money isn't in, so we can only speculate as to what might be going on in the background. Not much to do other than to wait for Bitstamp to have that deposit come through (whenever that may be).

I flatly refuse to use anywhere that freezes you and demands extra verification when you're already verified, let alone asks for details like tax shit that no other company on Earth would dare ask for. Why the fuck would I hand that over to a bunch of anonymous Slovenes?

Bitstamp have had problems with middle man banks in the past. I assume this is the same again. I can't imagine there'd be anything properly nefarious going on just after being bought out by a larger player.

They'll never see a penny from me again all the same.

These exchanges have this type of behavior that in my opinion is a bad and shameful behavior, they have this type of behavior because the governments of their countries do not make periodic inspections and do not require that these exchange are licensed, because of this these exchanges steal the coins of their customers and the exchange will not have consequences for the side of them. just see a very important point: how many exchange have physical office for customers to complain? here is the headquarters of bitstamp:


https://i.imgur.com/LA9NsXd.png

this is the headquarters of bitstamp

Nice to see all of the old-timers!

Holding people's BTC hostage until they produced an identity theft kit and supplied it to Bitstamp as they did back in the day was a true dick move.  Other entities who were compelled to migrate to more 'approved' KYC methods did not do this.  I swore that I would avoid their service for that reason and to this day I have.

In Bitstamp's defense, I noted that it's now half a decade on and I have not see a huge number of claims of flat out theft.  Seems like they have been trying successfully to operate a legitimate business and be contemplative in this challenging space.  It also seems that when they did eventually get hacked they made their customers whole and ate the losses, though I would also note that it would be easy to engineer  psy-op along these lines for marketing reasons.  e.g., to 'build credibility'.

At the end of the day, there are simply not a lot of good options for cashing out of BTC when one needs fiat in the real world.  Bitstamp was simply the 'least bad' option that I could see for my friend's situation, so that is what we tried first.

Here's a typical thread which describes my friends experience almost exactly:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/9syucs/bitstamp_poor_service_and_money_never_arrived/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/9syucs/bitstamp_poor_service_and_money_never_arrived/)

---

I'll throw out another thought in Bitstamp's defense:  If Bitstamp was to be transparent with respect to their sub-contractors (payment processors) in order to have credibility with their own user-base, it could be a big no-no in bank-land and they would have trouble getting anyone in that space to do business with them again.

Seems that the 'standard' in the fiat banking industry is to be secretive, deceptive, and dishonest and rely on the fact that most plebs cannot muster the financial resources to defend their own interests.  The banksters seem to be the primary forces behind installing governments in our so-called 'democracies' and the governments they install operate the courts systems.  It's no wonder that the banks have the upper hand, and they don't hesitate to screw other entities when it serves their interest.

Again, I don't doubt at all that the 'processors' (e.g., banks) are screwing with and screwing Bitstamp and that that is motivating force behind the problems that my friend is experiencing at the moment.  If I were a bankster I would try to arrange so that the only entities who could competitively operate were ones which were under U.S. jurisdiction.  Could well be that Bitstamp finds themselves a target of such an effort.

An interesting game play here is that in order to angle for control over the crypto-currrency space, the tactic is to make fiat currency and the fiat banking systems not work for certain people.  It will be interesting to see if the tactic ends up demonstrating even more that there is a need for crypto.  I personally have always had Bitcoin work in a reliable and expedient manner.  Dealing with fiat is ALWAYS a giant hassle and often doesn't work at all.  And I'm not even a criminal or even a tax cheat!

They may be trying to buy patience from customers. Coinbase used this strategy a while back with canned replies etc. The number of complaints was increasing.
I suppose to not create panic waves or something about. It could work in a very short time period, but doing it for a longer period can be a challenge to them lol

Don't use Bitstamp.  They are currently not performing USD fiat withdrawals. My guess is some kind of money crunch or theft that they refuse to publicize. There are people that have been waiting over 2 months for their funds to be moved out of Bitstamp. There are people looking to spearhead a class action lawsuit against them.

there are tons of people having issues.  see https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/BitstampOfficial/

I used to be a supporter of Bitstamp, not any more.  The past few months something has been going on with Bitstamp and they won't be forthcoming with the truth.  All you will get is excuses and delay tactics.

The problems at Bitstamp seem really bad. I had no idea since I don't look at Reddit these days. Thanks for posting this, tvbcof.

There's many dozens of complaints about missing bank wires and SEPA transfers, and they go back to at least July. At first, I thought the issues had to do with a sloppy transition given the recent acquisition. But then I realized how far the complaints go back. It's getting to Gox-level delays now.

I'm surprised there's no disparity developing between Stamp and the other exchanges. When this kind of FUD happens to Bitfinex -- well, just look at what happened on October 14th when they disabled fiat deposits. USDT hit 85 cents that day on Kraken.


When was that? I've never heard of delays like this at Coinbase. If the delay was a matter of days or even a few weeks, particularly during high volume times like the second half of last year, there could be legitimate reasons for it.

At first, I took the comparisons to Mt. Gox as hyperbole. After looking into this, I would immediately buy BTC and withdraw all funds, if I had funds at Bitstamp right now.

Bitstamp isn't nested as firmly in this ecosystem like Bitfinex, and there is less to fud about with how people consider Bitstamp to be one of the most reliable exchanges in the industry.

