Coinbase Decides Not to Refund Customers in Double Billing Glitch

[MicroGuy]

After receiving numerous complaints from its customers, Coinbase has decided to credit the affected accounts with Bitcoin rather than refunding the victims of its double billing “glitch”. Sometime around August 28, Coinbase began charging many of its customers twice for each bitcoin order placed.

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Dear valued Coinbase customer,

Coinbase recently discovered that some purchases placed between 8/28 and 9/1 have been mistakenly duplicated. Your bank account may have been charged twice for a single buy order as a result. We identified your account as one of those affected, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this caused you.

Because the initial ACH debit and the duplicate ACH debit have both processed on your account we will be crediting your Coinbase account with the correct amount of bitcoin for each order from both the initial buy and the duplicate buy. This credit will take place early next week when the ACH transfer has completed.

From there you may sell this bitcoin back to your bank account and reply to this message with any additional questions you may have. Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If there is anything else we can help with, please let us know immediately.

Our sincerest apologies,

Coinbase Support Team
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Since Coinbase holds bank funds for approximately one week before crediting customer’s accounts with purchased bitcoins, this means the company now holds both the duplicate funds and all the ordered bitcoins. While at present, its customers are left with nothing but double-dipped bank accounts.

Coinbase is a bitcoin wallet and exchange company headquartered in San Francisco California, founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. It operates exchanges between bitcoin and fiat currencies in twenty-six countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.

Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2015/09/breaking-coinbase-decides-not-to-refund-customers-in-double-billing-glitch/

[Lauda]

I don't see almost any problems with this aside from the inconvenience and potential small loses. However, there could also be potential gains if the price rises before the customers receive their Bitcoins. I'm assuming that they will receive them at the price that was on the date of the purchase. I do wonder why the chose to 'refund' solely with Bitcoin.

Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.

Seems okay to me. Not sure why this should be "BREAKING" news?

[colinistheman]

It seems odd that they would force you to take bitcoin with the extra charge when they are the ones who incorrectly drew too much from your account.

Also to ironically note that is only possible with a pull-based system. If Bitcoin was the main currency, then no company could have made this mistake. Even more ironic is that it was caused BY a bitcoin company.

[MicroGuy]

I don't see almost any problems with this aside from the inconvenience and potential small loses. However, there could also be potential gains if the price rises before the customers receive their Bitcoins. I'm assuming that they will receive them at the price that was on the date of the purchase. I do wonder why the chose to 'refund' solely with Bitcoin.

Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.

Seems okay to me. Not sure why this should be "BREAKING" news?

So if you ordered 1 (one) item from Amazon and got billed for 2 (two), and when you noticed the double charge, Amazon said, "no worries, you can keep the second item", you would be okay with that?   lol

Welcome to the shady world of Bitcoin.

[ronald98]

I don't see almost any problems with this aside from the inconvenience and potential small loses. However, there could also be potential gains if the price rises before the customers receive their Bitcoins. I'm assuming that they will receive them at the price that was on the date of the purchase. I do wonder why the chose to 'refund' solely with Bitcoin.

Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.

Seems okay to me. Not sure why this should be "BREAKING" news?

What if a customer only had enough funds in his bank account to make one purchase of Bitcoins? Surely he would be charged by his bank if another attempted withdrawal took place after the first. Those charges could put his account in arrears, which he would also be charged for. Bank charges can rapidly spiral in such situations. Would Coinbase reimburse him for his bank account arrears?

[unamis76]

I don't see any evil in them refunding in Bitcoin (although that's probably not the best "business ethics"). No issues with refunds using Bitcoin...

[achow101]

What is wrong with getting refunded with Bitcoin? Technically it is still a refund, so the title and article is misleading.

[RustyNomad]

I also don't see any problem with this but it would have been a nice gesture of them is they did the refund in bitcoin and added a small bonus to that for the inconvenience and to cover for any costs related to the incident.

Title is very misleading in that it states that CoinBase decides NOT TO REFUND. Now that would have been newsworthy.

[MicroGuy]

What is wrong with getting refunded with Bitcoin? Technically it is still a refund, so the title and article is misleading.

No, technically (and non-technically) that is not a refund.

[ronald98]

I don't see almost any problems with this aside from the inconvenience and potential small loses. However, there could also be potential gains if the price rises before the customers receive their Bitcoins. I'm assuming that they will receive them at the price that was on the date of the purchase. I do wonder why the chose to 'refund' solely with Bitcoin.

Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.

Seems okay to me. Not sure why this should be "BREAKING" news?

So if you ordered 1 (one) item from Amazon and got billed for 2 (two), and when you noticed the double charge, Amazon said, "no worries, you can keep the second item", you would be okay with that?   lol

Welcome to the shady world of Bitcoin.

I was charged twice for the same thing for an online purchase. It might have been through ebay or amazon, but I can't remember. It briefly showed up in my account, then they rectified it by sending the second debited amount back to my account. My bank said the company must have realized its mistake within less than a day and paid me back.

