Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)

[PuertoLibre]

Hello,

Just used BitInstant for the first time. Everything worked out nice and quickly. Unfortunately, in the half hour it took me to run to the store for the money gram, the price of BTC went up a bit. When all was said and done, I ended up with ~0.978 instead of 1.0 BTC. I guess there is no way to make up that difference? I'd hate to do another full order + fees + trip to the store just for that tiny amount.

Thanks.

Your price is not locked in when you create a quote.  Regardless, if you think you have an issue that needs correction then it should go to support.bitinstant.com

What do you mean it's not locked?

Do you mean if we created a quote when 5 BTC equaled 500 USD...if it took 1 day for you to process and the price per BTC drops to 75...then we will get 375USD (before fees)?

Our system has a hard deadline of 24 hours, past which customers are entitled to fee refunds and compensation for price changes. The soft deadline (which is what we aim to deliver the majority of orders in) is 1 hour, and between those 2 timeframes we don't make a formal commitment to prices other than market rate as determined by our partners at coinapult.

You do realize that this is not directly implied on your website?

That is one hell of a bombshell to drop on people.

So basically, we don't actually know what rate we are getting until after we get it....?

Everything about the BitInstant website leads a person to believe they are going to get a fixed transaction (1 BTC for a certain amount of USD) as soon as finalized or as soon as it is paid in full. You'd better make it more obvious that prices are honored when executed rather than when paid. (huge variance right there)

Anyway:

Order: df07ed15-e31f-48be-9d0f-da85a3a59c58

There was some hickups with my order getting processed. Apparently customer service alerted me that the blockchain took its sweet time to confirm my payment. Even though I made the payment a few seconds after receiving the BitInstant address several days ago. You can check the timestamp to confirm when the transfer was made.

My order is still in limbo and I am definitely invoking the 24 hours clause. (fee free)

This is all covered in our terms of service.  Sorry for the delay on your order.  We are working on a solution.  Thanks.

Any updates to my order?

Order: df07ed15-e31f-48be-9d0f-da85a3a59c58

Please issue an immediate refund for my order. I lost count of how many days I have been waiting.

It is probably my seventh day (7th). My issue wasn't even related to zipzap or coinapult or whoever.

Been ignored by BitInstant support for the last 2 days.

So just send the exact BTC (including BTC fees) back into my account. I have already found a reliable partner who can do this for me with almost no delay. (And no, they are not automated!)

I can try to add additional instructions to your order that indicate a refund but that will likely add additional waiting time to your issue.  Your call.

Resolve it in any way you choose.

Whatever is shorter. Just make sure whatever the resolution it is, it ends with 500USD at a Paypal account (without fees as it is past 24 hours) or a refund of 4.56xxxx BTC. Whatever is shorter. Time is money as your website header says. You lateness to deliver on the transaction has already cost me 35 dollars so far.

Make sure to tell me what you chose and what you were capable of as a company.

(P.S. I don't hold it against you URSAY, I simply hold it against BitInstant.)

[taymgates]

Been going on awhile now and still have not recieved my BTC. Not sure what is going on here... PLEASE HELP

sent: $323.95
Transaction ID: f7e92174-84b0-4d49-ba8f-fcdcc3801e0f
reference to Case #15941

Please let me know whatever I can do to make this transaction work. Kinda crazy sending alot of money to you and being left in the dark with no real support team or system on hand to chat with or help resolve issues.

[PuertoLibre]

By the way, in normal businesses, people test their production environment before they make it live.

It seems like BitInstant failed to do proper testing of many different services before going live with the updated website. The issue to be seems kind of obvious.

I don't want to dislike your company. But every attempt to use your service always ended in very long delays. (none of which were my fault) I didn't even know I could get my fees back if you failed to deliver in 24 hours. I lost my fees on that previous transaction.

I assumed at first it was just a single bad experience. But after looking through the forums, it is extremely easy to see that these issues have been around for a while and they are simply never fully addressed.

The new website just exacerbates the issues that seem to have been long known on the old website.

Your website should be known for it's extreme reliability. Yet looking through the forum there are tons of cases where people did normal transactions that never finished and in some cases apparently lost their money after they gave up.

(see the post above mine to give you a good example)

[prophexy]

I just paid $139.95 to BitInstant.  I get this in my email:

"Thank you for using BitInstant!

This email is to notify you that while received your payment successfully, we have encountered an error while trying to process your transaction at Jun 17 2013 14:56:50, meaning your order has currently failed.

Transaction ID: 4c93363c-1892-4b9f-b04a-1ec512fc11b0"  etc, etc.

I have used BitInstant and NEVER had any problems.  Now I get this.  I login to my BitInstant account, and see that they had no issues whatsoever accepting my money, but there is a "Coinapult error."  I had something that had to be purchased today, that's why I went w/BitInstant was for their speed in transferring BTC to my account.

Someone from BI care to explain this and send me my BitCoins, please?

Please log your issue at support.bitinstant.com so we can work to provide you with a solution.

