Troubles with coinbase

[wickedgoodtrader]

I verified 2 bank accounts over coinbase. I purchased 10 coins and it took a few days but the transaction was completed. The money however was not taken out of my bank account. The transaction has now been completed for 3 days and still no money taken from my bank account. I e-mailed coinbase and they don't seem to know what the problem is. I have a bunch of other buys lined up because 10 coins is the max at a time, but am concerned over what is going on.

Anybody else having any issues?

[someone703]

There's a group of people on Reddit who have had issues as well; myself included.

I made a purchase back towards the end of January for 10BTC, it went through fine and I received my BTC. (The price didn't fluctuate much at all so I got what I paid for after the 3-5 business day wait).

Fast forward to now, I made a purchase for 10 BTC on Wednesday then another 10 BTC on Thursday.

They were supposed to clear today and the other tomorrow (with ~$30 increase in BTC value over the weekend for each transaction).

Lo and behold, my first transaction was supposed to clear at 6PM and I get an e-mail at 5:51PM saying that their "algorithm" pegged me as a "high-risk" and they canceled my order and are going to refund my money back to my bank account in 3-5 days.

So not only did I wasted 3-5 days waiting for BTC I don't have in hand, but I'm also out $30 that I was pegged to make by locking in a price from 3-5 days ago and also do not have access to the money they pulled from my bank account for another 3-5 days... And I have a bad feeling they're gonna do the same thing with my 2nd transaction that's supposed to clear tomorrow as well.

Long story short, there's a handful of people who experienced the same thing and they all feel that Coinbase is doing that to negate losses they would have if they honored the prices that were locked in.  And some also believe that nothing would've been pegged as "high-risk" and canceled if the price of BTC had dropped from when they locked in their purchase.

I've e-mailed them to see if they could give a better explanation and what steps they're willing to take to make up for the $30 (x2) that I'm losing because of them as well as the lost time.

[DigitalHermit]

Anybody else having any issues?

I've had some miscellaneous issues before with transactions left in pending status after they were, in my mind, complete (money withdrawn from bank account and bitcoins credited) but eventually the transactions did get resolved.

As of today a more serious issue emerged. I had sold a small amount of bitcoins and saw that they credited my bank account TWICE for that amount. Now I'm sure at some point they will probably notice and reverse the 2nd transaction, but still - consider if the reverse had occurred and they had, for example, debited my account twice for a given bitcoin purchase.

In short, I would be VERY CAUTIOUS about making any large purchases through coinbase, especially if you are linking in a checking account where mismanagement on their part could result in overdrawn fees or checks bouncing for you. They appear to have some serious stability issues on the back end, though not too surprising keeping in mind that they are still in BETA.

[someone703]

I read somewhere someone had one transaction charged 3 times and got overdraft fees incurred because of it.

Once it was brought to Coinbase's attention they undid the 2 extra charges, reimbursed the user for the overdraft fees, and offered to send the person catfood (user said the extra charges caused him/her to be unable to purchase food for their cat).  Don't know if they actually took them up on it since they never left an update.

----

I also heard back from them overnight and they pushed the canceled transaction through and said that I should have no problem with my 2nd transaction being canceled so I assume they changed my risk profile on my account with them or something.

[navaman]

I had my first transaction go through fine but I sent the coin to my wallet and it is still unconfirmed 18 hours later.  Sent two messages for support but haven't heard back.  I understand the delay due to measures to protect from fraud but what I am reading with regards to ACH problems and then my own delay to get confirmed leaves me weary.

[UncleGravy]

Someone on 2+2 poker forums mentioned the same thing. It was in the Seals with Clubs thread.

Did the OP in this thread get it resolved?

[Walter Rothbard]

I had my first transaction go through fine but I sent the coin to my wallet and it is still unconfirmed 18 hours later.  Sent two messages for support but haven't heard back.  I understand the delay due to measures to protect from fraud but what I am reading with regards to ACH problems and then my own delay to get confirmed leaves me weary.

coinad put out a very big transaction with very little fees about two days ago.  The transaction has not been confirmed.  Coinbase mistakenly tried to spend some of the output, and now there is a massive stream of unconfirmed transactions going on two days old.  Coinbase has fixed their code to not spend 0-confirmed outputs any more and offered a bounty to a miner to try to include the unconfirmed big transaction in a block.

If you are logged into coinbase, you can see the original troublesome transaction here:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/88eb395b48a6d3875d8d55a6efd34afd2e1d4e397b43f9f790479914fba0c74b?output=168

Here's another big unconfirmed transaction in the chain, although it has better fees:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/ca3f06e907ba0073b0e2b5e661a79ed0960d889fdee61448101c2fdd2caad5c9?output=0

I've got a transaction I spent last night that is waiting on all this, too.  There are several threads here talking about it today.

[UncleGravy]

I had my first transaction go through fine but I sent the coin to my wallet and it is still unconfirmed 18 hours later.  Sent two messages for support but haven't heard back.  I understand the delay due to measures to protect from fraud but what I am reading with regards to ACH problems and then my own delay to get confirmed leaves me weary.

coinad put out a very big transaction with very little fees about two days ago.  The transaction has not been confirmed.  Coinbase mistakenly tried to spend some of the output, and now there is a massive stream of unconfirmed transactions going on two days old.  Coinbase has fixed their code to not spend 0-confirmed outputs any more and offered a bounty to a miner to try to include the unconfirmed big transaction in a block.

