Bitcoin Forum

There appears to be a bug with the Blockchain.info text messaging service.

A friend of mine used the blockchain.info website to send me 0.001 BTC via text message. I received a text message from Blockchain.info that gave me a link to claim my 0.001 BTC. The text message from blockchain.info specifically said that I have received a "payment of 0.001 BTC" -- that exact number of "0.001 BTC" was listed in the text message to me, and I was expecting to receive 0.001 BTC. The text message invited me to claim my 0.001 BTC.

However, when I logged into Blockchain's website to claim my payment, my wallet was only credited 0.0009 BTC. They charged me a 0.0001 transaction fee, even though my friend already paid the 0.0001 transaction fee on his end! So we BOTH paid 0.0001 transaction fees!! The sender paid a 0.0001 transaction fee, and the receiver paid a 0.0001 transaction fee. Kind of upsetting & makes me angry.

FURTHERMORE, if Blockchain.info IS going to charge us both transaction fees, then my text message should have read "claim your 0.0009 BTC" instead of "claim your 0.001 BTC". It's also annoying that Blockchain.info has absolutely ZERO customer support, so there is nobody to contact regarding this problem.

Here is the link to the transaction:
https://blockchain.info/tx/1027d874ebf2bc54069d9128772d09a036b923f301afb06c07324c72677ab294

probably should use coinbase rather than blockchain after their outage this week

Why do you say this?  I've never had any problem with blockchain.info service.

If coinbase has an outage it is impossible to access the bitcoins, because they are not your bitcoins.  You don't have access to the private keys, which means that they are not your bitcoins.

blockchain.info is very responsible and very secure.  They do not have access to your private keys.  They also provide you with the ability to create a backup of your wallet so that you can still access your bitcoins even if blockchain.info disappears.  Coinbase does not do this.

Why do you say that blockchain.info is not responsible?

True that Coinbase is like Mt. Gox, in that they hold your private keys so they can steal your bitcoins. But, if they (hopefully) implement multi-signature keys this year (hopefully), the risk of them stealing your Bitcoins will drop to zero and will be a thing of the past. in the meantime, one good thing about Coinbase is that they make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in profit every month, so they can afford to pay for 24/7 chat support on their website. Blockchain.info has ZERO support at all, and their support pages are pretty terrible. I still don't know why Blockchain.info charged BOTH me AND my friend a transaction fee! Very upset with Blockchain, and they don't respond to support inquiries! Just FEELS shady of them, even if they're not shady. Although they ARE more secure than Coinbase at this point in time, Blockchain.info is a nightmare to use. Would NOT recommend Blockchain to anyone at this point.

@DannyHamilton could you tell me how to access my coin if blockchain.info disappears?

blockchain.info allows you to send a backup of your wallet to yourself.

As long as you do this every time you create a new address, you can import this file into MultiBit if blockchain.info is unavailable.

Blockchain.info also allows you to have a copy of your private keys.  If you have stored a copy of the private keys of each of the addresses in your wallet, then you can import those private keys into Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, or Armory to access your bitcoins if blockchain.info is unavailable.