I did log this issue with support.  They gave me some crappy generic response of contacting Coinapult and expecting me to wait 1-3 days for a REPLY from them, not even a solution.  The other guy up there ordered the same time (around) that I did, and had the same issue, and has received his coins.  I am just wondering why that is, when I have yet to receive mine?  Im sorry, I made a purchase that had to be purchased today before 11:59pm, so I am HOPING that you can resolve this issue for me. 

UPDATE:  I am getting a bunch of MtGox transfer errors on my BitInstant.com login when I view the order placed.  Uhm... I didn't place an order to goto MtGox.  It was a direct to BitCoin address order to my Blockchain account...

I just checked on this, your order failed due to an invalid bitcoin address, please update your support ticket with a known good address.

Support refuses to help me, and keeps saying to send a message to Coinapult.  If you would be able to help, I have the following addresses I **know** are valid, if you would be so kind as to assist!


1GWsbkqPL93kAcZHmZGSwAYWuM1yBxsg1Y
 
or

1SqeDcftmidXRBkoQBCDuAkYwBivS5gjF


I opened another ticket giving them those addresses, and I got a response of this:

"Alyssa replied:
Hey there, Matthew.

Your original support ticket was forwarded to Coinapult customer service. We asked that you please be patient as resolutions can take 1-3 business days. Coinapult is aware of your issue and will respond soon.

Sorry about the delay.
Best,

Alyssa
Customer Service Manager, BitInstant "

So should I contact Coinapult with these new addresses?

[prophexy]

Transaction ID: 4c93363c-1892-4b9f-b04a-1ec512fc11b0"  etc, etc.

I just checked on this, your order failed due to an invalid bitcoin address, please update your support ticket with a known good address.

Now she (the same person) replies saying It is being escalated to technical support....lol.  I double checked everything and its all correct, I don't know why Technical Support needs involved XD.  Oh well, as long as Coinapult is correct that it should be resolved today and you are correct, I am a halfway happy camper.  I still may order from BitInstant again, sometime.

[prophexy]

Transaction ID: 4c93363c-1892-4b9f-b04a-1ec512fc11b0"  etc, etc.

I just checked on this, your order failed due to an invalid bitcoin address, please update your support ticket with a known good address.

Now she (the same person) replies saying It is being escalated to technical support....lol.  I double checked everything and its all correct, I don't know why Technical Support needs involved XD.  Oh well, as long as Coinapult is correct that it should be resolved today and you are correct, I am a halfway happy camper.  I still may order from BitInstant again, sometime.

Also, I did not fail to give a good BitCoin address...the initial one WAS valid (I just double checked)... so I really hope to get all of my fees reimbursed if I don't get my BitCoin by tonight.  Thanks again

[prophexy]

UPDATE


I received my MONEYS!!!!!!!   Thanks BI!!!

[PuertoLibre]

Day 7, Still nothing.

[magicmike20]

I just made two cash deposits for Bitcoin-to-Email and although I received "successful" e-mails from ZipZap and BitInstant, I have only received one e-mail from Coinapult on which the sender reads "support@bitinstant.com".

After getting home and doing some searching, I believe I am having this issue because I used the same e-mail address for both sender AND recipient. (I did so because Coinapult says "any e-mail address" would work.)

I was told that BitInstant Support could help me retrieve my Bitcoins if I posted here.

Here is the transaction ID for the order that has not yet been filled:

5346530b-ba0f-4795-9412-55068cfa3a54

If someone on the support team could please push this second transaction through to the e-mail address that I provided, I would be very appreciative. I have full faith in the BitInstant Support Team and will post an update when I have received all of my coins.

If any information is needed, please do not hesitate to send me a Private Message here on the forums.

Thanks,
s

[Alexander The Great]

Hey All!

This thread is for customer issues, service announcements, ect. of BitInstant.

It's monitored by our support team, so if you have an issue, question, comment, feel free to post your order details here and someone should respond within a few hours during normal business hours (a little longer on weekends)

Thanks for all your continued business and support!

-Charlie and the team at BitInstant

I lost .4 btc a few months ago with these scammers... Never ever going to use them again

[Sunyata]

While I have no gripe waiting, it would have been nice if you had warned customers of the significant delays you guys are facing. Many of us are just left in the dark, and while you guys have been nothing, but cordial in this thread, that doesn't change the fact that most of us are out large sums of money.

I just wish I could get some sort of response instead of the generic "have you opened a support ticket" (which I have) reply I keep getting.

[seff]

Resolved

[Meskito]

I sent a MoneyGram deposit 8 hours ago and it was accepted by BitInstant 5 minutes later. However, I have yet to receive my bitcoins or even an email explaining why it's taking over twice as long as advertised on your site. I sent you guys an email 3 hours ago but haven't received a response. As a currency exchange, you really should have a more timely customer service.

And what's with not having a phone number to call? That's really sketchy. I wish I'd noticed that earlier, I'd have taken my business elsewhere.