Whales are the first to exit an exchange when they start to feel that things might turn ugly, which immediately results in the cold wallets of that exchange to shrink, and that's exactly what happened to Bitfinex.

https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/3Nxwenay9Z8Lc9JBiywExpnEFiLp6Afp8v

As long as Bitstamp's cold wallet holdings hover between 90-100k BTC there isn't much to worry about.

Glad to do it.

By way of due diligence before suggesting to my friend to give Bitstump a try I came here to bitcointalk.org to see if there were any known current problems.  Unfortunately I saw none.

I also didn't notice the Bitstump issues strewn throughout Reddit because I don't use that platform very much.  I guess I should put it on my watch list for Bitcoin related stuff :(  I hate the way those fuckers are gung-ho about censorship of badthink and are joining hands with their brethren (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc) in our so-called 'free countries' here in the 'developed world' to facilitate it.  So, I cringe whenever I see their text string grace my URL window.  Oh well.  at least I don't have to have an account with them to see their specially curated approved-for-sheeple content.  Yet.

According to this reddit post:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/9uf6kt/psa_for_those_waiting_on_bitstamp_funds/

Bitstump's "new payment processor" and presumably the ones who are responsible for all the delays and grief for all involved would the this outfit:

  https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/xtrm#section-overview

No idea how accurate it is.  If anyone anywhere _has_ been getting money wired, I suppose that reference to this shop may show up somewhere on the tracking information.

One would presume that Bitstump has handed the fiat over to this outfit and they continue to sit on it.  It could be good to know if Bitstump goes completely dark.

The only case I encountered this year was this:

[BITSTAMP] problem -- Multi-deposits through one deposit request (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2773530.0)

But it is very strange that suddenly their clients have many complaints, here are people who are complaining and they are responding, see here:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/bitstamp.net

https://i.imgur.com/9qshJCk.png

It happened in 2017 before the bull run took off, and I can even remember similar delays going back to 2016.

Thanks for bringing that up. I never took the cold wallet metric seriously till I started to notice how correlated the complaints around Bitfinex and the outflow of capital was during their recent banking problems.

I'll keep using Bitstamp as fiat entry point because it's the most convenient option for me, and I'm already verified there. Another thing is that the last time I withdrew fiat was back in 2015 so whatever is going on in the background, it's not and won't be affecting me personally.

In researching the presumed 'payment processor' who is reported to be at the root of the problem, I found this:

  https://www.xtrm.com/web/Fastrak/connect.aspx

on a standard Google search.  Lol!  It seems to give a list of the Slavs who would have certain admin privs at Bitstump.  Thanks, XTRM, for showing us a list of people who could likely tar up high quality identity theft kits for all of Bitstump's users and take them along on their way out the door.

A 'payment processor' who is so loose with information should probably not be trusted with more than about 10 cents.

Another amusing thing I ran across in my research:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/RippleTalk/comments/9ue3dd/bitstamp_has_a_new_official_subreddit/

This from just a few days ago.  Looks to me as though Bitstump is interested in being able to edit and delete the complaints which are now pouring in.  Another non-good sign.  Seems like they've forgotten about bitcointalk.org since I've seen no comment from them at all.  (They used to have employees who were actually moderators of this forum.)  I thought maybe they would at least grace us with some of their standard boilerplate bullshit but no joy.

An international wire NOT attempted through Bitstamp just cleared into my friend's account with the same information supplied to Bitstamp.  The entire process took under two days including whatever holds were applied by the SE Asian bank.  This proves that the information supplied was not a problem and the recipient's bank/bank account has no problems.  If Bitstamp tries that excuse on my friend we'll know it's BS.

I feel for people who don't have an extra 5-figure sum kicking around to adjust for Bitstamp failures (and perhaps losses?) and were relying on Bitstamp's capabilities as part of a necessary business transaction.  There must be plenty :(  It's always good to have a backup option whenever dealing with any fiat money systems.  Crypto-currencies are vastly more reliable in my now rather long experience with both.

The wires mentioned in opening this thread both cleared finally.  Maybe 10 days ago, but I forgot to update this thread.

My friend opened several tickets, one for each wire, and requested they not be closed until the money was accounted for.  Bitstamp seemed to have honored this request more or less.

I think it sucks that Bitstamp:

 - takes a fair amount of time to hand off wire requests to their 'processor'.

 - closes wire requests as 'finished' when they make the hand-off rather than when their processor actually attempts the wire.

 - seems to have no visibility into the workings of the processor and no way to do any sort of tracking, feedback, or updates.

 - keeps the 'processor' invisible to the customer thereby keeping 10's of thousands USD in a black hole for weeks or months at a time.  One senses that if the processor felt like simply absconding with them money, that could easily happen with no recourse for the customer.  Possibly no recourse for Bitstamp either.  With things being completely secret and invisible it is really difficult to understand how much influence even Bitstamp has in the matter.

So, Bitstamp, I suggest that you improve your process flow for wire transfers in order to provide a better level of service for your customers.  Just a friendly suggestion, and I'll certainly be checking back before mentioning your name in the future when someone asks me about potential exchange service providers.

New issue with Bitstamp :(

Now they are bothering at least one person for 'documents' about where Bitcoin came from.  This person is not in Europe or in the United States and has nothing to do with either geographical area.

The thing is, for some people buying 10 BTC cost about $20 back in the day, and plenty of people obtained a ton of BTC from mining.  There would have been no reason to keep detailed records of anything back then.  Bitstamp was around back in those days and at least some of them should know this.  They keep bothering people with the same questions over and over again and threatening to hold back wire transfers unless information which doesn't make any sense (and is fairly private even if it did.)

