BITSTAMP BLOCKED MY ACCOUNT - 300K HELD - no response BE AWARE OF THIS SCAM!!!

[darkangel11]

It looks to me like either your account has been hacked or they saw some suspicious activity ( someone  else logging in). I have no idea why they are sending you fiat instead of returning the balances to your wallets, after admitting that you still have coins on your bitstamp account. It's unfair to make you go through the conversion/exchange against your will. It's just like they would spot fresh coins on your account and decided to launder them and mix with their tainted ones.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Terrible story OP. At least they're sending you the funds back though. Where are you from, do you think your fiat bank have told Bitstamp to impose this on you?

[dasdo]

Why did you keep so much money on the exchange? After all, everyone knows that the exchange can scam and it is not a purse for storing or trading such money. Access to your money was always at the stock exchange and you knew it. Very much I want to help you, but I do not have this opportunity unfortunately. Be more careful in your risks.

[slowlii]

Do you think I give a damn to such a idiotic, useless phrase that you see in every trash email? I will publish it in every national newspaper and broadcaster TV and Radio. I will use another 500k in order to warn people about this scam, believe me, I really don't care if I act emotional or not. I immediately lost 20k alone with this unauthorized transaction. Still no access to my funds and don't know what happens next. I have just contacted my lawyer in London and guees what, they are in the same building 5 New St Square, London EC4A. You can not plunder someone's wallet without reason. Bitstamp will not get away with this. I am so angry now, my hands are shaking while writing this phrases.

Btw what do you think what did I do in my wallet? Deposit money from my bank and I bought and sold bitcoins as everyone here. Even if you want to terminate one's account - THEN JUST REFUND HIM HIS COINS INTO ANOTHER WALLET WITHOUT CONVERTING IT INTO SCAM CASH!!!!

So you lost 20k, rightfully angry, and prepared to spend another 500k to warn people about the scam?

Bonkers.

Well with aml/kyc, exchanges are becoming a scam by limiting the amount one can move their money/coins around.

That's why we need free exchanges like waves, openanx, binance and others. Centralized exchangers can do anything they want. The can close your account, take your money etc.

I don't trust them anymore. Can't risk my money.

[darkangel11]

Why did you keep so much money on the exchange? After all, everyone knows that the exchange can scam and it is not a purse for storing or trading such money. Access to your money was always at the stock exchange and you knew it. Very much I want to help you, but I do not have this opportunity unfortunately. Be more careful in your risks.

He was trading. Go to one of the largest exchanges and check the trades. There are many whale walls much bigger than $300k and although you can't prove that all these money belong to one person, you can spot that it's being handled by a single account because often they have a bot running that moves the wall to different targets.
If you want to earn big you usually have to risk big.

[iluvpie60]

If you honestly have 300K worth of bitcoin, why in the world are you keeping it on an exchange??

Are you trading back and forth into different cryptos and earning money or something?

You can use other services like shapeshift and other decentralized exchanges. It is the wild west out there in the crypto world even using an exchange they can gox you or btc-e you or bitfinex you or whatever.

Don't keep anything on exchanges. Only send stuff to an exchange if you absolutely have to due to wanting different coins, then withdraw them same day as you buy them.

[electronicash]

Do you think I give a damn to such a idiotic, useless phrase that you see in every trash email? I will publish it in every national newspaper and broadcaster TV and Radio. I will use another 500k in order to warn people about this scam, believe me, I really don't care if I act emotional or not. I immediately lost 20k alone with this unauthorized transaction. Still no access to my funds and don't know what happens next. I have just contacted my lawyer in London and guees what, they are in the same building 5 New St Square, London EC4A. You can not plunder someone's wallet without reason. Bitstamp will not get away with this. I am so angry now, my hands are shaking while writing this phrases.

Btw what do you think what did I do in my wallet? Deposit money from my bank and I bought and sold bitcoins as everyone here. Even if you want to terminate one's account - THEN JUST REFUND HIM HIS COINS INTO ANOTHER WALLET WITHOUT CONVERTING IT INTO SCAM CASH!!!!

its all up to you. but i quote it just so its going to make things solid  $20K isn't worth suing though but you are lucky enough that they are wiling to send back your money to your bank account. take it. you have no fight to fight. its a miss match if you will.   take you money and do it again on some other exchange for maybe you can outwit the rest.

I have just got the "reply". They sold all my coins to a scammers price and want to give me cash to my bank account. I bought many coins to a price of 3900 Euro and didn't want to sell them. They plundered my whole wallet without reason.

............................................................................... ......

Hello Bitstamp,
you are not authorized to sell my coins without my approval. This activity is a clear proof of fraud and I contacted my lawyer to handle this today.
 