In any case I hope to get a reply from you guys soon, otherwise I'm going to be forced to report you for fraud. I'd really rather just have my bitcoins.

This is my transaction info:
Date    06/18/13 13:42
Transaction ID    447f185f-13d7-4813-9e3a-8f2fca44e351
Money Source    Local Cash Deposit (700k Locations)
Account Number    N/A
Destination    Bitcoin Wallet Address
Amount    $49.50 USD

Thanks

[faqall]

I hope everyone having issues realizes this is STILL in BETA. Meaning there may still be issues. I have had several issues with BI taking a really long time to process my trans but eventually I was taken care of. Communication was lacking greatly. I wish there was some sort of notice on the main page or at checkout warning of such issues... or even if the option was completely removed! This support thread is kind of a joke/mess as well.

I hope BI works all the kinks out because when the service does work it is truly amazing!

[Gareth Nelson]

I sent a MoneyGram deposit 8 hours ago and it was accepted by BitInstant 5 minutes later. However, I have yet to receive my bitcoins or even an email explaining why it's taking over twice as long as advertised on your site. I sent you guys an email 3 hours ago but haven't received a response. As a currency exchange, you really should have a more timely customer service.

And what's with not having a phone number to call? That's really sketchy. I wish I'd noticed that earlier, I'd have taken my business elsewhere.

In any case I hope to get a reply from you guys soon, otherwise I'm going to be forced to report you for fraud. I'd really rather just have my bitcoins.

This is my transaction info:
Date    06/18/13 13:42
Transaction ID    447f185f-13d7-4813-9e3a-8f2fca44e351
Money Source    Local Cash Deposit (700k Locations)
Account Number    N/A
Destination    Bitcoin Wallet Address
Amount    $49.50 USD

Thanks

https://blockchain.info/tx/f97ffc45856ecccfceb4bae371ae7adfd3bfc78ef3fbca65ad80bdee5acbc47c

[Gareth Nelson]

Hey All!

This thread is for customer issues, service announcements, ect. of BitInstant.

It's monitored by our support team, so if you have an issue, question, comment, feel free to post your order details here and someone should respond within a few hours during normal business hours (a little longer on weekends)

Thanks for all your continued business and support!

-Charlie and the team at BitInstant

I lost .4 btc a few months ago with these scammers... Never ever going to use them again

Got any details on how you lost this amount?
Regardless, it's small enough that I hardly need to investigate, can you send me your bitcoin address along with your original order details?

[swshf]

I've been ordering pretty regularly lately, and every time the order's been filled almost instantaneously until now. I received an email confirmation that the order had been successfully executed but it hasn't shown up in my wallet (I'm using blockchain wallet). Here's all the information on the order.


Transaction Details
Fee   $7.98   Origin   Local Cash Deposit (700k Locations)
Amt Paid   $200.00   Origin Acct #   N/A
Amt Recieved   $192.02   Destination   Bitcoin Wallet Address
Destination Acct #   187ZEh7spi9s3wXfUDUEqgwxGYyTfqiPgv

Event Log
Date   Event Type   Event ID
06/19/13 11:59   New Order   5468007e-8e05-4fb2-9177-55e8beb78d8d
06/19/13 11:59   Order executed   36bbcfcd-dafd-48f3-b7f9-6e60af98f9e9

Transaction ID: db00c481-0464-44a7-8b5c-227e3c920343

Any help would really be appreciated.

[vendigry1]

From BitInstant:

This email is to notify you that we have received your payment at Jun 18 2013 21:07:49

Transaction ID: a966ae74-5aa6-4140-9e8b-e52b4c519797

Zip Zap confirmed as well:
Amount to Pay: $103.95
Account Number: 957698525

Your ZipZap payment has been successfully processed and the merchant has been notified to complete your order. Please keep this email for your records.

BUT the bitcoins were never deposited into my wallet on blockchain.info


1KgBCfTo1Mw14p5hW982ENJTcvSmA3bQDf

Here are the transaction details:
Merchant order ID
8a407a8e-f505-42ae-95c0-6d75266863fd
Customer account ID
957 698 525
Payment code
56418769
Status
Paid
Amount
100.00 USD
Final full order amount
103.95 USD

Please respond as soon as possible it has been over 12 hrs and support team via email has done nothing..

[URSAY]

Hey All,

Just a heads-up. We have to implement some critical patches on our backend. We're temporarily taking Mt. Gox and bitcoin-to-email and bitcoin-to-wallet offline to solve the issue. We'll be back up and running as quickly as possible and will keep you updated.

Thanks for your patience. We're working hard to get all of the kinks out of our system and we apologize for the inconvenience.

[swshf]

Hey All,

Just a heads-up. We have to implement some critical patches on our backend. We're temporarily taking Mt. Gox and bitcoin-to-email and bitcoin-to-wallet offline to solve the issue. We'll be back up and running as quickly as possible and will keep you updated.

Thanks for your patience. We're working hard to get all of the kinks out of our system and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Well what about the order I placed earlier today and paid for and am still waiting to be filled?