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Author Topic: Coinbase honored my contract.  (Read 8581 times)
Pente (OP)
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November 08, 2013, 05:28:39 PM
Last edit: November 13, 2013, 01:27:42 AM by Pente
 #1

So I woke up this morning all excited to add 9.25 btc to my measly collection of 13 btc.
 
https://blockchain.info/address/13F5BR74596kSc7neuZYYbLPar2utuNyrC

I turn on my computer & I see this:

Quote

Hi XXXXXXXX,

On Nov 1, 2013 you purchased 9.25 BTC via bank transfer for $1,945.07.

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



They have previously canceled 3 attempted orders of 10 BTC each when I was using a major bank, but it appeared that my original bank would never transfer the money. I didn't blame Coinbase even though prices were about $123 each back then. So I opened up an account at a very small bank, linked up the account, and successfully made a small 0.25 btc purchase. So I now know that I found a bank that works with them.

This last action was obviously performed by them (or their software - same thing). Read the message.

Price at purchase: $210.278
Price at cancel: $330.280
Difference: $120.002
Difference * 9.25 btc = $1110.0185 that they gained by cancelling my order

Just because us poor people don't have the wealth to obtain a VISA card and such are denied level 2 verification, doesn't make it right for them to cancel orders during a rising market. BTW, this is more money than I make at my job in a month.

I have been trying to buy bitcoins from them since they were $123 (I was REALLY REALLY late to the bitcoin party). Most of the 13 btc I have bought so far were purchased by wiring money to Bitstamp in Slovenia back in October.


Update: This has been resolved by Olaf to my satisfaction. I was whitelisted and the original order has been reinstated at the original contract rate.
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November 08, 2013, 05:56:12 PM
 #2

Hello,

i feel with you, but  i dont understand how they could steal you the money. Do you mean you buyed, and left the bitcoins at your account?
How much time passed between your buy and their scam trick ?

from my expierience, avoid MT. Gox also.

greetings

YOBIT IS SCAM , YOBIT IS SCAM , YOBIT IS SCAM meine Steuerdatei:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=612741.msg19244732#msg19244732
freeAgent
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November 08, 2013, 06:00:16 PM
 #3

Hello,

i feel with you, but  i dont understand how they could steal you the money. Do you mean you buyed, and left the bitcoins at your account?
How much time passed between your buy and their scam trick ?

from my expierience, avoid MT. Gox also.

greetings

Basically, he purchased bitcoin, they took his money, bitcoin increased in value dramatically, and they canceled his order.  The gain in value of bitcoin between his purchase and the cancellation is lost to him.  Presumably Coinbase actually did purchase the coins back when he placed the order and they had the cash, so they're probably making a lot of money refunding him and selling those coins to someone else today at a higher value.
danieldaniel
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November 09, 2013, 12:32:55 AM
 #4

Hello,

i feel with you, but  i dont understand how they could steal you the money. Do you mean you buyed, and left the bitcoins at your account?
How much time passed between your buy and their scam trick ?

from my expierience, avoid MT. Gox also.

greetings

Basically, he purchased bitcoin, they took his money, bitcoin increased in value dramatically, and they canceled his order.  The gain in value of bitcoin between his purchase and the cancellation is lost to him.  Presumably Coinbase actually did purchase the coins back when he placed the order and they had the cash, so they're probably making a lot of money refunding him and selling those coins to someone else today at a higher value.
No, they didn't take his money.  They probably didn't even take the money out of his bank account.

I hate to say it, but this guy IS high risk.  Adding and deleting bank accounts, making large purchases right after small one's...

Every business in the real world has fraud management.  I don't see why Coinbase shouldn't.

User705
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November 09, 2013, 01:11:55 AM
 #5

Hello,

i feel with you, but  i dont understand how they could steal you the money. Do you mean you buyed, and left the bitcoins at your account?
How much time passed between your buy and their scam trick ?

from my expierience, avoid MT. Gox also.

greetings

Basically, he purchased bitcoin, they took his money, bitcoin increased in value dramatically, and they canceled his order.  The gain in value of bitcoin between his purchase and the cancellation is lost to him.  Presumably Coinbase actually did purchase the coins back when he placed the order and they had the cash, so they're probably making a lot of money refunding him and selling those coins to someone else today at a higher value.
No, they didn't take his money.  They probably didn't even take the money out of his bank account.

I hate to say it, but this guy IS high risk.  Adding and deleting bank accounts, making large purchases right after small one's...

