Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)

[hojo]

Well apparently meyoumeyou did 2 transaction just the other day and they were successful. If i find it is back up and running I'll do a low level amount to test it first. I PM'd USRAY and although he is active i am not getting a response so i also just PM'd Yankee. I wouldn't assume that USRAY got let go due to lack of funds. He could have quit from all the pressure and abuse he was taking due to all these issues. A lot of these issues do turn out to be from people entering in wrong info as i myself kind of did once. I had transferred funds to an exchange that had stopped dealing in Bitcoins unbeknownst to me because i had not recently checked the exchange website. I got my money though a week later thanks to help from Rachel.

If anyone knows another way to purchase coins please advise. I may just finish registering at Dwolla and go that route. I was already registered there with my bank account and the suckers were requiring all kinds of information to make me re-register. It aggravated me so much i just started using Bitinstant.  Anyone have advice...please?

[hate_the_face]

lol Dwolla is no more man

[Dapper]

Huh?   I am logged into Dwolla right now.

[hojo]

I just logged into Dwolla too so wtf are you talking about?

[crazylikeafox]

I just logged into Dwolla too so wtf are you talking about?

He means that Dwolla is no longer processing BSInstant transactions.  And you can pretty much infer from the fact that they have simply gone quiet that their current status is....up the river without a paddle.  The 40% decline in BTC prices over the last month should have helped them out, but it's fairly obvious now that they don't even have a few hundred dollars in the bank to pay employees, much less to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in undelivered transactions at any price.  I have a feeling the rapid price decline in BTC has something to do with BSInstant's inability to buy BTC anymore, since they were a major buyer.

They managed to somehow keep order flow coming for a lot longer than I thought they could after they first started lying about technical problems several months ago, but I'm afraid the ship has finally sunk.

[JerryG]

1BTC = $68.00....WOW!!!
That's not volatile, that's implosion..

[MrBilling]

I just logged into Dwolla too so wtf are you talking about?

He means that Dwolla is no longer processing BSInstant transactions.  And you can pretty much infer from the fact that they have simply gone quiet that their current status is....up the river without a paddle.  The 40% decline in BTC prices over the last month should have helped them out, but it's fairly obvious now that they don't even have a few hundred dollars in the bank to pay employees, much less to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in undelivered transactions at any price.  I have a feeling the rapid price decline in BTC has something to do with BSInstant's inability to buy BTC anymore, since they were a major buyer.

They managed to somehow keep order flow coming for a lot longer than I thought they could after they first started lying about technical problems several months ago, but I'm afraid the ship has finally sunk.

Oh man I hope not.  Stuff like this has happened before when everyone thought BI had went scammer.  But they always came out of it.  I hope this time is the same.

[nanobtc]

I had used the 'old' Bitinstant several times, USD was in Gox before I left Walmart. Today I signed up on the 'new' Bitinstant. When I tried the verify quiz, they gave me nothing but someone else's questions, apparently. None of the names, addresses, "what year was your car" questions were a part of my profile.

I was able to sign in, but did not try a transaction.

[hojo]

Ya i see now what you're talking about. I can still put money in Dwolla and use it but that won't do me much good. However there are bitcoin dealers on "localbitcoins.com" that accept payment through Dwolla and appear to have a good reputation but that doesn't seem safe. The only other option I have found was doing an international bank transfer to Bitstamp which i have an account with and have purchased coins through several times. I just have no clue how to go about that but i guess i could educate myself. Anyone have suggestions on another way? I really only need $100 in bitcoins and this is pissing me off.

[crazylikeafox]

I just logged into Dwolla too so wtf are you talking about?

He means that Dwolla is no longer processing BSInstant transactions.  And you can pretty much infer from the fact that they have simply gone quiet that their current status is....up the river without a paddle.  The 40% decline in BTC prices over the last month should have helped them out, but it's fairly obvious now that they don't even have a few hundred dollars in the bank to pay employees, much less to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in undelivered transactions at any price.  I have a feeling the rapid price decline in BTC has something to do with BSInstant's inability to buy BTC anymore, since they were a major buyer.

They managed to somehow keep order flow coming for a lot longer than I thought they could after they first started lying about technical problems several months ago, but I'm afraid the ship has finally sunk.

Oh man I hope not.  Stuff like this has happened before when everyone thought BI had went scammer.  But they always came out of it.  I hope this time is the same.

They always came out of it before because they had enough new orders to sort-of keep up appearances.  Now, apparently they don't have enough order flow to even keep a few hundred dollars in the bank, and have tons of undelivered orders.  At some point during all of this, they also received $1.5 million from the Winklevoss twins (of Facebook fame) that helped carry them for a while.  It appears that no more money is coming from anyone to save them.  Again, the fact that they have dropped all attempts to even communicate anymore (beyond automated emails) is all the evidence you need.

