Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)

[stimmy33]

Hey guys, yes I signed up for Bitinstant a while ago....did 1 transaction and it seemingly fast, I was very impressed with your service and had planned on using  it again..........but somewhere along the line I had lost all of my original contact information, so,   I can not sign in anymore
I contacted your service department and asked if they could reinstate my original username / password etc... I have gotten one reply back, stating...we are looking into this situation...have heard nothing  since.......I just think that your support team needs a little more  support
Regards  Stimmy3

[1715667130]

1715667130

[MrBilling]

How I wish this thread was not in the newbie section.

[stimmy33]

Hi I have used bitinstant before and the transaction was seemless and very very fast,,,,this was a while back...maybe a year or so,  since then I have recently tried a purchase, but they said that there was already an account, under this name (apparently I remembered my username but not my password) so I contacted support and told them my problem, and that they would get back to me asap....this was well over a week ago....and still absolutely   no respone, I think that their customer service
dept  needs some customer service
regards s

[stimmy33]

Hi  I understand that my first bitcoin purchase from you guys is limited to $25.00..  I am just wondering  ...how long do I have to wait too make my second purchase, also is there a limit on how much I can buy the second time around?   really looking forward to working with you guys this is a fantastic  site
Regards s

[MrBilling]

WTF is wrong with you people?  Don't you guys realize the site is down and BI is not in business right now?


No wonder BI got so many people.

[MrBilling]

And I don't care how many previous trans BI successfully completed, I used them many times too without a problem.  But this shows how they handle business when there are problems.


I did two sell BTC for USD ($800 total) There were no mistakes in my order yet for some reason it didn't go through and BI would not respond to me for OVER A MONTH!  Nothing not one response.  I never got nasty with them and was way way way more patient than I should have been.

Finally about 5 weeks later they write me and tell me they are sending me a check via priority mail and would email me a tracking number.  Well they can't even get that right.  Turns out they had bill.com send me a check via regular mail.

So in all I got my money back but I would NEVER use BI again.   I advise everyone else to never use the, again either.

[MrBilling]

I'm a former BitInstant employee.  I'm under no obligation to post this, nor is this endorsed by BitInstant.  With all the wild theories and speculation going on I feel the need to say something...

Charlie and the team there are good people.  BitInstant is one of the leading and longest running bitcoin businesses.  It's obvious the new website had some issues and the dev team is working hard to get things working properly.  There is no scam and BitInstant isn't "robbing" people.

They are doing some restructuring and likely prepping for a proper relaunch.  There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes and daily challenges within a volatile space like bitcoin.  This is a new market and there will be bumps in the road.

If you have an issue with an outstanding transaction my suggestion to you is to be patient and communicate with their support team in a calm and respectful way.  If your order has a problem then they will fix it.

BitInstant is an important part of the bitcoin community and has made it easy for so many people to get their first taste of bitcoin.  They're growing quickly and working on exciting new projects and functionality.  I know they will come back stronger then ever.

And yet they had to lay you off....they couldn't afford the salary of a customer service employee, which (no offense) couldn't have been that high.  Also no offense, but like many others you seem to have been under the Bitinstant "spell" as well.....you spent your time defending them when all the evidence pointed to a very problematic future for Mr. Shrem personally and Bitinstant as a company.  I've said this time and again, but I'll say it again: code either works or it doesn't.  It doesn't work just sometimes, and it doesn't require endless delays while people manually "push through" transactions.  The fact that some (small) transactions went through instantly, while most others instantly received "order failed" responses, shows that the code worked.  So when they had delays, it was because they had no money.

All of these were bankroll issues.  They could have easily publicly displayed how many Bitcoins they had available to sell, and stopped taking new orders that couldn't be immediately delivered, until they had more coins available.  They could have even setup an email queue that would let interested people that wanted coins know instantly when more coins were available.  But they couldn't do this, because they needed the new transaction money in order to process old transactions (aka Ponzi Scheme).  Who knows where the old transaction money went - perhaps Charlie's trips to London.  They were selling things they didn't have with the promise of immediate delivery.  They were no different than criminals that post items they don't have on eBay, collect the money, and run - except they did it on a larger scale.

