How is Bitinstant not at the top of this section?

[Rawted]

I'm still waiting on a february order. yankee replied in the newbie support thread a few times, telling me i would receive it, or he was emailing me within a few minutes, never received my btc or any emails. worst part is there is no action to take against companies like this, and its obvious this forum supports them (their own support thread- every other company worth their weight has their own support ticket system or forums). If you do business with bitinstant, there is a high chance you will never see your money or BTC again. I bought a few hundred USD worth in february @ 26. I'm positive i'll never see a single coin.

[1714165604]

1714165604

[1714165604]

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[MPOE-PR]

If you ask any of the people that have had to wait 3-4 weeks (some longer) to get their money with the only explanation being "technical difficulties" (an excuse that simply doesn't hold water) they will tell you it's more than a "gut feeling".  You can see this cycle playing out in their support thread.  Those are just the unprocessed transactions from forum members that choose to post publicly.   Also, I would imagine that someone from Bitinstant has seen this thread.  Rather curious that they aren't disputing any of it, don't you think?  They know that if someone were to pry even a little bit into the specifics of their "technical difficulties" that they would be caught in a massive, growing, lie.

I will try to get together what data I can from the outside, but it would take a whistleblower-type insider to provide actual proof (or the new order flow would have to slow or stop to the point where they simply couldn't process any more old transactions).  All I'm saying is that I know for certain they are lying about the technical difficulties, and transactions are getting processed several days, and in some cases several weeks, after the transactions are made on a site with the headline "Pay For Your Bitcoins in Under an Hour".  There are not many innocent explanations for the way this thing is playing out.

Even with their problems, they are still presenting statements like this in order to induce new orders: (from their FAQ)

"Our service aims to make most deposits happen instantly - within a matter of seconds in ideal cases, and in an absolute worst-case scenario we will still aim to have funds into your exchange account before a stated maximum deadline (on average about 60 minutes depending on various conditions)."

You can for instance talk to all the people in that thread privately see when the problem was notified to Bitinstant (privately), when it was declared publicly, when it was resolved. Just a list of these datapoints is already a good step forward (esp if it also includes sums, which can then be matched to their volume).

[Monster Tent]

I'm still waiting on a february order. yankee replied in the newbie support thread a few times, telling me i would receive it, or he was emailing me within a few minutes, never received my btc or any emails. worst part is there is no action to take against companies like this, and its obvious this forum supports them (their own support thread- every other company worth their weight has their own support ticket system or forums). If you do business with bitinstant, there is a high chance you will never see your money or BTC again. I bought a few hundred USD worth in february @ 26. I'm positive i'll never see a single coin.

If you start a scammer thread and provide proof such as receipts etc they might start investigating.

[crazylikeafox]

The drum beats are getting louder. on this most recent page of their support thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.1860

In addition, to give you an idea of the scale of the unprocessed orders, it appears that earlier today (Tuesday 3/26/13) they wired $50,000 to btc-e.com, just one of the exchanges they offer.  They depleted ALL of the $50,000 - as of right now (Tuesday night) they have $83 left - yet there are still unprocessed orders for that exchange alone as can be seen in the thread.  Given that Mt. Gox is their most popular exchange, this would imply that they are almost certainly well into six figures in terms of unprocessed orders.  Apparently the new orders still aren't adding up to enough to fund the older unprocessed orders.  Ponzi schemes only work while new money continues to flow in.  

Yesterday, Yankee responded to exactly one person.  Not someone with an unprocessed order mind you - someone asking in the thread if everything was OK with BitInstant.  Keep in mind that this exchange is literally surrounded on the very same page by people begging for their money back and those saying that they have sent countless PM's having received no response.  Here is the exchange:

Has anyone successfully placed an order for cash deposit to bitcoin address recently?? Seems like bitinstant has had nothing but issues for the last couple months. I havent used them for a long time now, have used them a few times prior with no issues. Most recently $500 cash to deposit at wallet, never showed up. Got the run around for a week, and finally they said theyd refund me, which they kindly did the entire amount. However, that was an absolute waste of time for me, and not very fruitful to send out $500 just to receive it back 2 weeks later..

I would have to drive 20 miles one way into town, plus its Snowing like a bitch.. I dont think Im going to bother taking my chances until I know for sure theyre running without problems again. Just too many ppl having issues with this exchange service..

Yes, everything is fine! If you have an issue, feel free to PM me.

