First time BTC investor's experience w/ CampBX...frustrating as hell

[rbdrbd]

Well, first experience in investing in bitcoin (instead of mining it), and it has been a giant pain in the ass. It's clear to me now one of the major things really holding BTC back at this time.

I sent in personal checks to campbx fedex Back on July 30th. Money was just created to the account today (3 weeks later).

Next I try to buy some bitcoins, and notice how shallow their order book is. I finally buy some bitcoins, and then when I attempt to send them out to BTC-E to buy LTC/PPC, I get the notice that withdrawals are disabled on my account for 31 days. (This was the reason I avoided Dwolla deposits in the first place…I thought being KYC verified and sending in a check would allow me to withdraw immediately!)

So then, fed up with Campbx, I try to initiate an ACH transfer back to my bank account, and see the amounts are limited to 10K at once, and I can only have one active at once. Holy shite.

I know Gox takes the cake, but these guys aren't that far off. I’ll be taking (what’s left of) my money, once I can wrest it back from them, and heading over to Bitstamp or Coinbase.

(As an aside, anyone have any bad experience with bitstamp’s handling of international wire transfers?)

[italeffect]

You're really going to be pleased if you try to contact them about any of this. 1-2 weeks to respond to attempts to contact, if ever.
I swear it's a one man show.
I also find it strange there is little/no public presence and no one from the company trying to promote the exchange or gain customers. I mean the second Gox cut off Dwolla they had a chance to be a major player.

[rbdrbd]

You're really going to be pleased if you try to contact them about any of this. 1-2 weeks to respond to attempts to contact, if ever.
I swear it's a one man show.
I also find it strange there is little/no public presence and no one from the company trying to promote the exchange or gain customers. I mean the second Gox cut off Dwolla they had a chance to be a major player.

Yes, I've had several issues with them and went for days and days with no response. I do have a support case in asking for that 30 day limit to be re-evaluated in my case given that I made personal check deposits (no Dwolla)...but I'll probably have to wait 5 days just to get a response, after multiple follow up messages...like last time.

I run a business for a living. If we ran like these exchanges, we'd be out of business. It boggles the mind.

And, I thought the same thing about the lack of marketing around these guys. They've been around for awhile (in bitcoin terms) and aren't scammers/fly by night...you'd think they'd jump on the opportunity. Or at least get a CSR watching these forums to address complaints/issues before it harms their image (I guess they don't care).

[Jonnybitc0in]

I got hit with a 90 day hold on withdrawing my purchased bitcoin. No explanation given, no support available, no way to contact them. If they don't release my coins after this bogus 90 day hold I will be contacting the authorities and my lawyer. I will not be using them ever again. Extremely displeased that they won't communicate with me as a KYC verified customer who's done over 20k worth of business through them. I'm in US so coinbase is really the only option left for now.

[WhitePhantom]

I got hit with a 90 day hold on withdrawing my purchased bitcoin. No explanation given, no support available, no way to contact them. If they don't release my coins after this bogus 90 day hold I will be contacting the authorities and my lawyer. I will not be using them ever again. Extremely displeased that they won't communicate with me as a KYC verified customer who's done over 20k worth of business through them. I'm in US so coinbase is really the only option left for now.

They disabled my BTC withdrawals for 90 days about a month ago because I attempted to deposit funds via Dwolla.  However, Dwolla required some ID verification steps before I could deposit the funds, so there was no reason for CampBX to do anything to my account.  I opened a support ticket and they re-enabled BTC withdrawals after about 3 days.

On the other hand, I've been waiting almost a month for them to credit a $1000 money order to my account.  The only reason I use them is because I can easily withdraw funds via Dwolla after I sell mined coins.

[oblongmeteor]

Haha and now everyone wakes up to critical Bitcoin structural problem: the exchanges.  Most are amateurs.  They are opaque with no financial transparency. They all have relatively poor customer service. None of them are compliant. And only 2 exchanges really have enough liquidity to be useful.

... and this is what makes exchange trading so dangerous. Everyone evangelizes Bitstamp (don't get me wrong, they are quick and pretty awesome) but they are rapidly becoming the biggest single point of failure. I mean, you can't help but think that - if - law enforcement wanted to deal a seriously damaging blow to Bitcoin, they'd just need to seize the assets of Bitstamp. All those customer funds held indefinitely; law enforcement can take years to release stuff back. You'd get your funds in the end in all likelihood, but any mainstream credibility of Bitcoin would have been wiped out. Remember; Mt Gox had their US account seized, they've got ongoing FIAT transfer issues and everyone is moving to Bitstamp as a consequence because of the volume...

I love Bitstamp, but their blatant disregard for any sort of AML and the fact they are more than likely laundering millions in BTC obtained for 'legally dubious' activities, means they've probably got one massive red target on their back... and if they do go down it'll be brutally sudden.

[DannyHamilton]

I generally prefer localbitcoins.com

[OhShei8e]

I know Gox takes the cake, but these guys aren't that far off. I’ll be taking (what’s left of) my money, once I can wrest it back from them, and heading over to Bitstamp or Coinbase.

(As an aside, anyone have any bad experience with bitstamp’s handling of international wire transfers?)

The Bitstamp price is very attractive. Now 15% less than on Gox. Wow!

But I have no doubt in the Bitstamp security. No Yubikey, no mTAN and the API seems to be a high a security risk.

It is very pathetic to offer only the Google Authenticator. I send no larger amounts when I can not even use a hardware token. Maybe that is the reason why on Bitstamp never much more than a million can be seen in the order book. I'm watching this for months now. Bitstamp has become a "trade and rund" service. Is there anyone who deposited money on Bitstamp for a long time (longer than three months)? Even on such a minor user2user marketplace like bitcoin.de I can use a Yubikey meanwhile to protect my coins. I do not understand why Bitstamp offers no Yubikey 2FA. It's very inexpensive and safe.

Personally, is not quite clear to me what you can do with the API by bypassing the 2FA. I don't see any limits with the Bitstamp API. Pretty risky, isn't it? On Mt. Gox you must first generate an API key (you have to use the YubiKey for this). Then you grant the required rights for your API key. For example, you can have an api key for trading only, so you (or even an attacker) can't make any withdrawals with your (trading) api key.

I'm afraid it's very easy to take over a Bitstamp account by there API if you occupy a PC which is used to access this Bitstamp account. Most computers nowadays are very easy to occupy. Especially when it comes to Windows boxes. A malicious banner in a bitcoin forum is sufficient for this already.

I would not recommend you to access your Bitstamp account with the same PC which you use for your normal surfing. You should at least use a separate browser to prevent XSS.

[snuff]

So what causes the hold on BTC? Using any other funding method than MO?

I recently used campbx for the first time, sent them a MO that they received on a saturday, money was in my account late monday or early tuesday. Bought coins then transferred them to another wallet with no issues.

Hearing these stories makes me nervous about using them again though.

[DealMaker]

I'm currently and others are experiencing the same thing(s) -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=278973.0

It seems the time for talking, pleading, and begging for Campbx to do the right thing is about to come to an end.

[DealMaker]

Reduce some of that frustration and reach the individual who owns Campbx directly -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281042.0