What do people suppose is Bitstamp's game here?  Are they working for some entity to get sensitive information about people?  Are they under the thumb of some national or multi-national interests and forced to gather information about citizens from third countries?  Are they just accumulating data for their own use and/or sale?

Obviously anyone doing anything over trivial sums of BTC needs to have multiple exchanges to use.  Any recommendations which are working somewhat at this time?

Desperation to be 'compliant' even though there are countless companies out there dealing with much larger sums that never make demands of this nature.

No matter what happens I still ain't going anywhere near them.

If they demanded documents for my $20 bitcoins I'd whip up a fake electricity bill from 2011. If that didn't do it I'd go straight to their regulator in Luxembourg and make a noise.

When the time comes to sell I won't be bothering with any exchange. It'll be OTC only.

If 2017 nearly finished them, the next explosion will totally and completely paralyse all of them.

I differ with you on two points here:

First, I rather doubt that Bitstamp is real wild about what they are doing.  I think it is foisted upon them by a variety of parties one of them being the Luxembourg regulators.  I think it is highly unlikely that anyone will get any relief from said regulators.  Most probably one would end up with their names on even more secret lists.

Secondly, and much more importantly, I would strongly advise to NOT fabricate any data or records.  The simple reason for this is that according to every definition I've read including very specifically that produced by Bitstamp, money laundering is specific to criminal activity.  If your coins are not a result of illegal activity, they will be after you get done fabricating data associated with them as data fabrication is almost certain to be classified by most court systems as a crime in and of itself.

Best to just walk away from Bitstamp (or any exchange) after you've used them.  Look for other ways.  Bitstamp is but a used jizz rag to my friend, but my friend has other friends who can pull another clean tissue out of the same box.

they are most likely forced into compliance by police entities looking for money laundering and drug operations.

I'm sure that is the case.

Bitstamp are asking for documents which cannot exist in the case of early adopters and miners.  Whether it is forced upon them by regulators or whether they simply don't have the ethics/acumen to implement a workable solution is unknown.  But it also doesn't matter much since there are other options and various work-arounds.

Note that if one tries to fabricate data, which seems to be the solution which occurs many people and is the only option available to continue to use their services, then Bitstamp will have the evidence to turn your perfectly legal coins into ones which can be classified as illegal for the purposes of AML.  Illegal on ANY platform.  Tainted.

I would gently suggest to my fellow early adopters to not fall into that trap and taint the pay-out of your visionary speculations.  And don't give Bitstamp or anyone else that ammo to use against you.  Evidence of criminal activity against a user is probably worth a lot more to Bitstamp than the fees they could generate by keeping you as a customer.  It's good trading stock to them in the 'regulatory market' as it has evolved.

This is just bitstamp being bitstamp, next time please do some more due diligence:

Bitstamp - wanted to withdraw money and was hit with these weird KYC questions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406908.msg4409454#msg4409454)


I could, but not for USD.

If it's just for selling off coins and not day trading, then you can try localbitcoins in person cash trades. Especially after you have earned some positive feedback you can place ads and sell coins above the market price. I would stay away from bank transfers, or anything similar where someone could send you money from a compromised bank account.

Hi guys,

First post here. I joined because I read some threads, especially the one by Cyper, where he had a similar money taken hostage situation. He managed to turn it around with a lot of letters but he had the documentation to support every single satoshi, I think.

A lot of early adopters don't have that. How are we supposed to have proof of where our coins came from when we just bought a few with cash in the mail or sent a small bank transfer from a guy that you knew from a forum that is now closed, and a bank account that is now closed? What if you bought from one of the many exchanges that closed down over the years? The list goes on.

The guys who founded Bitstamp were early adopters, so they should understand, but they don't.

I agree that we cannot provide false documents. But without all this crazy amount of proof Bitstamp is asking for, there is no way to get funds released.

Add to this the common complaint (see reddit, trustpilot, a few threads on this forum), that Bitstamp KYC agents straight up ignore you, sometimes indefinitely, other times for weeks on end.

I understand the "best just to walk away from them", but the problem is my coins are in the account and it's locked.

Whatever is happening at Bitstamp, whether it's understaffing, or a genuine scam, I am not sure, but it's not good for anyone. Don't make the mistake I did and don't deposit there. (No I didn't have any warning that they would freeze everything until I tried to withdraw...)

I don't really know what to do at this point. Their KYC agents basically locked my account with a message of a load of questions, I answered their questions, and it's been 2 months, so they're just straight up ignoring me. I called on the phone, 3 times last week. You can scream at customer support, you may as well scream in a big forest, because no one will hear you. They always say they will put me priority in the queue, no reply to my ticket to unlock my account, ever. So the KYC people I need to speak to are not even available to speak to. It seems a completely impossible situation. Right now I'm considering this as a theft, because Bitstamp KYC agents aren't even trying to engage with me. At least if they're asking me more and more questions I've got a chance to finally satisfy their ridiculous requirements. But there is 0 dialogue. The only people to write on my support ticket after the KYC agent locked the account was the person I spoke to on the phone, the regular customer support guys who have no power to do anything. They're just there to answer basic questions like "what is a bit-coin". Seriously.

Any advice from more experienced members would really be appreciated.