I think it's rather telling that they are actively encouraging new orders while completely ignoring previous victims.  Eventually new orders will slow to the point of no return, at which point whomever was responsible for this mess will either vanish or be indicted.  Anyway, apparently I can say this stuff until I'm blue in the face and people will continue sending them substantial sums of money despite every imaginable red flag standing at attention.  But it's important that someone at least keep attention on the issue.  I don't know how so many people on this forum are willfully blind to this, but I'm not, and hopefully this thread will save at least one person some money.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

[Rawted]

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

Agreed, gave up on my order from february (page 50 or so of that thread). theres no way ill see the BTC i bought @$26 from them with the current price.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

Agreed, gave up on my order from february (page 50 or so of that thread). theres no way ill see the BTC i bought @$26 from them with the current price.

Don't give up, make a new thread in this forum. Add details.

[dave859]

Yeah,  not going to happen.  The simple fact of the matter is that their system is automated.  If they had the funds, all transactions would be processed in a couple of seconds.  Code doesn't just break for all of their interactions with all exchanges at once, and in the trillion-to-one situation that all exchanges simultaneously issued changes to their APIs that broke Bitinstant's code with no prior notice, they would contact the exchanges, find out the new processes, and modify their code.  Then they would run the transaction processing script again, and all transactions would be processed in a few seconds.  At most, in this imaginary worst-case situation that would never occur, it would take maybe taken 3 hours to recover.  We are at over 30 days now.

I have been a web developer for 12 years, and a desktop software developer for 7 years before that.  These excuses simply do not hold water, and the fact that they are lying about technical issues to buy time should send up immediate red flags. They seem to be on life support financially and are just processing enough older transactions, likely funded with newer transactions (aka a Ponzi scheme), to keep a small flow of positive posts in the Newbies section.  That serves to keep hope alive and delay people from suing or contacting law enforcement, but it will only work for so long.

Bitinstant started off as a legitimate service, which of course is why everyone has given them so much slack.  But something either catastrophic or nefarious has happened over there, and it is quite apparent that they don't have a way to stop it from careening over the cliff.  Having watched a few of these things unfold in the real world, whomever is left over there that has clean hands needs to go into self-preservation mode.  Take the reigns, come clean publicly about what has happened, cooperate with any resulting investigations, and either take the company into bankruptcy or find investors willing to stop the bleeding. You don't want to go down with this ship.  The jig is up.

You are making some quite big assumptions there. From what I have seen it does NOT appear that bitinstant has a transactional system in place. I have placed orders that failed and the website never updated once they manually processed the order.

I have placed orders and had them manually processed twice. The order status indicated "processed" and the box right under it said something like "API Response: Account balance not sufficient"

[crazylikeafox]

You are making some quite big assumptions there. From what I have seen it does NOT appear that bitinstant has a transactional system in place. I have placed orders that failed and the website never updated once they manually processed the order.

I have placed orders and had them manually processed twice. The order status indicated "processed" and the box right under it said something like "API Response: Account balance not sufficient"

They do in fact have an automated system in place.  How do you think that, up until recently, orders were going through in a matter of seconds?  How were they able to process $50,000 worth of old, unprocessed btc-e transactions in a matter of minutes just yesterday?  You do realize that when the the API response says "account balance not sufficient" that is referring to Bitinstant's balance right?  It means they took an order and money from you for which they did not have funds.  

When they tell you "your order is being processed manually" it means that your order has to wait, because your money went to process old orders.  Your order must wait until new orders come in, and they will effectively misappropriate those new funds to your old order, just as they misappropriated your funds to previous old orders.  The problem with this is that if the orders slow or stop, many orders will never be processed.  Also, it means that somewhere along the line, a massive loss of customer money occurred at the company.

I would very much like to know how Bitinstant has created willful blindness on such a massive scale.  This situation is absolutely unbelievable.  You are being lied to, Dave, and the lies are incredibly transparent.  Yet somehow very few people seem to see through them, and worse, by attempting to defend the indefensible, you are creating confusion for those that don't understand the technology aspects well enough to see how ridiculous Bitinstant's lies actually are and don't want to believe that they could be duped.  The fact that they have not appeared in this thread to defend themselves speaks volumes, does it not?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Hey, OP.

Do you have an issue with your order? If you do, PM me.

If not, why did you make this thread?

Every order in that thread is being taken care of.

Our support staff scours that thread every hour and we receive many PM's and emails. Having a concise support thread that I created is the best answer.