If you are logged into coinbase, you can see the original troublesome transaction here:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/88eb395b48a6d3875d8d55a6efd34afd2e1d4e397b43f9f790479914fba0c74b?output=168

Here's another big unconfirmed transaction in the chain, although it has better fees:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/ca3f06e907ba0073b0e2b5e661a79ed0960d889fdee61448101c2fdd2caad5c9?output=0

I've got a transaction I spent last night that is waiting on all this, too.  There are several threads here talking about it today.

Would this only have to do with ONLY Coinbase transactions? or would it also make other transactions slow to be confirmed?

[navaman]

I had my first transaction go through fine but I sent the coin to my wallet and it is still unconfirmed 18 hours later.  Sent two messages for support but haven't heard back.  I understand the delay due to measures to protect from fraud but what I am reading with regards to ACH problems and then my own delay to get confirmed leaves me weary.

coinad put out a very big transaction with very little fees about two days ago.  The transaction has not been confirmed.  Coinbase mistakenly tried to spend some of the output, and now there is a massive stream of unconfirmed transactions going on two days old.  Coinbase has fixed their code to not spend 0-confirmed outputs any more and offered a bounty to a miner to try to include the unconfirmed big transaction in a block.

If you are logged into coinbase, you can see the original troublesome transaction here:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/88eb395b48a6d3875d8d55a6efd34afd2e1d4e397b43f9f790479914fba0c74b?output=168

Here's another big unconfirmed transaction in the chain, although it has better fees:
https://coinbase.com/network/transactions/ca3f06e907ba0073b0e2b5e661a79ed0960d889fdee61448101c2fdd2caad5c9?output=0

I've got a transaction I spent last night that is waiting on all this, too.  There are several threads here talking about it today.

Thanks, I checked Blockchain and wondered about the previous transactions  to mine not being confirmed.  This makes sense then.  Honestly, knowing that somebody was being cheap and suffered some consequence makes me happier even if I suffered as well.  Kind of like somebody abusing the tragedy of the commons situation and then nobody buying his/her mutton.

I assume Coinbase is reading this so I will just add that you might want to make some changes to CS.  Even an automated reply to support email is better than nothing.

[DannyHamilton]

- SNIP -
Would this only have to do with ONLY Coinbase transactions? or would it also make other transactions slow to be confirmed?

Any transaction that includes one or more inputs that can be traced back to any of these large low fee transactions will have the same issue.

[DAC]

I am also experiencing a 21+ hour wait on TX from Coinbase.

I also have emailed support with no response.

Not good business. I would appreciate even an automated response at this point.

[djdollabill]

I am nearing 24 hours on a transfer of BTC out of Coinbase.

Bought 10 BTC for USD and that went ok, money exited my bank account in four days.

Problem is my transfer out of Coinbase to my private wallet is still "Pending" after almost 24 hours.  They say on the site the "Pending" should update to "Completed" within an hour.  So we have a problem.

I think at the end of the day even Coinbase doesn't have enough coins to satisfy demand.  My problem is that they "sold" me coins they don't "own."  It shouldn't take a day to transfer out of there.

By the way, there's no "support."  Can you imagine a real bank with no support?  Wait, I just sent you hundreds of dollars cash and there isn't instant transfer and there isn't any support?  Shame on me.

At least with Bitinstant, it's inconvenient to yell at Moneygram at your local store, but the coins are in your wallet before you even get home.

I'm raising a red flag for a scam, people.  Coinbase has a pretty slick interface to the banks, but it's not clear they really have coins on the other end.

DJDB

[sublime5447]

These are the kinds of problems that arise when the price is f!@#ed.

[astanix]

I've been hearing nothing but bad things about coinbase, seems like a good place to avoid.

[sublime5447]

I made an account last night and got verified. I was going to send then they said it would be feb 21 before I got the coins. I am not willing to risk that the price collapses between now and then. So I am glad I didnt send a payment. But like I said these are the kinds of problem that arise when the price is f!@#ed

[astanix]

Yeah, I think if the price is adjusting so much on a minute to minute basis, having to wait for more than 10 minutes to get the coins you're buying makes it too risky to buy them right now.

[Koviali]

This is the only topic in the newbz section ive found about coinbase. Can anyone recommend a better service? I'm kinda lost

[sublime5447]

There are no good services to get bitcoin. It is a joke. Most people use bit-instant

[DAC]

I would like to post a followup to my earlier message.

Since my initial problem with Coinbase and their unconfirmed transaction, I have had no problems with them at all.
My emails were eventually responded to, although with a very long wait due to a huge queue.
I was able to receive help on IRC, and they posted a message on their blog describing the mishap.
I have also had four separate BTC purchases since then appear the minute they were supposed to.

In summary, I would just like to say good job Coinbase, and I hope you are able to keep up with the load going forward.

[GreatBug]

Have all these problems been cleared up?