My friend had some BTC converted to USD when Bitstamp bothered him with requirements which were impossible.  He had to simply buy back BTC and take the exchange hit both ways, but he was able to withdraw his funds in the form of BTC and move on to a different platform.

If Bitstamp will not release the value you sent them for custodial duty then they are probably guilty of theft.  The problem is that it would cost a fortune in legal fees to pursue legal remedy.  I suspect that Bitstamp have either fine print which their lawyers will claim gives them the right to steal from you under certain circumstances, or they have under-the-radar authorization (or instruction) to steal money in some conditions.  It is plain that they are highly influenced by those who control the USD monetary system, and they probably are not even allowed to elaborate on the nature of this control.

I do NOT suggest inventing data or documents to try to meet the impossible requirements.  I believe that doing will give them automatic reason and legal rational to take your money because you will be immediately guilty of a crime which is tied to your funds.

Best of luck.  Bitcoin was never promised to be 'easy' even if you are perfectly clear of any wrongdoing.  These are not problems with Bitcoin proper...In fact Bitcoin has always worked like a charm for me whereas the USD is an expensive-to-use fail.  These are specifically problems with fiat money systems and the corrupt legal system which backs them.

Now that that milk has been spilled your recourse is reporting this to the police / hiring a lawyer. Next time do your due diligence, Bitstamp has been known for pulling this KYC scam trick since 2014 at least like in the link I posted above.

Different thread, similar issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/26apno/bitstamp_will_not_process_withdrawal_unless_you/

If you do decide to provide false documents, at least know what you're doing, unless the amount is small, contacting the police/lawyer would be more sensible.

Hi tvbcof,

Cheers for starting this thread. I wish I read it before I deposited.

My problem is that I deposited BTC, and BTC withdrawals, are disabled. How I wish I could just do an exchange, and take my coin elsewhere. But all types of withdrawals (fiat and crypto) are disabled.

I agree with you on both points that what Bitstamp is doing means they are guilty of theft, but that it would be prohibitively costly to pursue legally. AND that they have got fine print somewhere AND lawyers who can fabricate excuses to steal money regardless of how innocent the customer is - that is , they would tailor some sort of fit to make that customer look like a "potential money launderer" and that's good enough. It's pretty scary actually the power they have. I would be much less horrified if I didn't have a significant sum in my Bitstamp account being held hostage with no response.

It's strange how Bitstamp has done a complete change from its origins. Its founders were early adopters so you would expect them to understand and also be... "supportive" of the spirit of Bitcoin, freedom and all that stuff, opposing the way the fiat monetary system allows mass surveillance and so on...  but it seems they have gone the opposite way... They are even WORSE than banks. We talk about how banks freeze money, ask too many questions etc., but I've never in my life had any bank account frozen. No bank has asked for such a crazy amount of information as Bitstamp. Damn... my fiat bank providers are actually *reasonable* compared to Bitstamp!

Indeed. I do not plan to fabricate records which I don't have. But that seems to put me in the same position I started: I can't provide what they are asking (btw they already have my passport, bank statements and more, more than banks or any other exchange got), so in their eyes they are justified in keeping my money on KYC/AML "guilty until proven innocent" grounds. This sh!t is crazy, you can't make this up in some kind of dystopian horror film. Well that's how I feel inside anyway, it's gut wrenching... :(

I'm not even sure whether to go "hard" or "soft" with them, in the sense of reporting them to all relevant authorities as Cyper did in his thread, or just by adding another message essentially begging them and I will give them whatever they want. It's crazy because I've heard of other members in yet another thread about the Bitstamp KYC/AML hostage funds nightmare, that Bitstamp wanted every private conversation with anyone he had been involved with to do with Bitcoin dating back to when he transacted his first satoshi. How the heck is anyone supposed to provide that (no1) and no2, this is a crazy invasion of privacy. I think that guy also said, if Bitstamp asked for his mother to f*** , then he would have to give her. In my opinion this goes WAY beyond simple KYC/AML and actually does a 180 back into criminal territory, meaning Bitstamp is doing some kind of messed up hostage taking/extortion/blackmail operation straight out of some sh!thole in Eastern Europe.

I even told them on the phone "where you at bro I will come and see you in person so you can take my DNA and fecanalysis and whatever else you need, cos I'm only a short flight away, it's no problem" and they tell me "we can't disclose our location for security purposes"!

So they basically want everything from me including anal probe, but they don't give their customers any REAL address?

I'm not saying there will be a Mt Gox here, but something is not right. At absolute best, they are severely understaffed and my situation will be resolved one day. More realistically I think those dirty Slovenes are taking financial legislation and twisting it to extort/blackmail people on a mass scale. It was mentioned before that the financial regulator in Luxembourg (CSSF) would probably approve of excessive KYC/AML practises, but at the same time to use that very legislation that is "intended" to protect people, in order to illegally confiscate legal deposits from law abiding citizens on a grand scale, I dunno, maybe I should try that avenue. Maybe the CSSF in Luxembourg won't be too happy about one of their regulated payment institutions using their own guidelines as excuses to get away with what is illegal activity: theft, blackmail, extortion, whatever you call it.

You also mentioned this in your OP:


Exactly! Why do they monitor socal media like that and post the same nice stuff on reddit to the conveyor belt of people being f!ked by them, instead of just solving the problem so that the person had no need to cry for help on reddit?