+1000

Completely true.  I am almost throu with my second year of a 4 year degree in CS programming and this is so true.  There is no it works sometimes or we have push your trans through while other orders work fine.  Maybe if there is a mistake on your order but MY TWO ORDERS HAD NO MISTAKES and I had to wait 5 weeks for my $800.   This company was just stringing people along trying to get enough new money in to pay for old orders (aka Ponzi scheme).

To give the benifits of doubt maybe ursay doesn't really know what's going on at BI (doubtful) but to anyone who looks at it without they're BTC blinders on can see this company is a scam.   Even more proof of this is how long it took them to take the site down.   They had hundreds of complaints , people threatening this and that, and yet they still took weeks longer to shut the site down.


To all you newbies who dont read one post before you post some dumb shit like

Hi  I understand that my first bitcoin purchase from you guys is limited to $25.00..  I am just wondering  ...how long do I have to wait too make my second purchase, also is there a limit on how much I can buy the second time around?   really looking forward to working with you guys this is a fantastic  site

You deserve what you get.  Hopefully the amount BI screws you for is small and you learn from the experience.

[meyoumeyou]

Their problem was scale. They were simply a victim of their own success.

[MrBilling]

Their problem was scale. They were simply a victim of their own success.

Yea but there was a better way to deal with all of the problems than what they did.   They showed that they do not care about they're customers.  They do not care about they're reputation.   They know that they will not have any real competition and that all of they're users who they screwed over will come back.  Until there are more stable and reasonably priced options out there this thing will happen more and more.

Once BTC businesses have real compititon out there they will put more emphasis on customer service.

[hojo]

update: Where did you go?

We're working hard here at doing nothing. We took the Winklefags money and partied it away after we were done robbing our customers. Now they will have to sue us in court like Mark Zuckerberg.  We're busy doing coke and banging strippers and thank you for your donations. We ran out of pictures to show you that make us look busy but hope you will just believe us. We plan to run 1/2 off specials where we only steal half your money and guarantee it within 8 weeks of your payment. Thank you for your support people.

Yours truly, The BitNotSoInstant Team

[hojo]

They are coming back soon people. Check out their site page update, they look serious. Get your money ready folks, it's about to be on and poppin. 

[crazylikeafox]

They are coming back soon people. Check out their site page update, they look serious. Get your money ready folks, it's about to be on and poppin.  

Yes, from their updates page it appears that during first month they are going to run a promotion where they steal 25% less than normal.  Instead of half of all transactions simply vanishing, as little as a third of transactions will be stolen (but only during the first month, then it goes back to normal).  Can't wait!  I'm headed to the ATM right now.

[crazylikeafox]

FYI, someone finally filed a class action suit in federal court against these guys.  Because they have filed a class action suit, any Bitinstant customer that has suffered actual losses or lost potential profits as a result Bitinstant's actions/delays/failures should contact the law firm involved.  You can join the class and eventually get compensated if Bitinstant has any money left. A pretrial conference is scheduled for September 13.  Here is a link to the complaint:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/160406193/Bitinstant-Class-Action-Lawsuit

The email addresses of the attorneys to contact can be found on the last page of the lawsuit under their signature - I don't want to post them in a public forum.

[thebaron]

Funny how BI went offline shortly after this case was filed. I guess they needed to get sued to finally get their shit together?

[caffeinewriter]

I am not a customer of BitInstant, but the way some of you (not all of you) are treating these support representatives is atrocious. I understand you're frustrated, I understand that you want your money, but some of you seem to forget that on the other side of that keyboard is a human being. I'm not going to take a side in this "BitInstant fraud" debate. On a personal level, even in just the interviews I've seen with Charlie, he is an incredibly good human being. I doubt his/his company's intent is to defraud anyone. Considering the sheer volume of complaints I've seen, they're probably practically crushed under the amount they have. All in all, remember basic human decency folks. I understand you're upset, but that gives you no license to treat another human being in the way you have done so far.