1-) Send my coins to another e-wallet I will provide you. You are not authorized to sell them. I bought them to a very high rate 3800-3900 Euro and it was not my intention to sell them.
2-) I will provide you my bank account and you will send my cash balance to this account incl. the funds that are on their way.
3-) You know, this is a serious crime to sell the balance of a player without reason/approval.
4-) I want a phone call from compliance department! If someone has this sum of money in his wallet, you can’t assign him regular live chat who hasn’t any authority to handle such huge amount.


.........................................
Dear XXXXXXX,

After careful consideration, Bitstamp decided to terminate Your access to Your Account in accordance with our Terms of Use. Your account will be terminated from the date of this notice having been received by you. This notice shall be treated as having been served upon completion of the transmission of this email.

The decision to terminate your Account has been reached following a close examination of your recent account activity and information which you have provided. It is our view that any continuation of our relationship would not be appropriate at this time due to internal policies.

We kindly ask you to provide us with a valid bank account held in your name in a reply to this Account Termination Notice so Bitstamp can proceed with your Account termination and send you the currencies credited and your recent deposit to your Account within 14 business days after your Account has been terminated, costs withheld.

Make sure to specify all requested banking information.

BTC and ETH will be transferred only after conversion into a currency using our spot exchange rate, costs withheld.

Bitstamp will send to You the credit balance of Your account and the deposit made to Your account, however in circumstances a number of intermediaries may be involved in an international payment and these or the beneficiary bank may deduct charges. We will use reasonable efforts to ensure that such charges are disclosed to You prior to sending Your payment, however where they cannot be avoided, You acknowledge that these charges cannot always be calculated in advance, and that you agree to be responsible for such charges.

If you do not provide us with a valid bank account held in your name to which you wish your currencies be sent, Bitstamp will send the currencies to the bank account from which you have made your last deposit to Bitstamp.

For more information, see our Terms of Use: https://www.bitstamp.net/terms-of-use/

*Email is inherently insecure and Bitstamp Limited is unable to guarantee the protection of your privacy as stipulated in our Privacy policy. If you send your documents to our email we invite you to encrypt your files using our PGP key, which you can download here: https://www.bitstamp.net/pgp_key/

Best regards,
Bitstamp Team

---

Bitstamp LIMITED
5 New Street Square, EC4A 3TW London, United Kingdom
Phone: (+44) 20 8133 5474 | web: www.bitstamp.net

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and/or privileged information and is intended solely for the addressee. Any unauthorized use, review, retransmissions, dissemination

[djukica666]

this is a really strange story  .

I can understand that they (bitstamp) don't want to have business with thread creator but to convert BTC (or any other) without his approval is IMO very strange... I don't know, they probably have something about that in terms so they are legally covered. he probably did something strange that they flagged.

also I understand that you shouldn't keep alot of money (or crypto) on exchange but if you are a whaler...

I hope you update on this and what happened at the end. I've been using bitstamp as my primary exchange and was under impression that they are in the top exchanges to use, and the safest maybe...

[exstasie]

I can understand that they (bitstamp) don't want to have business with thread creator but to convert BTC (or any other) without his approval is IMO very strange... I don't know, they probably have something about that in terms so they are legally covered. he probably did something strange that they flagged.

Very odd, indeed. This is the first time I have ever heard of anything like this, and I constantly lurk in exchange discussions to get wind of any oddities or concerns about exchanges. Coinbase is infamous for terminating accounts, but they always have users withdraw their cryptocurrency. They don't engage in trades with the user's funds without their authorization. Bitstamp is definitely getting weird lately with their KYC policies. A lot of people seem to be getting their accounts locked recently.

I immediately lost 20k alone with this unauthorized transaction. Still no access to my funds and don't know what happens next.

That really sucks. I really feel like they screwed you here. But having said that, I doubt that $20k is worth pursuing a legal case over.

[warningsigns]

I'm convinced they decided to close the account on account of such a large transaction not passing their AML rules, despite the supporting documents you submitted. They are licensed in Luxembourg and as such they are mandated to follow EU financial intelligence regs.

Even if you submit valid documents, they might rule on the balance of probabilities after considering the total relationship factors involved, such as your account age, the source of funds, even if legitimate, they might still be skeptical about it, especially because of the risk of trading on behalf of third parties which is a presumption that is difficult to rebut.

They are not a scam. A scam exchange will unlawfully retain and misappropriate your funds. In other words, a scam exchange will steal your coins or money.