These mistakes happen with other companies besides Coinbase, but they refund the money rather than send double the goods ordered.

[Lauda]

So if you ordered 1 (one) item from Amazon and got billed for 2 (two), and when you noticed the double charge, Amazon said, "no worries, you can keep the second item", you would be okay with that?   lol

Welcome to the shady world of Bitcoin.

That analogy is wrong and you've resumed your negative posting about Bitcoin. The main thing here is that 'second item' from Amazon would be harder to sell, where in the case of Bitcoin on a exchange is instant.

What if a customer only had enough funds in his bank account to make one purchase of Bitcoins? Surely he would be charged by his bank if another attempted withdrawal took place after the first. Those charges could put his account in arrears, which he would also be charged for. Bank charges can rapidly spiral in such situations. Would Coinbase reimburse him for his bank account arrears?

Well yes, there is also that. However, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people can go into a "negative balance" (i.e. under 0;credit). The number of people that this is going to affect should be limited.

[achow101]

What is wrong with getting refunded with Bitcoin? Technically it is still a refund, so the title and article is misleading.

No, technically (and non-technically) that is not a refund.

Right. sorry.

In this case, it is simply easier to credit the customer with more Bitcoin because they probably will buy more, and it can be easily exchanged back into fiat, more so than normal goods.

Also, Coinbase does not hold your funds for a week, they aren't holding them at all and not crediting the accounts. The delay is because ACH takes several business days to settle and they can only credit the account after it has settled.

[jonald_fyookball]

although usually I ignore microguy's posts , this actually happened to us.

One of my associates' companies uses Coinbase for remittances... we got stuck with an
extra $3000 in Bitcoins.  Not a biggie, but could have caused major problems
for people depending on the size of their purchase , their account balance and
other account obligations.

[DannyHamilton]

What if a customer only had enough funds in his bank account to make one purchase of Bitcoins? Surely he would be charged by his bank if another attempted withdrawal took place after the first. Those charges could put his account in arrears, which he would also be charged for. Bank charges can rapidly spiral in such situations. Would Coinbase reimburse him for his bank account arrears?

I see that you are participating in a signature ad campaign, so I'll go ahead and add you to my ignore list, but in the meantime I'll take a second to suggest that you learn to read:

- snip -
Please let us know if you have incurred additional bank fees as a result of this error, and we will work with you to refund those.
- snip -

Our sincerest apologies,

Coinbase Support Team

[PolarPoint]

The best practice is to refund the fiat like nothing went wrong. If you buy something from a shop and charged double the amount on your credit card, you would expect a refund, not take away two sets of the things you bought. I think Coinbase can charge more fees this way.

[Hugroll]

It seems like they are refunding for the original transaction plus the duplicated one. Isn't that just free money?

[maokoto]

although usually I ignore microguy's posts , this actually happened to us.

One of my associates' companies uses Coinbase for remittances... we got stuck with an
extra $3000 in Bitcoins.  Not a biggie, but could have caused major problems
for people depending on the size of their purchase , their account balance and
other account obligations.

I almost replied "I do not think that is going to make much harm" but I saw your post while scrolling down...

Did not consider it, for people with big transactions it may be a very big problem

[Mickeyb]

although usually I ignore microguy's posts , this actually happened to us.

One of my associates' companies uses Coinbase for remittances... we got stuck with an
extra $3000 in Bitcoins.  Not a biggie, but could have caused major problems
for people depending on the size of their purchase , their account balance and
other account obligations.

This could have been a big problem for many, I agree. Apart from this, I see there are many comments in this thread, so what if they did this! I don't agree with them. These are bad practices by the Coinbase and they shouldn't be doing business in this way.

If I decide to buy 1 BTC, then I want 1 BTC, not 2 of them, point blank. Why would I need to go through more hassle to sell that 1 unwanted coin? Why would I have to pay for trading fees while selling this 1 coin? And why would I need to risk a drop in price until they don't credit me that 1 BTC, which takes about 7 days?

On the more funny note, this might be the Coinbase way of spreading the user adoption!

[Coinshot]

I don't get whats the notable news here. They made an error, i get that, but they are crediting user's accounts with counter value in btc, which seams
to me like the most reasonable solution in this case. It's unfortunate how this even happened, but that they are "shady" because of this, definitely not.

[BayAreaCoins]

I don't get whats the notable news here. They made an error, i get that, but they are crediting user's accounts with counter value in btc, which seams
to me like the most reasonable solution in this case. It's unfortunate how this even happened, but that they are "shady" because of this, definitely not.

Seems like a shady ass way to sell twice as many Bitcoins and then tell people to fucking bad.

I will be filing complaints against this company in regards to this and strongly suggest others to do the same.

The more complaints... the faster the FED can pwn these fucks... the faster we can sue them into the middle of next year for their pump and dump "Rick Roll" scam news without as many worries if the FEDS didn't pwn them.