EVERY single Bitstamp employee is not native in English, they're Slovenian. They've been well trained on the cookie cutter phrases to make themselves look good in public, while they ignore and steal in private. When anyone on reddit or trustpilot has had the same experience as me (money frozen and stolen from Bitstamp on "KYC/AML" grounds), you can read the exact same response, word for word. It's all bullsh!t. Nice words while they steal your life savings, I guess that's Bitstamp 2019. In case anyone else is reading, beware of these guys.

Thanks for the tip, but this seems like a solution for people with more time and patience than money.

The context I would be interested in hearing people's experience with would be real and legitimate exchanges with a good track record and the capability of doing reasonable volumes.  My associates have no need or interest in USD or EU and would prefer to avoid these monetary instruments just because of the hassle factor and to avoid needless monitoring by and interference from third-parties who have no business in the transactions.

Yes, there are many of those kinds of threads about Bitstamp. I just never searched for them as I guess they were one of the most trusted exchanges in Europe at the time, and didn't give me any sh!t until now. I think the scam starts when you have any kind of significant amount in your bitstamp account, even if it would have obviously have been a very small amount if you were an early adopter or even bought just a few years ago.

The problem with the legal route is, as tvbcof rightly says, it's likely to be very costly and I would suspect Bitstamp would hang on to the corrupt legal system as long as they could as in "we retained customer X's deposit due to KYC/AML regulation concerns", which makes them look legit and the complainant as the possible criminal, when in fact Bitstamp is the one pulling the scam on innocent people. Yeah I know there are criminals in this world but really what % of the population? And I even made fiat deposits to Bitstamp itself a few years ago before the big bull market which would account for all of the current coins in my account. At this point, I don't even think it matters. I think they're selectively scamming people and this new "hey, we're regulated! we perform the best KYC/AML checks!" is the perfect excuse to hide what is large scale criminal activity. If I have reason to suspect large scale criminal activity, would it not make sense to get the Feds involved?

To be honest though, I don't want that drama in my life. I try to live a peaceful existence and keep myself to myself. Let's say any of these suspicions about Bitstamp are true - then I'm scared some giant Slovenian brute is gonna stab me in my sleep. Their lawyers would find some legal loopholes and get out of it anyway.

I would prefer to just get my money back and continue to warn people about Bitstamp, as any decent person would warn others about scams they know about. I just wish I had read this forum before putting my recent deposit into Bitstamp.

Bitbay isn't as bad as some other exchanges, but BTC/PLN (Polish złoty) is the only currency pair there with a reasonable liquidity. They've been around since 2014 and I had no problems with them, but unfortunately they started asking their current customers to go through verification again by sending selfies, so they aren't heading in a good direction.

Cyper seems to have done a good bit of investigation here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38711.msg20884727#msg20884727

And in other posts in that thread.

He seems to have located them at that time, but it's a couple years later. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can legally locate these guys?

Also, does anyone know if Pantera Capital is still involved? According to UK Companies House records after the acquisition of Bitstamp the Pantera Capital guy resigned as Director and two new guys from the Belgian firm signed on as directors. Of course all their addresses listed are not their actual addresses, just mailboxes.

Is their bank still the Slovenian bank Gorenjska Banka? (Anyone know from recent deposits?)

Way back in the day Bitstamp pulled a scam where they asked for standard KYC documents before releasing BTC.  That pissed a lot of people off who had sent BTC to them before their policy change.  They used the weak excuse that they made some mention on their Facefuck page, but a lot of Bitcoin users at the time were not the kind of people who would use that platform.  As an observer I considered it theft, but I was not a customer.

Eventually, years later, I did suggest to an associate that they try the platform.  Mostly because it was one of the only non-US service that had not been successfully shut down and it had not been 'hacked' resulting in a 'loss' of customer funds.  This is the standard way that services EOL.

It's possible that Bitstamp is nearing it's EOL and their inevitable 'got hacked, sorry' end-point.  If they are starting to appropriate BTC (vs. just not wiring USD which is actually an understandable problem) it is indicative that the end may be nigh.

Two things I could think of:

1)  Make their lives miserable 'on the cheap' by filing small claims in their jurisdiction to which they may be obligated to be responsive (if possible.)  Maybe a claim for each time you had deposited money with them.  If you can find someone in Luxembourg or wherever who would be willing to assist it would be helpful.  I started the process of harassing some crooked frogs in this manner but lost interest since they really had not actually stolen significant funds from me.  Being vocal on the various social media platforms (like this one) also feels good and is doing the world a service.

2) If others are starting to get ripped off in the same way, maybe pool some resources and make a credible threat for real lawful action.  The management is a known entity who could be held culpable for real crimes.

---

By the way, it is worth note that the highly detailed and personal information Bitstamp is asking for is probably highly valuable to real criminals who would like 'leads' for who, specifically, to target.  It is entirely possible that Bitstamp is increasing their bottom line by collecting and selling this information to criminals.

This would be an indication to me that Bitstamp may be planning to fold and the reason for their activities is to maximize the value of the information they hold.  It IS suspicious that they are asking for more than anyone else as it indicates that they are going above and beyond 'standard' AML over and above what seems to be industry standard.  This is one of the reasons why I suggested to my associate that they walk away from Bitstamp.

 

Thankyou, tvbcof, for your actionable suggestions.

It does scare me that Bitstamp may indeed be nearing its EOL and I'm right in the firing line. I'm torn between "waiting for customer service to respond as there is a large backlog" vs "TAKE ACTION NOW BEFORE EOL!"