As for their decision to return your money in fiat form, they are probably (and I'm just thinking this is the case) required by law to do so. I'm not familiar with AML laws in depth but I suppose they do this to ensure no funds are channeled to third parties (which bitcoin allows since you can request them to channel the coins to any random address). Banks do the same thing too. If they are unable to engage you as a client, they will return all funds to an account under your name. Sending the money to another account (on someone else's name) would make them a party or accomplice to laundering funds.

[keyrole]

By respecting all what you said.. I really thank you for even reading till here...

Bitstamp is a scam because their support line that stand on the page doesn't work for weeks.
Bitstamp is a scam because you don't have a real contact - only thing you can expect to get is an automatic generated e-mail to your complaint.
Bitstamp is a scam because they don't care even if you send notarized and certified, even original documents with apostille shown the source of money. Their intention is to destroy you, not to help.
Bitstamp is a scam because they don't even give you a chance for defense - even in show trials you are allowed to at least to express your point of view.
Bitstamp is a scam because all they are hiding behind their TOS in order to destroy you without any evidence as other scams do.
Bitstamp is a scam BECAUSE THEY SELL ALL YOUR BITCOINS AND ETHERIUM WITHOUT YOUR APPROVAL and TO A MUCH LOWER PRICE WHICH WAS DEFINED BY THEMSELVES!!!!

ONLY THING I DID WAS DEPOSITING FROM MY OWN BANK ACCOUNT WITH CERTIFIED PROOF OF SOURCE OF MY INCOME AND BUYING SOME COINS AND TRADING! YOU CAN TERMINATE MY ACCOUNT BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SELLING MY COINS!!!!

To my pals, withdraw all your coins from bitstamp to any other wallet. They will soon terminate your account in order to sell your juicy coins. I am in talk with my lawyer who works in the same building with them in London. I will update you about the outcome.

[warningsigns]

You may have been inconvenienced by what they did but the main and important thing here is you didn't and won't lose the bulk of your money. Your experience with them is unfortunate but still way better than less reputable exchanges which are far more likely to steal your entire funds. Consider yourself lucky to see this money returned to you. There are some here who lost far greater amounts to exchanges (such as Poloniex and BTC-E) who give them the much hated silent treatment for weeks or even months at end. Some simply ignore them forever. Some ask for a never-ending list of documents.

 

[bitstampaccholder]

Keyrole - I experienced almost the same. I cashed out for a long time since. But in March they aks me to give them some information about their KYC what I understood. After several months of mailing and holding my funds, i kindly ask them to enable my withdrawal option because they had NO REASON to hold my funds. Guess what? NO ANSWER! And as a cherry on the cake, they terminate my account without any statement. The balance wasn't that big as yours but 13K is still a lot for those people to steal for.

DId you get any respond from them?

[Chiro1]

This thing hapend to me today . Last year i was aprroved with KYC and AML . 2 weeks ago they start the kyc procedure again becasue somebody send me btc from his trezor wallet and for them looked supiscious.They blocked me around 15k and i cant trade , i cant withdraw nothing. I gave them again all the documents that they asked proof of my money income, bank statemens everything. They dont reply . Anyone recently in the same situation? 

[rokkyroad]

Interesting story. I am skeptical.

I will say since bitstamp changed hands last fall things have changed. They changed their bank or payment processor at the time which created havoc. Still ongoing as of a month ago for me. Support is super slow and almost useless. They went from hero to zero. They were previously a class act.

It might be wise to exercise caution.

[gentlemand]

Interesting story. I am skeptical.

I will say since bitstamp changed hands last fall things have changed. They changed their bank or payment processor at the time which created havoc. Still ongoing as of a month ago for me. Support is super slow and almost useless. They went from hero to zero. They were previously a class act.

It might be wise to exercise caution.

I've heard this enough times from enough different users over the years. Their KYC questionnaire is fucking ridiculous let alone their demands for tax documents and every single address you've ever used. If I'm verified I expect to stay verified. I'll never put a penny in there again.

[rokkyroad]

Interesting story. I am skeptical.

I will say since bitstamp changed hands last fall things have changed. They changed their bank or payment processor at the time which created havoc. Still ongoing as of a month ago for me. Support is super slow and almost useless. They went from hero to zero. They were previously a class act.

It might be wise to exercise caution.

I've heard this enough times from enough different users over the years. Their KYC questionnaire is fucking ridiculous let alone their demands for tax documents and every single address you've ever used. If I'm verified I expect to stay verified. I'll never put a penny in there again.

I never had to submit anything but proof of address and my id. They never did ask for anything else except for updated id. They got me to fill out a strange kyc questionaire a year ago. They made it plain things would go much smoother for me if I answered the questions. I'm outta there after 5 years.