Coinbase Policy for Bounced Payments

[BittBurger]

Update:  I got a response from Coinbase after a couple weeks.  Short and sweet.  They'll reattempt the ACH withdrawal and reactivate my account.  Just wanted to update this thread so that the good news would be documented.  They didn't even charge me a fee for the inconvenience, which really was kind of them.  I deserved a slap on the wrist at least.  Thank you to Coinbase.

Not sure where to post this but wanted to get feedback from you all be cause I am not understanding Coinbase's thinking on this.

I did a purchase last week of about 11 bitcoins through coinbase. Price was about $99 per coin.

Because they allow "instant" BTC purchases, the coins were available immediately.

I transferred them to my offline wallet immediately.

Unfortunately a friend failed to deposit money into my bank account like they promised.

The Coinbase withdrawal bounced.

However the money is there now.  Ready and waiting.

Clearly the easiest thing to do is for Coinbase to re-initiate the ACH withdrawal.

Instead they waited 4 days and told me I need to give them 11 Bitcoins to resolve the issue.

At this stage BTC is listed at $115 per coin.  When I bought the 11 BTC they were $99 each.

I emailed coinbase and told them there's no way im going to resolve this issue by sending them 11 BTC, as that would be a $176 difference.

I told them "I made a purchase for X dollars and I owe you X dollars, not a penny more"

They said my account has been suspended and will remain suspended until I send them 11 BTC.

I dont understand this policy nor their logic.  Why would they make this the process?  Its so obvious why it makes no sense.

Thanks for any insight.

-Burger-

[adub]

That is a shitty policy. They should debit the account again and suspend your instant purchase for now and offer a reinstatement path for you to get back in the good graces.

[barbarousrelic]

I could understand either demanding the Bitcoins back or demanding the dollars back, as long as they keep a consistent upfront policy.

[BittBurger]

I mean im happy to pay a $20 fee for them to resubmit the ACH, but these companies always do this crap.  Credit card companies, electric bill, cell phone - they refuse to resubmit the ACH withdrawal, and force you to practically walk cash to their front door.  (usually demanding a cashiers check).  As if there's some huge risk for them to resubmit the ACH. 
But then you've got coinbase who just wants Bitcoins.  So thats even more strange.

[superduh]

strange - 1) they may do away with instant purchase or block withdrawals until you fully fund it at original price 2) that's weird they should be able to take however much they purchased it for $99ish as how much you owe them

[BCB]

So you fucked up and you blame coinbase?

Yes you fucked up.  You trusted your friend to deposit money.

It was your account that you purchased the bitcoin with.  You are liable.

It is call ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY.

Coinbase is doing its uses a favor by allowing instant bitcoin deposits.  They take the risk that your payment may bounce.

Your payment may bounced.  

What is not clear here?

Send them their 11 BTC back.

[BittBurger]

What the fuck are you talking about?

Who is blaming coinbase?

Where did you learn to read?  

Go back to the first post, up your IQ about 70 points, and read again, Troll.

I cant stand people who read the first line of a post ("He bounced payment therefore he's an idiot")   
... then assume:  "He sounds like hes complaining therefore I will make dumb assumptions and tell him off!" 


Here is a summary for the mentally retarded:

1)  I am not giving them an extra $200 worth of Bitcoins to resolve this issue of a bounced ACH withdrawal.  

2)  I only owe them in USD, what I owe them in USD, at the time of purchase.

3)  LIKEWISE:  If the price of BTC had dropped to $50 overnight, I would still expect to owe them the USD$ I owed them at the time of purchase.

4)  Its called "Accepting responsibility".

[geofflosophy]

What the fuck are you talking about?

Who is blaming coinbase?

Where did you learn to read?  

Go back to the first post, up your IQ about 70 points, and read again, Troll.

I cant stand people who read the first line of a post ("He bounced payment therefore he's an idiot")   
... then assume:  "He sounds like hes complaining therefore I will make dumb assumptions and tell him off!" 


Here is a summary for the mentally retarded:

1)  I am not giving them an extra $200 worth of Bitcoins to resolve this issue of a bounced ACH withdrawal.  

2)  I only owe them in USD, what I owe them in USD, at the time of purchase.

3)  LIKEWISE:  If the price of BTC had dropped to $50 overnight, I would still expect to owe them the USD$ I owed them at the time of purchase.

4)  Its called "Accepting responsibility".

I sort of see it both ways, essentially you bought your coins on credit, and they're not creditors.

With that said, I do find it hard to imagine that had the price dropped in the meantime, they would have asked for the coins back rather than USD. They presumably immediately purchase new coins to fill the void left in their hot wallet from the coins sold to you at the spot price; if they didn't they would be left holding the bag when the price changes; so really they should have no problem accepting the money + the bounced payment fee.

From what I understand their support is bad, otherwise you'd be able to easily work this out with a phone call or something. In the end you might just have to bite the bullet for the convenience of instant buys and sells going forward though. What a shitty situation to be put in. I feel for you bro.

[geofflosophy]

This dude Olaf from Coinbase support showed up on another Coinbase thread, I PM'd this one to him for comment.

