Coinbase feedback thread

[gamer4156]

I bought bitcoins from them on monday, they said the coins will be mine on friday. The withdrawl has yet to post my account. I am starting to worry. Is anyone else having issues buying coins?

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[Franktank]

I bought bitcoins from them on monday, they said the coins will be mine on friday. The withdrawl has yet to post my account. I am starting to worry. Is anyone else having issues buying coins?

If you're a first time buyer, it takes about a week for everything to clear.

[gamer4156]

Ya this is my first time with them. I am just a tit concerned since my bank has not received any transactions yet. The coins are suppose to be here by tomorrow Friday the 8th. I have verified both my phone and identity with them as well.

[Franktank]

Ya this is my first time with them. I am just a tit concerned since my bank has not received any transactions yet. The coins are suppose to be here by tomorrow Friday the 8th. I have verified both my phone and identity with them as well.

Yea, it'll arrive on the dot. That's usually how it's been with first time buyers.

[danieldaniel]

Coinbase is legit.  I've never had a single problem with them, and whenever I need help, I can either send a support ticket or ask on IRC (and I get very fast responses).

There have been a few people with bad cases, but I'd imagine they get hundred's of support tickets a day.  I don't blame them for missing one or two.

Also: For the visa card verification, they only accept visa DEBIT cards, IIRC.  No credit cards.

[freeAgent]

I tried placing my first order with them this past Thursday night (10/31) after verifying my bank account and cell phone and attempting to start credit card verification as well.  It was for a single Bitcoin.  On Monday morning, the funds were withdrawn from my bank account via ACH.  This morning (Thursday), however, I got the following email:

On Oct 31, 2013 you purchased 1.00 BTC via bank transfer for $xxx.xx.
Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel this order because it appears to be high risk. We do not send out any bitcoins on high risk transactions, and you will receive a refund to your bank account in 3-4 business days.
Please understand that we do this to keep the community safe and avoid fraudulent transactions. Apologies if you are one of the good users who gets caught up in this preventative measure - we don't get it right 100% of the time, but we need to be cautious when it comes to preventing fraud.
You may have more luck trying again in a few weeks. Best of luck and thank you for trying Coinbase.
Kind regards,
The Coinbase Team

What the fuck, Coinbase?  You have the money.  If you think the transaction is high risk, just hold the coins for 30 days or whatever.  Don't simply take my money (which they still have...) and say, "oops, we're sorry!"  That's bullshit.  I have no idea what could possibly have flagged my transaction as high risk, and had they used any of the sensitive data I provided them with to verify my identity or check my credit, they would have found that I'm extremely low risk.  I realize that the price of Bitcoin has risen dramatically since I purchased last week, but that should not factor into their risk calculation.  Unfortunately, it seems it must be a factor.  There is no other explanation that I can think of.  What they've done now is essentially take out an interest-free loan courtesy of me.

I sent them an email/support ticket as soon as I woke up and read my email this morning to ask what happened, but I've gotten no response back.  As far as I'm concerned, Coinbase is a scam.  If the price of Bitcoin rises after you purchase, they may mysteriously decide that you are "high risk" and thank you for the week+ long interest-free loan.  If the price goes down, they don't refund the difference.  Anyway, all I can say is that they appear to be wholly untrustworthy and scammy.  I will not do business with them again.  My biggest regret, assuming I get my money back eventually, is that I had to give them all my personal information to learn this lesson.

[gamer4156]

Thanks for clearing a little of my worries. Friday is here, ill let you know when my coins arrive.

[tvbcof]

My second non-trivial sale posted to my account.  This time I first saw it Friday morning, and Friday was the last day of the 5 day estimate.  Value was in the $3k-$4k range.  I've got another similar sale in progress, and it is estimated for the middle of next week IIRC.

So far I've not triggered any flags it seems.  I'm squeeky clean as far as illegal things and fraud, but I have bought a variety of relatively expensive things with cash lately (an excavator, a pickup, etc) so I half expected my accounts to be flagged.

[Pente]

I know when I have been scammed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=328013.0


An agreement was made. 9.25 btc for $1,945.07. They have reneged on that agreement and kept $3000 worth of bitcoins, while returning $2000 in fiat currency.

If they think there is an issue with my money, I would be willing to let them hold the bitcoins longer till they felt that the transaction was safe or non-reversible. This is not about fraud prevention. This is about reneging on contracts when the btc are going up in value.

Coinbase is located in California. If they refuse to honor their contracts, people need to get together and form a class action lawsuit against them.

[tvbcof]

I know when I have been scammed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=328013.0


An agreement was made. 9.25 btc for $1,945.07. They have reneged on that agreement and kept $3000 worth of bitcoins, while returning $2000 in fiat currency.

If they think there is an issue with my money, I would be willing to let them hold the bitcoins longer till they felt that the transaction was safe or non-reversible. This is not about fraud prevention. This is about reneging on contracts when the btc are going up in value.

Coinbase is located in California. If they refuse to honor their contracts, people need to get together and form a class action lawsuit against them.

A good test of this hypothesis will be to see if roughly the same number of flags occur when the price is going down.  There are several main difficulties here.

  - we need the price to be going down, and even then, it would be possible that algorithms have become more advanced leading to a lower false positive rate.  I will say that Coinbase seems to be big enough so that if systematic exploitation along the lines of the mechanisms you describe were taking place, I would expect to see even more complaints of the nature you have suffered.

  - complaints on bitcointalk.org is a very poor source of random sample selection.  Those who are more vocal, and those who have suffered a loss, are much more likely to speak up.  Similarly, it is not unheard of for business, and especially those who are scams, to invent sock puppets to pump their service.  This is in fact one of the best indications of a scam in my observations here over the years.

[Pente]

My problem is not the seemingly random cancelling of contracts on a market that is mostly going up. Obviously, any study of the transactions would appear to show a bias in their favor, but correlation does not prove causation. I will give them the benefit of reasonable doubt on this particular issue.

My problem is that they do not provide a means to honor a transaction. If they think a transaction is fraudulant, they could just hold the bitcoins until they feel that the transaction is not fraudulent. They do not provide any means for this. They are profiting by canceling transactions.

[freeAgent]

If they think a transaction is fraudulant, they could just hold the bitcoins until they feel that the transaction is not fraudulent. They do not provide any means for this. They are profiting by canceling transactions.

This is the main issue.  They take people's money and then cancel their orders.  If the problem is that they fear chargebacks, then they could simply present an option of waiting 30-60 days or canceling the order and getting a refund.  Instead, they are canceling orders automatically.  That is scammy behavior.  The "high risk" transaction in this case is allowing Coinbase access to your personal information and funds for a week or more to do with whatever they please.