Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)

[Vagnavs]

Hello,
have you thought of offering BTC for Western Union? I think there would be a great deal of interest. Although you do offer a number of other options. I've used the service the past and can vouch as a great

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[B-ran]

I never received my funds either! I did the cash deposit into a specified wallet address option for $253 and I have yet to receive my funds! I am really hoping they clear by tonight! Yankee let me know please!!! 840933162 is the zip zap account number that I payed as a bill into. Please get back to us ASAP!

[MegaCrayg]

Ask me a week ago and I would have had nothing but nice things to say about bitinstant.

Here, too.  But now?  I am very disappointed.  I did a BTC to Email via cash deposit on Saturday.  So far, all of the action has been on my end.  I initiated the transaction, traveled to a retailer, and made the cash deposit.  Still, today the transaction is still listed as "New Order".

What has BitInstant done?  I got an automated email with no content other than the template that BitInstant always uses.   Woop-dee-doo.

[chillin151]

I posted this comment elsewhere before I found this, but I'm extremely upset with the Bitinstant right now.  I wasn't having any issues, until recently.  My last 4 orders have taken days to get through and I've been completely ignored by customer service staff.  

I don't know what to do at this point, either.  I've been writing the support team (politely) since last Wednesday and I have gotten two responses (out of several messages).  The first ticket was apparently opened by Rachel last week, but nothing came of it-- no coins and no follow-up.  

A second ticket was opened (by Seth) yesterday and their was still no follow-up to a question and no coins.  I am still missing close to $1,000 worth of money and losing my own customers and no one seems to care.  I really just want my funds and go somewhere else.  

I keep giving it a try but this happened to me on 12/10, 1/28, 1/29, and now 2/14...  The one and only time this was fixed quickly (in under 3-4 days) was on 12/10 - I talked to Rachel on the phone, panicked because I was missing close to $1,500 and she pushed it through within hours.  

Based on the declining service I've been experiencing, I no longer believe this is a viable company.  I also don't think that I should have to pay 4% convenience fee that actually locks up my money for days, causing my business to lose customers.

I will update my post when (or if) this gets resolved.

[MnAttny]

I immediately informed the bitinstant folks, who promptly have proceeded to ignore me.  I even started another "live" chate four hours ago and have gotten no response.  This is very frustrating as MT GOX indicated it would take minimal effort for bitinstant to fix this problem and now they refuse to even give me an update.  I know this was my fault for mixing things up, but I like to be informed when I request information.  

Hey, no one is ignoring you. There is a process to get these funds back for you, and unfortunately it can take longer then any of us would like.

I got an almost instant response after my previous post.  Only downside is support said they had no real idea or ETA as to how long it would take to get my funds back into my account.

I have since asked several customer service folks as well as Yankee if they could give  me a rough estimate as to how long they think the process will take.  (a day/week)? I really don't care, I just want a general idea.   I have gotten no response from bitinstant.  The folks at MT Gox have been very responsive and said they did not understand why there would be a delay on the part of bitinstant after the funds were frozen on their end.  I use bitinstant a lot (Heck I just did this morning).  Not very satisfied at the moment and will be looking for an alternative route to get my money where it needs to go given the lack of communication.  All it would have taken to make me happy would have been if someone said "MnAttny, processing should be complete by x day and you should expect your money in your Mt Gox account at that point."

[bill1337]

Hi everyone, I'm having a bit of a problem with some bitcoins I attempted to purchase a few days ago. I used bitinstant. com to make a zipzap payment slip of  83.95 I believe, filled out a moneygram slip, and took it to my local supermarket. Everything went fine at the moneygram desk, but my bitcoins never arrived at the bitcoin address that I had specified. I tried to email bitinstant, but have received no response so far. I was told that I could find some help here. I still have my receipt from when I went to the supermarket, as well as the payment slip file downloaded on my computer, so I can give that information if I need to. Usually I receive an email from bitinstant once I've paid the moneygram slip saying "your order has been updated" or something along those lines, but I never received an email. I also looked up my bitcoin address on blockchain.info, and there were no transactions shown for that month



P.S If i attempted to use bitinstant again, would my funds go through this time, or should I wait a little while before I attempt to purchase bitcoins again. Sorry if im using the wrong terminology here, im kind of a noob

[Nuro77]

According to BTC-e (looks to be a BitInstant sister company - run by the same people), BitInstant only has 2 USD left in its reserves (was 15 USD a few hours ago, and was in the thousands days ago). Not sure if this is affecting all the people who can't get funds.