[Droganan]

The BitInstant Blog is down http://blog.bitinstant.com

Might be a sign of impending doom or a sign of the blog being moved to an official subdomain? Who knows but I will not be using their services until someone comes and reassures us that everything is well.

[crazylikeafox]

The BitInstant Blog is down http://blog.bitinstant.com

Might be a sign of impending doom or a sign of the blog being moved to an official subdomain? Who knows but I will not be using their services until someone comes and reassures us that everything is well.

Well, the blog link on their home page still goes to http://blog.bitinstant.com so that means if they moved the blog nobody told the person handling the main site.  Also, that looks like a "you haven't paid your bill" type of page, which probably isn't a good sign either since a Square Space account costs $8/mo (had they simply deleted their account, you would see this page instead).  Probably not a coincidence that this happened shortly after the 1st of the month, since any corporate credit cards they had to bill that type of thing to are likely toast. They claim that their office is at:

20 W 23rd Street
New York, New York
10010

I wonder if anyone in New York could even confirm that they still have an office.  Their swashbuckling CEO, Charlie Shrem, has even stopped tweeting the last 4 days straight, when he used to tweet several times a day.  Given that and the silence here, I'm afraid Bitinstant has finally hit the skids.  If they have, I assume there will be criminal charges stemming from all of this....I guess I'm not surprised that the CEO has simply vanished.

[nanobtc]

Yup, Charlie was a big player early on. I can't blame them really, for going for the verification stuff. All of the US-based legal troubles involve being a 'money transmitter'. Gox really isn't, but Dwolla, Bitinstant, etc really are. I am not a big-time player at all, but it was nice to just walk into Walmart, and fairly anonymously put in cash, and have it in Gox immediately.

[hate_the_face]

Yup, Charlie was a big player early on. I can't blame them really, for going for the verification stuff. All of the US-based legal troubles involve being a 'money transmitter'. Gox really isn't, but Dwolla, Bitinstant, etc really are. I am not a big-time player at all, but it was nice to just walk into Walmart, and fairly anonymously put in cash, and have it in Gox immediately.

and people like me and you are the reason this website is even relevant right now. Represent the masses, not the 1% who live and breathe bitcoin

at least we have some common sense

[BCB]

The BitInstant Blog is down http://blog.bitinstant.com

Might be a sign of impending doom or a sign of the blog being moved to an official subdomain? Who knows but I will not be using their services until someone comes and reassures us that everything is well.

Well, the blog link on their home page still goes to http://blog.bitinstant.com so that means if they moved the blog nobody told the person handling the main site.  Also, that looks like a "you haven't paid your bill" type of page, which probably isn't a good sign either since a Square Space account costs $8/mo (had they simply deleted their account, you would see this page instead).  Probably not a coincidence that this happened shortly after the 1st of the month, since any corporate credit cards they had to bill that type of thing to are likely toast. They claim that their office is at:

20 W 23rd Street
New York, New York
10010

I wonder if anyone in New York could even confirm that they still have an office.  Their swashbuckling CEO, Charlie Shrem, has even stopped tweeting the last 4 days straight, when he used to tweet several times a day.  Given that and the silence here, I'm afraid Bitinstant has finally hit the skids.  If they have, I assume there will be criminal charges stemming from all of this....I guess I'm not surprised that the CEO has simply vanished.

It is the 4th of July (independence day) holiday weekend in the US.  Give it a break.  

Yes they recently moved offices.  

[crazylikeafox]

It is the 4th of July (independence day) holiday weekend in the US.  Give it a break.  

Yes they recently moved offices.  

Ok, so they also can't pay their $8/mo blog bill on the 4h of July weekend, or respond to anyone in here, and they laid off employees in celebration of Independence Day - they wanted to give them their independence.  Sounds great, I'm glad we all know that there is a perfectly logical and innocent explanation for all of this that doesn't include the collapse of one of the largest Bitcoin services on the Internet.

[am752]

I had a friend use the service yesterday. He said it went thru within an hour.

[Jenell]

When will support for Canada be added?

[MrBilling]

When will support for Canada be added?

Hopefully after support for they're customers who have been waiting weeks for they're money.

[blakenew]

I got this e-mail after depositing money via ZipZap to bitinstant to be transferred to my virwox account.

Thank you for using BitInstant!

This email is to notify you that while we received your payment successfully, we have encountered an error while trying to process your transaction at Jul 07 2013 00:31:36, meaning your order has currently failed.

Transaction ID: CENSORED

If you contact support about this transaction, please reference this number so we can help you more quickly.

Your payment of 313.04, has NOT yet been transferred to virwox.

Our customer support agents have been informed of this problem and are currently investigating the problem. An agent will be in touch with you shortly regarding your account and what the next steps are. Until we understand what the issue with your transaction is, we suggest that you avoid creating further orders at BitInstant.com (in case you have entered account numbers incorrectly).

I still haven't gotten an e-mail from them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Please, do tell me what is going on.