In fact, I specifically set up that thread for this purpose, so we dont have stupid posts like this

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

Calling us a scam? Put your money where your mouth is.

Just because you dont see customers responding when an issue is resolved, does not mean its not resolved.

You are making some quite big assumptions there. From what I have seen it does NOT appear that bitinstant has a transactional system in place. I have placed orders that failed and the website never updated once they manually processed the order.

I have placed orders and had them manually processed twice. The order status indicated "processed" and the box right under it said something like "API Response: Account balance not sufficient"

I would very much like to know how Bitinstant has created willful blindness on such a massive scale.  This situation is absolutely unbelievable.  You are being lied to, Dave, and the lies are incredibly transparent.  Yet somehow very few people seem to see through them, and worse, by attempting to defend the indefensible, you are creating confusion for those that don't understand the technology aspects well enough to see how ridiculous Bitinstant's lies actually are and don't want to believe that they could be duped.  The fact that they have not appeared in this thread to defend themselves speaks volumes, does it not?

Please stop making things up, this is a sheer lie.

When someone is not there to defend themselves you render them guilty? No, you dont.

If you have an order issue, let me know and Ill resolve it ASAP.

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

Another lie. Everyone has gotten there coins.

Any customer who did not get their coins, we always honor the price at time of deposit and refund fees

You dont even know how our system works. How the hell can we run out of coins? We dont even buy the coins until an order comes thru, all our reserves are USD. All our repeat customers know this, and only troll's make up lies like you just did.

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

Agreed, gave up on my order from february (page 50 or so of that thread). theres no way ill see the BTC i bought @$26 from them with the current price.

Don't give up, make a new thread in this forum. Add details.

Please PM me your Order info.

Ill say it again. If anyone has an issue, PM or email me ASAP and we wil resolve it like we do for ALL customers

Charlie

[crazylikeafox]

You are making some quite big assumptions there. From what I have seen it does NOT appear that bitinstant has a transactional system in place. I have placed orders that failed and the website never updated once they manually processed the order.

I have placed orders and had them manually processed twice. The order status indicated "processed" and the box right under it said something like "API Response: Account balance not sufficient"

I would very much like to know how Bitinstant has created willful blindness on such a massive scale.  This situation is absolutely unbelievable.  You are being lied to, Dave, and the lies are incredibly transparent.  Yet somehow very few people seem to see through them, and worse, by attempting to defend the indefensible, you are creating confusion for those that don't understand the technology aspects well enough to see how ridiculous Bitinstant's lies actually are and don't want to believe that they could be duped.  The fact that they have not appeared in this thread to defend themselves speaks volumes, does it not?

Please stop making things up, this is a sheer lie.

You are calling me a liar for calling out your "technical issues" as a falsehood.  So here's your chance to prove that I am just jumping to crazy conclusions.  You have blamed the massive delays not on lack of funds, but on technical issues.  Explain, then, how your "technical issues" could not be resolved in over a month when any halfwit web developer could have solved them within hours.  Also, if "technical issues" are indeed at fault here, how is it that on the rare occasions when you have publicly verifiable reserves (such as at Btc-e) that you are able to instantly process orders and deplete all of those reserves in a few minutes?  Specifically, how did you process $50,000 worth of btc-e transactions in a few minutes yesterday if your code is broken and you are doing everything manually?  Does your code only work on Tuesdays?

I guess the fundamental question is this: If you stopped taking new orders today, would you be able to fund all of your current, outstanding orders with your funds on hand? We already know the answer, of course, because if you could, then there would be no outstanding orders for more than an hour or two as promised on your site and no one would be complaining.

Hey, OP.

Do you have an issue with your order? If you do, PM me.

If not, why did you make this thread?

I made this thread because it's clearly evident what's going on, and it is unlikely to end well for your customers.  You haven't even bothered to make up halfway credible excuses for the delays, which shows that you either think your customers are stupid or that you have no respect for them or their money.  I don't necessarily think that the cause of Bitinstant's financial woes are nefarious - I have no proof of that.  Maybe you did have legitimate technical issues at one point, queued too many orders as a result, and the market moved against you.  I have no way of knowing, because you won't tell us the truth.  However, regardless of the cause, if the net result is the same as if it were a scam, what's the difference?  Lost money is lost money.  You can indeed keep this situation going as long as new orders continue to flow.  You may even be able to earn your way out of your balance sheet issues with transaction fees if the new order flow remains strong.  I actually hope that happens for the sake of your customers, but I think they deserve to know your situation and the risk they are taking on before sending you money.  

