Let me start by saying I have been a customer of Bitinstant's for awhile and have used them quite often without (much) issue. I am regretfully posting this as I feel like it is the last corridor of action I can take besides just forgetting about the money, due to the awful support I've received recently.
I used Bitinstant on Saturday night to withdraw a $70 Gox coupon to PayPal. Had this been a larger amount, I would be livid right now. As it stands it's more about the principle of what's happened that I'm concerned about, and I hope others don't fall into the same trap.
What's happened so far:
- 1. I opened an order on Bitinstant for the $70 coupon
- 2. The order failed with the error "APIResponse: ERROR - Could not connect - <urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out>". I have got this error when transferring previously but it has always been processed manually within 24 hours
- 3. In the order status is the event: Sun Mar 24 01:57:10 2013 982ab8af-70ff-43a8-83f8-d28c874db44d Gox coupon deposited at BitInstant account
- 4. I contact Bitinstant using their "live" chat link, and open a ticket.
- 5. 24 Hours later I receive the following response from Seth: It appears the Gox coupon you used is invalid. You should create a new order and use another coupon. Best of luck!
- 6. I open a live chat with MTGOX support (kudos to them for a live chat that is actually live). I speak to a very helpful person called Gene who confirms that my Gox Voucher has indeed been redeemed by Bitinstant, and suggested I contact them at their support email, which I did
- 7. After receiving no reply from that address or Charlie's address, and added to my Bitinstant support ticket, saying how the voucher was invalid because Bitinstant had already redeemed it, and my concerns that they didn't realise such a massive mistake.
- 8. I get a response from Seth saying: Did you read my first reply?
- 9. I become incredibly frustrated about the situation and send a perfectly polite PM to charlie which has since gone unanswered.
- 10. I post this as a last ditch hope of getting the situation resolved.
Thanks for listening.
This whole thing comes down to 1 point I wish to make. Bitinstant's system SHOULD NOT be redeeming codes before they have first checked that the destination exchange is available. A simple change to make, which could save all these headaches. If they had checked the Virwox API, they would have seen it was down and could have rejected my order. This would have been 100 times less frustrating than having the money stuck indefinitely in their account whilst they deny knowledge of redeeming it.
I know they are having problems with the influx of new users, but this level of support is absolutely atrocious and will scare away any new business they wish to acquire.
As soon as the issue is resolved I will change the title as such.
Order ID: ff267dfd-b258-450a-b5a3-f1cc1f8bc7fa
UPDATE: 27/3 19:50pm
Seth has referred my ticket to Charlie, Ticket now showing as LEVEL 2 FWD
UPDATE: 27/3 20:00pm
Personal reply from Charlie asking for the Gox code used.