I don't quite understand the "reserves" dynamic, but I really hope that's not the amount BitInstant is working with to get your transactions complete.

Though I'm pretty sure that amount is related to having a successful cash-to-wallet transaction, as far as I can gather on here (too bad this stuff is not explained anywhere, so we're all left wondering WTF is going in).

Stuff like this, really makes me nervous. Anyone have any issues doing cash-to-BTCe and then transferring out to a wallet today?

[supermono]

Yankee,

I am still waiting on my order from a week ago (last Tuesday, February 12, 2:26 pm EST) to be manually filled. Nothing has shown up in my wallet or at blockchain.info. Please either manually fill it, or at least give me an update. I'm not used to waiting a week to receive bitcoins from a company with "Instant" in the name and which in the past filled my previous orders in less than an hour.

OrderID: 5a5b26e3-22d4-447d-992d-4943cf309f00
EventID: 3b177796-1966-4994-9c88-390c8d399d8b
QuoteID: d546598f-0c01-42f8-9665-465b40cd2232

Thanks!

[Nuro77]

Yankee,

I am still waiting on my order from a week ago (last Tuesday, February 12, 2:26 pm EST) to be manually filled. Nothing has shown up in my wallet or at blockchain.info. Please either manually fill it, or at least give me an update. I'm not used to waiting a week to receive bitcoins from a company with "Instant" in the name and which in the past filled my previous orders in less than an hour.

OrderID: 5a5b26e3-22d4-447d-992d-4943cf309f00
EventID: 3b177796-1966-4994-9c88-390c8d399d8b
QuoteID: d546598f-0c01-42f8-9665-465b40cd2232

Thanks!

Looks like your order completed within an hour on the 12th...
https://www.bitinstant.com/order_status/d546598f-0c01-42f8-9665-465b40cd2232

But I don't see anything in blockchain about it...
http://blockchain.info/address/14e3Fmgm6CytVyeU5WcpDVqWwNUatS2EUK

Strange.

Was this direct to a personal wallet address or to Mt Gox, etc?

[rustyballs]

Customer support keeps saying the next business day. If you have no clue then stop saying the next business day. Say "our systems are all fucked up and we don't know when".

Quote ID    91858e55-cdc1-4a37-bedf-f3bd11d5e86c
Event ID   504d6b8c-edbe-4eb0-9858-25cb8d99dbd9

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Hey All,

Good news!

As of 3pm EST today, we are processing the orders and going thru the list.

Hopefully, we should have the option enabled at 6pm EST.

Regarding refunds for delayed orders:

Please DO NOT post your info here, please PM me your order info with subject "Refund Request"

Charlie

According to BTC-e (looks to be a BitInstant sister company - run by the same people), BitInstant only has 2 USD left in its reserves (was 15 USD a few hours ago, and was in the thousands days ago). Not sure if this is affecting all the people who can't get funds.

I don't quite understand the "reserves" dynamic, but I really hope that's not the amount BitInstant is working with to get your transactions complete.

BitInstant has nothing to do with BTC-e except they are an exchange, and we are their processor.

If we were the same company, why would we have to keep reserves there?

Charlie

[Nuro77]

According to BTC-e (looks to be a BitInstant sister company - run by the same people), BitInstant only has 2 USD left in its reserves (was 15 USD a few hours ago, and was in the thousands days ago). Not sure if this is affecting all the people who can't get funds.

I don't quite understand the "reserves" dynamic, but I really hope that's not the amount BitInstant is working with to get your transactions complete.

BitInstant has nothing to do with BTC-e except they are an exchange, and we are their processor.