Bitstamp is registered in the UK, Luxembourg and USA. It's only regulated in Luxembourg, which is very expensive, and would have a language barrier. UK seems more accessible but they are not regulated there, however they are registered as a UK company and all UK operations would be affected if some kind of judgment were made against them. They are also registered as a "data controller" in the UK and EU which means that (technically), they are legally bound to protect users' private data or they get shut down (in theory).

If what you're saying is true, regarding the selling of the data of presumably high net worth bitcoin holders, as potential targets to Eastern European criminals, that does indeed sound rather sinister, but it would not be implausible given what is happening at Bitstamp at the moment. Everything adds up, in particular, as you mentioned, the locking of Crypto withdrawals as well as fiat (which is understandable given how the electronic fiat system operates), and the constant buying time with boilerplate responses from superficial customer support staff who do absolutely nothing. Those who have the ability to press the buttons to enable Crypto withdrawals on accounts are either in severe shortage, or they are simply instructed not to enable withdrawals at all, rather, to target more accounts for shutdown.

Regarding the pooling of resources, there are plenty of people on reddit who posted under the same thread with their funds hostage, but gathering them and establishing a way forward to form a credible threat for real legal action against Bitstamp before it is too late, is a whole other matter.

"The management is a known entity who could be held culpable for real crimes." That made me think. Thank you. It's better to chase known figures rather than the elusive, invisible "KYC/AML agents" who don't respond to anything.

I will do my best with the few resources I have. If anyone else is reading this and being stolen or extorted by Bitstamp, please add to this thread or PM me.

As a new user I'm not sure if I am permitted to make new threads. If however EOL for Bitstamp is approaching, then it would be more than justified for an EOL Bitstamp Warning thread to be set up. At least others can try to get their funds out while they still can, or not put their funds there in the first place.

Before you start flying around and hiring lawyers have you tried emailing the entity who regulates them?

https://www.cssf.lu/en/contact/

Don't look like much of a language barrier to me.

I don't believe Bitstamp have any financial problems. They were sold recently to very well capitalised owners.

They are pricks though.

what exactly are they asking for---the entire blockchain history of each output you deposited? and what have they said will constitute adequate "proof"?


it's not understaffing or financial problems, agreed. i think they actually take the legal position that their actions are wholly justified. except when banks do this, they ostensibly contact the police and hold the funds in escrow. when bitstamp does it, they just quietly steal the customer's money and hide out in the balkans.

they may have changed their "registration" address to the UK but they are not based there in any capacity. that address is just the corporate formation lawyers that did bitstamp's UK registration. it's no better than a virtual office or forwarding address.

I've never heard of a flat out theft. The people who complain seem to go quiet or say they eventually got their money back. A lot of times when they return fiat there seem to be big arse fees out of nowhere but they blame intermediaries.

The UK registration has always been nothing other than a rented mailbox.

i've seen cases that were still unresolved months later, with bitstamp just swallowing 5-6 figures EUR equivalent into a black hole and ignoring customers on all fronts. in cases that were publicly resolved, people have reported needing to make extensive legal threats and/or contacting bitstamp's regulators/ombudsman/banks/europol etc to force them to respond.

i'm not convinced that everyone who stops posting gets their money back. i'd stop bothering at some point too. you said it yourself earlier ITT, and surely some victims have come to the same conclusion:

@figmentofmyass: I'm required to account for every single satoshi from the very first shitcoin that I bought long ago from exchanges which are no longer in existence or from people I bought from in cash in person and so on. All the corn is clean and it's never been involved in any actions other than legitimately exchanging cryptos as anyone else would, but I am suspecting it's the issue of the "fiat on" which they are concerned about. For example, proving that any tiny amount of money I put into Crypto years ago was not the result of criminal activity and now grew to a significant amount. I can and have easily proved to them that the tiny amount of fiat I speculated on Crypto was obtained legally, that's not hard, and any reputable bank I bank with would accept this. Bitstamp is just paranoid as hell. This is unironic cos the founders should know about BTC bull markets, they got in waaay before I did, Merlak just cashed out his 30% and flaunts his high life on instagram constantly, but now that same company he founded is asking users to account for every single satoshi since the beginning of time when they know records are just not available. Even though I am suspicious of these dirty Slovenian lurkers, I have had to hand over whatever I can get, but it's impossible to obtain what does not exist, and I refuse to be dragged to their criminal level, I refuse to invent documents which do not exist, as that is illegal.

My account has been locked for nearly 3 months now, my funds hostage for the same time. The first request message is the only message I got. I responded to every one of their questions as best I could, but no response since then, still locked. At this point I think what the f!ck else am I supposed to give. And I think that's the point. I've got bank accounts in highly regulated EU countries. Of course they did standard KYC and AML checks on me and as much as we complain about the fiat system, I've had no problems with traditional banks. I say let the banks worry about whether their account holders are criminals or not. At least (touch wood) I can trust a bank with my personal information even if they request a bit more than usual (which pretty much never happens). Some other posters, I'm not sure if on here, reddit or other review platforms, have said that if Bitstamp for whatever reason doesn't want to business with a user before, that's fine, just return the funds to the user and close the account. If they're so concerned about risk to them, just check people before they make these big deposits and refuse them at that point. In my experience, they waited until I had a significant amount to hold hostage, that would be worthwhile to them, and executed their standard hostage taking procedure. I can't reasonably see it as anything else at the moment.   