[Singlebyte]

I am not a customer of BitInstant, but the way some of you (not all of you) are treating these support representatives is atrocious. I understand you're frustrated, I understand that you want your money, but some of you seem to forget that on the other side of that keyboard is a human being. I'm not going to take a side in this "BitInstant fraud" debate. On a personal level, even in just the interviews I've seen with Charlie, he is an incredibly good human being. I doubt his/his company's intent is to defraud anyone. Considering the sheer volume of complaints I've seen, they're probably practically crushed under the amount they have. All in all, remember basic human decency folks. I understand you're upset, but that gives you no license to treat another human being in the way you have done so far.

If your money was tied up with these idiots you would be hollering too.  Took me 9 days to get my $500 dollars from them.  I am sure others lost more then me. They run a quasi pyramid scheme that has finally fallen apart.  I am glad to see the class action suit against them.  They are providing terrible service to the bitcoin community.  We dont need this type of bad service.

[JerryG]

I am not a customer of BitInstant, but the way some of you (not all of you) are treating these support representatives is atrocious. I understand you're frustrated, I understand that you want your money, but some of you seem to forget that on the other side of that keyboard is a human being. I'm not going to take a side in this "BitInstant fraud" debate. On a personal level, even in just the interviews I've seen with Charlie, he is an incredibly good human being. I doubt his/his company's intent is to defraud anyone. Considering the sheer volume of complaints I've seen, they're probably practically crushed under the amount they have. All in all, remember basic human decency folks. I understand you're upset, but that gives you no license to treat another human being in the way you have done so far.

Seriously! You must be one of many BitInstant employees masking as customers, because if you're not a customer why are you even on this forum?
 Many people lost significant value in the delays that Bitinstant caused, including me. When I placed my order BTC was $110.00, four days later when my order was posted BTC was $91.00 and after promises of being compensated for any loss We get told "we have no control over the volatility of BTC"

Though the person on the other side of the keyboard may be a human being, this is business and when they keep lying and stalling and shortchanging you the personal side of this transaction is irrelevant.

[hojo]

I am not a customer of BitInstant, but the way some of you (not all of you) are treating these support representatives is atrocious. I understand you're frustrated, I understand that you want your money, but some of you seem to forget that on the other side of that keyboard is a human being. I'm not going to take a side in this "BitInstant fraud" debate. On a personal level, even in just the interviews I've seen with Charlie, he is an incredibly good human being. I doubt his/his company's intent is to defraud anyone. Considering the sheer volume of complaints I've seen, they're probably practically crushed under the amount they have. All in all, remember basic human decency folks. I understand you're upset, but that gives you no license to treat another human being in the way you have done so far.

I reserve the right to freak out on any business or person who works for a business that is stealing my money. Anyone who trusts Bitinstant with their money again knowing all these past issues is asking for it in my opinion. I found cheaper and easier ways to get my coins. I equate what they were doing as fraud and I hope they get their buts handed to them in court. These stupid pictures and updates they are posting are a joke. Nobody believes you Bitinstant and nobody cares. I'm sure when you come back online though there will be a line full of dummies ready to give you their money.

[iso3789]

Hello i am new here,

so i have to give a post here that i can comment other Topics?

[crazylikeafox]

Hello i am new here,

so i have to give a post here that i can comment other Topics?

lol, what a necro..

btw when are these guys coming back?

Never, they are currently fighting a federal class action lawsuit.  Somehow their CEO @charlieshrem is still out and about - apparently they have avoided a criminal indictment for now - but I don't see Bitinstant itself ever coming back.  Since they have a potentially very large judgment coming down the pipeline, at best they would transfer any intellectual property they had to a different corporate entity and start under a new name.  Starting with no reputation is better than starting with a bad reputation.