If we were the same company, why would we have to keep reserves there?

Charlie

Good point!

It just seemed to me like BitInstant and BTC-e were operated and joined in some way, and I suppose it would be proper to keep everything as a separate legal entity, and have different bank accounts, a legally defensable ledger (transfer from BitInstant into BTC-e reserves), etc. But I see that I was wrong.

[bill1337]

just checked my bitcoin address, and my 85 dollars has succesfully appeared! Thanks Yankee!

[sbochnowicz]

I wanted to PM you, but I can't since I just made the account. I placed an order Friday and still have not received any bitcoins. I was hoping you could help

[Nuro77]

Just a heads up about your DNS...

I kept on going to http://bitinstant.com/, hoping to either get to the website or a redirect to www.bitinstant.com.

The former address has no response.

And I kept on thinking that the website was down.

The DNS is delegated to CloudFlare, and the resource records point to different IPs for the "@" and "www" hosts.

bitinstant.com.         300     IN      A       107.21.109.147

www.bitinstant.com.     300     IN      CNAME   dualstack.web-load-balancer-1091656690.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com.
dualstack.web-load-balancer-1091656690.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com. 60 IN A 50.17.210.13

There is obviously no response from the base domain and it makes it look like the site is down. I don't know if this is the way it always was, or if some records didn't get updated, or there is a purpose to this, but the unresponsive IP is also owned by Amazon EC2.

[orion007]

Yankee, just made my first transaction with bitinstant. It has been a couple hours now waiting on funds to go to btc-e.com. Sent a support e-mail but haven't had a response. Here is my QuoteID:

05d05a18-14a2-45ae-8b9f-b448808954e0

[supermono]

Yankee,

I am still waiting on my order from a week ago (last Tuesday, February 12, 2:26 pm EST) to be manually filled. Nothing has shown up in my wallet or at blockchain.info. Please either manually fill it, or at least give me an update. I'm not used to waiting a week to receive bitcoins from a company with "Instant" in the name and which in the past filled my previous orders in less than an hour.

OrderID: 5a5b26e3-22d4-447d-992d-4943cf309f00
EventID: 3b177796-1966-4994-9c88-390c8d399d8b
QuoteID: d546598f-0c01-42f8-9665-465b40cd2232

Thanks!

Looks like your order completed within an hour on the 12th...
https://www.bitinstant.com/order_status/d546598f-0c01-42f8-9665-465b40cd2232

But I don't see anything in blockchain about it...
http://blockchain.info/address/14e3Fmgm6CytVyeU5WcpDVqWwNUatS2EUK

Strange.

Was this direct to a personal wallet address or to Mt Gox, etc?

It was (supposed to be) direct to a personal wallet address. They emailed me as usual within a few minutes of when I made cash payment saying that they were filling the order, but then I never got anything, and nothing showed up at blockchain.info either. Apparently when this happens, support has to manually fill the order.

[mooneyo]

I already paid a 100$ money order and received a confirmation email over a week ago...but never received bitcoins. I've been emailing and calling everyday nobody is helping me and I finally received an email that said I owe 100...please help me my account number is 105717524. Email if needed is willdashnizzle@yahoo.com

[chillin151]

Yankee,

I cannot PM you so I'm posting here.  I had three orders last week.  One went through and two didn't.

The ZipZap Account #s are:

ZipZap Account# 717574362 $503.95
ZipZap Account# 852420363 $503.95
ZipZap Account# 741533004 $353.95

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.  I have been waiting since last Wednesday for this to be resolved

[jemix]

Yankee, just made my first transaction with bitinstant. It has been a couple hours now waiting on funds to go to btc-e.com. Sent a support e-mail but haven't had a response. Here is my QuoteID:

05d05a18-14a2-45ae-8b9f-b448808954e0

Same problem happened to me and they fixed the problem the next day.

I am trying to buy some bitcoins through chainblock.info and it says invalid exchange. 
The first 4 transactions with bitinstant I had not problems at all and the money was in my account in less than 30 mins.  Now all of the sudden I've been having trouble. 
What seems to be going on?