@gentlemand: I appreciate your more collected perspective. I do agree that there are steps to be taken prior to all out legal action.

The language barrier I was referring to was I suppose they might prefer to be contacted in their own language(s), but English is indeed acceptable.

Indeed. "Pricks" is one of the more moderate terms I would use to describe them, but it is one of the words I have muttered to myself in disbelief at their actions. So yeah, few other words encapsulate their behavior so succinctly.

With regard to "flat out theft", as @figmentofmyass states, there are many cases of people waiting literally months for their funds. While it is true that we don't know whether these cases were resolved or not, the fact that it has extended into months of very large 5 and even 6 figure EUR equivalents being held hostage is in itself very worrying. Add to that, most of the few cases that have resolutions posted by the OP have had to make, again as @figmentofmyass states
My opinion is that, if a customer lies down and takes the theft silent, Bitstamp will gladly take advantage of that user having given up due to the formidable task of first and foremost getting ANY response from their compliance team whatsoever after they have taken the customer's large deposit hostage, so that even if you DO somehow have everything they originally requested, the department in charge of reviewing that information provided simply never replies and the account stays frozen. That seems to be the default. In the miraculous event the KYC department does actually respond, they almost always seem to ask yet more, increasingly impossible to satisfy, questions and demands for documentation they know 99.9% of people won't be able to produce. And so the cycle just continues until, I suppose, the customer gives up. Bitstamp has performed a robbery using KYC laws on steroids as their defense. Pretty messed up but we both agree they are pricks. This takes it to a criminal level.

That's where the second type of customer comes in, Cyper of this forum being on of them. They took approximately $100k hostage. The difference between Cyper and other customers is that he literally wouldn't leave them alone. He did a lot of research and caused a lot of problems that in the end had those pricks in Eastern Europe shitting themselves. Normally you are ignored by Bitstamp apart from the "polite face" of the company, the customer support on the telephone, on reddit etc. who can't actually do anything to change the situation. Their job is to help newbies around the platform and to deny/deflect/stall when the KYC department freezes your 5 or 6 figure sum. Just that one reddit thread had over 400 replies. It's not a freak isolated incident. No one can get hold of the KYC people directly. Maybe they contract that part out to a third party, who knows. But Cyper somehow got the Head of Legal/Compliance to email him and talk to him for nearly an hour with profuse apologies.

Most customers, even if they don't exactly take it lying down, don't have Cyper's determination or knowledge, unfortunately.

Your statement before: is exactly how I feel. Their UK address is a mailbox. Their LUX address is a mailbox. You call them and it's basically someone called Grzo Grzkovic with a thick Slavic accent. And they wonder why people are hesitant to hand over pretty much all their information minus a DNA sample. I can't help but wonder whether the staff and management are that delusional. The cleanest of clean, model citizen with not even a single parking ticket in his life would be hesitant to hand over anything to them. Now more than ever where there is experience of countless people having their money held hostage without response.

It's a highly stressful experience, mentally and financially draining, to go through the national police, europol, regulators, lawyers, and anything else that is required to get someone from Bitstamp to crawl out of their anonymous hole in Slovenia to finally respond to a case. Even if it does get resolved in that person's favor, the question remains: why the heck should it be even *necessary* to involve law enforcement and regulators.

I thought Bitstamp was bought by a well funded Korean firm.  The problems my friend had initially when I started this thread seem to have stemmed from processor switching around that time.  Eventually these were resolved and friend got their wire.  Later when friend's volume exceeded $50k friend got hit with the 'give us impossible data' scam.  And again, it was possible for friend to remove funds in BTC with no problem unlike in your case.

Anyway, maybe I am wrong about the Korean firm.  Worth checking it out, though, since if it is the case it would seem to me to be the natural place to start.  Whether it would be easier or more difficult to make an entities operations difficult in Korea using legal means I do not know.

One thing I have observed is that there seems to be a dedicated and fairly successful effort to get all crypto/fiat exchange operations to be based in the U.S..  The main strategy seems to be to make any external exchanges noncompetitive via various kinds of harassment.  Interfering with their ability to transact in fiat-land primarily.  'Well behaved' exchanges like Coinbase are allowed to operate smoothly.  If I had been consulting on how to deal with the 'crypto problem', this would be one strategy I would recommend (or a phase of the strategy) so it's not surprising to me to see it.

I suspect that ultimately Bitstamp will end up as a property of Western intel (which itself is an appendage of the central banking cartel.)  The Korean money may have been just one stepping stone to make that happen, and they may have already 'flipped' this property.  Who knows?  If so, shutting Bitstamp down would be in the cards.  Might as well collect a ton of actionable intel in the process.

Man! If Bitstamp shut down it would be a major upset in the bitcoin world. I remember back when I first heard of bitcoin it Bitstamp was the only place where you could get it easily.
Coinbase wasnt even in the same discussion or the scene back then.
And as far as the Korean money angle is considered, I don't think funneling that money to and from between US-Korea would be much of a trouble.
It is being done for decades in other sectors already.

And yes, it seems as if US with its insane crypto policies is trying to not only be the leading voice in the sector, it is perhaps trying to be the only voice.
That kind of centralization is bad for Bitcoin and its users.

Bitstamp will not be shut down. Don't listen to wildwest conspiracy theories. It's obvious that the people here exchanging walls of text have a motive to continuously hammer on Bitstamp.