[geofflosophy]

It sounds like you expect Coinbase to give you a free loan of bitcoin so you can take advantage of a price increase.  Would you be willing to do that yourself?  Will you send me 11 bitcoins now at $118 each, and then allow me to pay you the $118 each later, if bitcoin increased in value to $150?  That would be giving me a risk free loan.

I know this is not what you intended to do, but given that the value of bitcoin has increased, this is exactly what you are asking of Coinbase.  Coinbase would not survive if they gave out free speculation loans like this.

I would just pay back the 11 bitcoins and then rebuy them at the current market rate.

It's not a free loan, it was supposed to be an instant transaction that bounced. They bought his coins for him assuming the transaction wouldn't bounce at the agreed upon price. The fact that the transaction bounced is a headache for them, and bounce fee, but nothing more. Dollars are missing from their balance sheet, not bitcoins.

[Olaf (Coinbase)]

Not sure where to post this but wanted to get feedback from you all be cause I am not understanding Coinbase's thinking on this.

I did a purchase last week of about 11 bitcoins through coinbase. Price was about $99 per coin.

Because they allow "instant" BTC purchases, the coins were available immediately.

I transferred them to my offline wallet immediately.

Unfortunately a friend failed to deposit money into my bank account like they promised.

The Coinbase withdrawal bounced.

However the money is there now.  Ready and waiting.

Clearly the easiest thing to do is for Coinbase to re-initiate the ACH withdrawal.

Instead they waited 4 days and told me I need to give them 11 Bitcoins to resolve the issue.

At this stage BTC is listed at $115 per coin.  When I bought the 11 BTC they were $99 each.

I emailed coinbase and told them there's no way im going to resolve this issue by sending them 11 BTC, as that would be a $176 difference.

I told them "I made a purchase for X dollars and I owe you X dollars, not a penny more"

They said my account has been suspended and will remain suspended until I send them 11 BTC.

I dont understand this policy nor their logic.  Why would they make this the process?  Its so obvious why it makes no sense.

Thanks for any insight.

-Burger-

Olaf from Coinbase here.

Sorry for the trouble with this - in the automatic email that is sent out we ask for the bitcoin back for two reasons. First, a user sending back bitcoin is much easier than one of our team manually debiting their account. Second, many users don't have the funds for the bounced purchase, and would rather return the bitcoin at a slight loss (assuming the price went up) than have to pay for the bitcoin at the original purchase price.

However, that being said, I can manually debit your account instead and always do upon request. PM me your Coinbase email and I'll look at your account. Apologies for not communicating all this better - ideally we take care of these returns before the price makes significant movements.

[BittBurger]

Update:  I had opened a few tickets and got no reply to them for a couple weeks.  Strange, but Olaf finally replied in one of the tickets.  Short and sweet.  They'll reattempt the ACH withdrawal and reactivate my account.  Just wanted to update this thread so that the good news would be documented.  They didn't even charge me a fee for the inconvenience, which really was kind of them.  I deserved a slap on the wrist at least.  Thank you to Coinbase. I have also updated the first post in this thread so any newcomers will see the resolution before the drama

Despite this hiccup i am completely blown away by how far ahead of all the other companies you guys are excelling.  Hiring the Litecoin founder, offering free transactions to merchants up to $1 Million is incredible (!!) ... instant BTC purchases are outstanding (but i proved how risky that can be for you guys, so I appreciate your willingness to work with me).  

How long before you accept Litecion? 

I think the only challenge at this point is that it took so long to get a reply to tickets I had opened.  I ultimately had to post here, and on your "public" support forum before I finally got a response (10+ days).  Probably just growing pains im sure.  But if replies had been immediate, I could have paid with BTC before the price changed drastically.  I'd suggest doing it via USD anyways, as BTC price could skydive and you'd be out money from the customer.  Reinitating the ACH for USD seems the best way to go, and by all means, you should charge a fee for that.  You shouldn't have to cover the cost for the resubmission when people like me screw up.  Thanks again.

[joesmoe2012]

Glad to hear it was all worked out. Coinbase usually always proves themselves to be a stand up company in the end (Though I also agree sometimes they don't get back to people as quickly as they should).

[justusranvier]

Coinbase's biggest problem is a lack of customer support resources. It can take up to two weeks to get a problem resolved.

[joesmoe2012]

Coinbase's biggest problem is a lack of customer support resources. It can take up to two weeks to get a problem resolved.

As mentioned earlier, this may just be due to growing pains. Though I have noticed at the conferences and such they always appear to be very well funded, so i'm surprised they aren't better prepared.

[coblee]

Coinbase's biggest problem is a lack of customer support resources. It can take up to two weeks to get a problem resolved.

As mentioned earlier, this may just be due to growing pains. Though I have noticed at the conferences and such they always appear to be very well funded, so i'm surprised they aren't better prepared.

Yeah, we are actively looking to grow our customer support team. It takes a unique individual that would want to deal with customer issues all day long. If you are passionate about bitcoin and want to work as a customer support (or know someone that does), check out our careers page and let us know: https://coinbase.com/careers