Every order in that thread is being taken care of.

This is false on its face.  Have you seen the thread?  You guys seem to be image conscious when you have something in your favor - whenever you have processed orders, you make a big show out of having someone go on and caption the complaint saying "processed" if the customer doesn't do it themselves.  Yet there are lots of people posting days and weeks after their initial post saying that no movement has occurred.

Just because you dont see customers responding when an issue is resolved, does not mean its not resolved.

Perhaps.  But the same cycle is repeating itself day in and day out.

Another bitcoin venture bites the dust...

It's absolutely clear that they oversold BTC and the price rally left them fucked. Stop buying Bitcoins from bitinstant, it's likely that you're not going to get your coins

Another lie. Everyone has gotten there coins.

Again, this is false on its face.  It is clear from the thread that everyone has not gotten their coins.

Any customer who did not get their coins, we always honor the price at time of deposit

You dont even know how our system works. How the hell can we run out of coins? We dont even buy the coins until an order comes thru, all our reserves are USD. The fact that you dont know this shows you dont know what your talking about.

That, of course, is the issue.  It seems that you have no or limited funds with which to purchase the coins once orders are placed.  The evidence is overwhelming that this is a funding problem and not a technical issue.  That is a serious problem because if new orders stop or slow, those with pending orders will never see their money.

[uhoh]

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

How about OrderID: ff267dfd-b258-450a-b5a3-f1cc1f8bc7fa ?
4 days and counting.

If it's such a problem, just give me back my GOX USD..... It's so frustrating to see you come on here to defend your company against this guy, but not complete my 4 day old order.

NOT happy.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

How about OrderID: ff267dfd-b258-450a-b5a3-f1cc1f8bc7fa ?
4 days and counting.

If it's such a problem, just give me back my GOX USD..... It's so frustrating to see you come on here to defend your company against this guy, but not complete my 4 day old order.

NOT happy.

I already responded to your PM, processed the order and send $120.

This is what I mean when I say people dont come back when we resolve the situation.

This was simply an API problem as you can see in the response, and got lost in my inbox.

I apologize

Charlie

[simonk83]

Yankee, when will it be possible to deposit to BTC-E again?  I haven't been able to get a straight answer to this (or any answer really).

[uhoh]

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

How about OrderID: ff267dfd-b258-450a-b5a3-f1cc1f8bc7fa ?
4 days and counting.

If it's such a problem, just give me back my GOX USD..... It's so frustrating to see you come on here to defend your company against this guy, but not complete my 4 day old order.

NOT happy.

I already responded to your PM, processed the order and send $120.

This is what I mean when I say people dont come back when we resolve the situation.

This was simply an API problem as you can see in the response, and got lost in my inbox.

I apologize

Charlie

Confirmed, Thanks Charlie.

Glad to hear you've hired more support staff. Any plans for live chat at some point?

Thanks

[OpenYourEyes210]

How about this one? Been almost 2 weeks now and not resolved. Having your money held hostage for this long sure is a pain in the a$$!

OrderID: 237a4342-ea13-4249-8406-5b98fbf1341c

[OpenYourEyes210]

Resolved 10 days after original purchase.

[catcow]

if it was just because they don't have adequate funds in the exchanges, then they still wouldn't be accepting transfer orders to bitstamp, because i sure as hell haven't gotten the money i transferred there, and it sure as hell hasn't been refunded.

[xqr]

Hey, OP.

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

Order ID: 3d08445a-1256-4a68-8086-da4cc88215a5

[catcow]

Hey, OP.

Do you have an issue with your order? If you do, PM me.

If not, why did you make this thread?

Every order in that thread is being taken care of.

Our support staff scours that thread every hour and we receive many PM's and emails. Having a concise support thread that I created is the best answer.

In fact, I specifically set up that thread for this purpose, so we dont have stupid posts like this

Seriosuly, give me ANY ORDER ID. I will show you it is either resolved, or I will resolve it now myself.

Calling us a scam? Put your money where your mouth is.

Just because you dont see customers responding when an issue is resolved, does not mean its not resolved.
........................
.........

order id: d33f0cf0-4aac-4ef7-afcd-2950e1174c6d  <--2.5 days old

the sheer frequency of massively delayed orders (on the scale of days!) makes you scammers.  also, your official methods for support requests seem to be ignored.  you have no excuses.  your company is named bitinstant ffs.