Most of the people I know use Bitstamp since 2013/2014 and they haven't faced a single problem depositing/withdrawing fiat. The thing you can blame Bitstamp for is that they recently have started asking all sorts of silly questions, which is likely coming from one of their banking partners to make sure their bank accounts aren't being used while at the same time breaking existing laws the bank itself is subject to.

@1Referee: This stuff all over the internet from countless people is not a "conspiracy theory", it is exactly what is happening.

For years before all this happened I had an opinion quite like you, that Bitstamp was supportive of people in Crypto, no problems depositing or withdrawing, although these were small amounts. Continue using it if you like but I feel it's wrong if I don't at least warn people.

By this time the average user won't suspect anything. So if his account grows naturally with prices, he doesn't know that when it reaches X amount his funds on Bitstamp will be frozen entirely.

They ask crazy questions which 99% of people can't answer with full paper trail because that's the nature of crypto. There is a point where it becomes unreasonable, they know it and they're using it as a "legal" excuse to hold people's money hostage.

The most ironic thing about Bitstamp is that they ask for more transparency than financial firms ask for from billionaires in the traditional financial system, but they won't even tell you where their actual office is located. The UK and Luxembourg addresses are mailboxes for business registration purposes only, it's not actually where they operate. They won't give a simple address, but we are expected to give up more information than any government authority keeps on us?

It would also help greatly if Bitstamp actually responded to customers' responses to the KYC/AML questions. Most of the time what they do is copy/paste the KYC/AML questionnaire, freeze the account, then ignore the customer. Even if the customer CAN answer the questions completely, how can the funds be unfrozen if nobody is there to respond. Like I said before either Bitstamp and/or its employees is actively stealing funds from people, or they do not have the staff or infrastructure to handle running KYC checks. What is so unique to Bitstamp? Kraken can do it. The rest can do it within reasonable time. You're lucky if you even get a response from these hidden KYC agents nowadays. It's the most disgusting practise to hold customers' funds hostage and simply wait for them to go away. That's basically what they are doing at the moment.

@tvbcof: I think the Korean firm is too recent to yet change things. It's still operating the same, at the moment anyway.

If we believe Bitstamp and it's because of demands placed on them by banks in the fiat system, then it may be for intelligence purposes, but more than likely, in my opinion, the traditional banking system has now seen Bitcoin/Crypto as a threat and will not easily deal with it, effectively choking off its oxygen supply. Even Coinbase now has been shitcanned by Barclays bank. The "best behaved". They know that if Bitcoin seriously takes off, huge parts of their business will remain redundant. But that's another topic.

Recently? They have been asking these sort of questions for almost six years now, if there's no full paper trail or clear blockchain evidence where your funds come from Bitstamp may hold your money hostage. A lot of people don't really use their coins much or use them mostly for speculation so they might not be facing these kind of problems.

I think it's more Bitstamp than their banks. Their entire business depends on banks so they will be absolutely desperate to prove that they're well behaved little boys.

If a bank grunts at them they can point to the two thousand pages of questions and documents from each customer plus the photographs of their urethras and colons that they forced them into taking.

I'll guess this is all preemptive on their part.

I don't care if it's crypto and therefore scary, if I can run a few million dollars through a stock trading company with nothing other than 1 piece of ID and 1 proof of address, plus they will have an office I can burn down if they attempt to fuck me, then no way will a bunch of creeps in hiding get any more than that out of me.

Even though I'm being buttfucked by Bitstamp at the moment I managed a cathartic laugh at that. Lol.



EXACTLY. [*If I had a few million dollars] I could do the same, just ID and proof of address. And indeed, crucially, if they at any point even attempt to fuck me, a stockbroker has a physical address that you can go to where you can seek answers accompanied by law enforcement if need be, plus a very serious regulator, often FDIC or equivalent coverage for deposits. The fact that no one knows where Bitstamp is hiding, with all your most sensitive personal information, is hypocritical, cowardly and downright disturbing.

My hunch is that they know if they revealed their location, they would probably not be safe. I don't think any bunch of people would, who freeze tens/hundreds of millions of dollars of assets belonging to other people. If they were operating legally, and customers weren't being robbed, I don't think there would be any need to hide behind empty mailboxes as registered addresses. Bitstamp is clearly avoiding the shitstorm that would come their way if their true location was found. They also have the funds to move so even if one location was found then it would be like a game of cat and mouse.


EDIT: It seems a few of these are being made public every week:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/cxhh7c/usd_deposit_hold_at_bitstamp_and_withdrawal_fees/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/cxhh7c/usd_deposit_hold_at_bitstamp_and_withdrawal_fees/)

As they become more strict, Bitstamp is in danger of its customers turning against them if they do this to enough people. Soon it will develop a reputation for holding funds hostage and when that becomes common knowledge, no one will want to risk any kind of deposit there.

Bitstamp Holding my Wire Transfer because they need source of Crypto
I've wired $16000 on the 26th of September, and bitstamp is not crediting my account till this day because they need proof that i am the owner of bitcoin i had sent to them as well. The proof of bitcoin is hard to provide because i bought it through a friend and just gave him cash. We didn't work with receipts and he doesn't own an OTC business or so.



I provided an official purchase agreement where he (my friend , the seller) and I both signed and sent it to Bitstamp, but still no answer.



I am very worried and stressed because that was all my money and now I am just being left in the dark, regardless of calling them every single day to ask. Their answer remains: wait until we reply..