blockchain.info - DO NOT USE AT PRESENT.

[BruceCampbell]

It's sad that I have to do this, but for the love of christ, do not use blockchain.info at the moment.
I know it has been one of the best in the past, but... well, let their forums speak for themselves:
https://blockchain.zendesk.com/forums
It seems that not a single person who has bought this year, has received their coins.
Server/technical issues or not, thousands of pounds/dollars are 'in limbo', and there has been no response from support.

Coins were promised within ten minutes, some people have been waiting almost a week, with no funds, no support, no responses, no updates... and it seems that more and more people are buying, just to be disappointed. There's clearly something very wrong, and nothing seems to be being done about it, so use it at your own risk, and tell your friends.

[BruceCampbell]

a thread with over a hundred responses has just been deleted from their forums.
It's not the first.

[thebaron]

It's funny how they have time to delete threads on their support page, but not to give any actual support. Hmm.

I can't wait for the "but we can't recover any transactions or data because we're so secure" excuse.

[Stephen Gornick]

It's funny how they have time to delete threads on their support page, but not to give any actual support.

The response came late, but here's what it says:

Apologies for the delay, the cause is due to us being out of coins. A wire transfer was sent to an exchange 6 days ago which should clear anytime now, normally they only take 24 hours.
All pending transactions will hopefully clear tonight. Fees will be waived for any transactions delayed more than 2 hours.

- http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/15u8ui/warning_blockchaininfo_users_reporting_missing/c7pw6cl

That's the problem with relying on a service that itself relies on both the banking system and an exchange as well.  And in this instance that exchange (presumably Mt. gox) is in a different timezone and with different banking holidays.

But waiting until late Jan 2nd to report a problem that was known ... what, on December 31st (?) is uncool.

[Edit: And this issue is ONLY with those using Blockchain.info/wallet for buying coins, and of that mostly with Pingit.  There are no problems with using the wallet with your own coins (though I'm not sure if the mixer was also affected by this issue.).]

[BruceCampbell]

Another 3 threads on their support forums have disappeared (this isn't an insignificant number, there are only 4 threads on there right now... seems you're either praising them, or you're gone)
Funny that, seems that anything negative is deleted, while people aren't receiving their money.
A lot of people are fuming with this site right now, and all attempts to rectify the problems are being ignored. People are being told they'll receive coins within ten minutes, yet they're so far waiting 4-5 days, with fuck all to show for it, no responses to support requests, and all negative posts are being deleted from their forums.
Use at your own fucking risk, and expect to be disappointed.

[x0Jakeyboy0x]

Their receive API for generating forwarding addresses with callbacks is also down. I was hoping to use this for a site I'm developing but I'm having second thoughts now. Any other recommendations for generating a random btc address and then having a callback sent when coins are received? Or perhaps something i can run myself on windows?

[piuk]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40264.msg1432010#msg1432010

[BruceCampbell]

I have now received my coins. Longest "1-10 minutes" of my life, took around 5 days in fact, but all is now sorted. Phew!

[ladamin]

So, we now know that blockchain transferred a large amount to mtgox in order to buy BTC. I'd say we should expect an increase of BTC value soon!

[bbqsamich]

Their receive API for generating forwarding addresses with callbacks is also down. I was hoping to use this for a site I'm developing but I'm having second thoughts now. Any other recommendations for generating a random btc address and then having a callback sent when coins are received? Or perhaps something i can run myself on windows?

Check out their JSON API, its effectively like running your own bitcoind instance. Maybe that'll work out for you. With these sorts of problem, it might be good if they had a competitor join the fold