I created a new account with this service today.  When I tried to add a withdrawal address it told me to check my email for confirmation, but the email never came, and not to spam folder either.  I use Gmail.

I emailed Support but they have not replied to me.

I buy and sell exclusively with Coinbase.  I use 2-factor authentication with the Authy app.  I use the consumer and the merchant Android app provided by Coinbase and think they are very convenient.  I've never had a bad experience with Coinbase.

The drawback, for some users, will be their extensive requirements to become "trusted".  You have to prove your identity, you have to link a bank checking account, and you have to link a Visa credit card (prepaid and debit doesn't work) if you want "instant" buys.

To describe your unfortunate experience as a "scam" is a bit far fetched.  The majority of people that use Coinbase have had nothing but a pleasant experience.  I've been using them for the last 7 months and never once had a problem. 

While your experience has been negative, and is indeed frustrating, your definition of "scam" is not the norm.

I noticed I stopped getting mining payout notifications on CEX.io and my ghash.io shows 5 hours of current work with nothing...is this normal?

Is it just me or has ghash.io been working 4 hours and got nothing?

It's been hovering around $16-$19 per GH for the last few days which still seems a bit too high for me.

At the current price I agree.  Perhaps because this is fairly new people are overlooking this and just want in.  Or could be that I'm just overly pessimistic. 

I have a 7GH Jalepeno coming from BFL within the next 2 weeks but I paid $400USD for it.  At CEX that same $400USD would have gotten me at least triple that amount of GH.  I just hope by the time I get my Jalapeno that I can sell it for $300USD on ebay.

I created an account at cex.io 2 days ago and purchased 2BTC worth of GH at 0.083.  I sold the GH a few hours ago at 0.094 and will probably wait until after the difficulty increase tonight to make a decision on whether to re-invest.

Some people believe that the GH price has already adjusted for the upcoming difficulty change, but I am not so confident.