Every business in the real world has fraud management.  I don't see why Coinbase shouldn't.
I think there is a right way to do this and most large PM dealers do this.  It should clearly state on the website that when you send us money your purchase price is not locked in.  Then after they do the fraud verifications they can credit the account of the buyer and then you can buy whenever and at whatever price you want with cleared funds.  While there is no way to know if coinbase is actually scamming this money.  The practice is very scammy.  I would suggest any users who had this happen to them to use the small claims court to at least get to the bottom of the practice.  It's a simple question if they procured coins at the time of purchase or they did not.  If they did then any subsequent gains or losses belong to the customer.  If they did not then that should be clearly indicated on the website otherwise it's false advertising since they are selling something they don't have yet.

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November 09, 2013, 01:46:58 AM
 #6

Coinbase does this all the time and is frankly shady as hell. I would never touch them, and I would never recommend them to anybody. It doesn't help that they are so newb-friendly, as all this new blood do not understand that with Coinbase, they do not control their own bitcoins -- Coinbase does.
freequant
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November 09, 2013, 02:12:13 AM
 #7

I turn on my computer & I see this:
Quote
Hi XXXXXXXX,
[...]
Is your computer booting right into a mail client?
freequant
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November 09, 2013, 02:17:43 AM
 #8

OP, don't worry, they will send you another email after Bitcoin crashed to tell you that this was an error and your purchase was in fact effectively processed.
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November 09, 2013, 03:03:04 AM
 #9

I don't think of them as shady. I do think they have a reason to believe he is "high risk" because of what he mentioned.

The signature campaign posters adding useless redundant fluff to their posts to reach their minimum word count are lowering my IQ.
User705
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November 09, 2013, 03:09:10 AM
 #10

Please tell me what non shady company after thinking a customer is high risk would tell them to try again?

freeAgent
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November 09, 2013, 03:59:28 AM
 #11

No, they didn't take his money.  They probably didn't even take the money out of his bank account.

Yes, they did take his money.  They did the same thing to me this week.  They debited my account on Monday and then canceled my order for being "high risk" on Wednesday.  I emailed support, but at this point I have neither my bitcoin nor my USD.
dyingdreams
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November 09, 2013, 05:25:46 AM
 #12

FWIW
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327891.msg3524591#msg3524591

Pente (OP)
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November 09, 2013, 06:50:01 AM
 #13

Quote
No, they didn't take his money.  They probably didn't even take the money out of his bank account.

I hate to say it, but this guy IS high risk.  Adding and deleting bank accounts, making large purchases right after small one's...


@danieldaniel, you are correct in saying that the original $1,945.07 is still in my bank account. Regardless, the money was still tied up for a week. I could not use it to make a purchase elsewhere. Coinbase was able to capitalize on that fact to make gains on the bitcoins that they purchased for me and held during that week.

I never said anything about deleting bank accounts and have never deleted a bank account with Coinbase. That being said, Coinbase has deleted my first account three times. Each time it was deleted after I attempted to make a buy. The fact that you know this (when I didn't mention it) makes me strongly suspect that  you work for Coinbase. Do you?

Testing Coinbase with small purchases (0.25 btc) makes perfect sense if you know that there are problems with making a purchase. There is no reason to tie up large amounts of money until the software glitches involving a bank transferring money to Coinbase are solved. This is not behavior that indicates fraud, it is the behavior of a person dealing with a dysfunctional system.

Quote
Every business in the real world has fraud management.  I don't see why Coinbase shouldn't.

This is really the meat of the issue. There is a right way and a wrong way to manage fraud.

The wrong way is to put all the losses on the customer while Coinbase gets to capitalize on the gains. Breaking a contract 7 days after a purchase is made is dishonorable.

The right way would be to either: (a) hold the bitcoins bought till the danger of fraud has passed  (b) lower the amount of the possible transaction to the level of trust in the customer (c) transfer the funds to Coinbase, then allow the customer to make a purchase after the funds are secure.

Coinbase should honor my original contract of 9.25 btc for $1,945.07

ratty
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November 09, 2013, 10:35:27 AM
 #14

Regarding them accepting orders, then later denying them for high risk... I don't think coinbase is a scam, but rather they just do a lot of stupid things.

Rememeber when they just sprang the policy change without warning where you had to add a credit card (not a debit card, but a go-into-debt credit card) to continue getting the instant purchases? The only mention of it was on their support site, in small letters in the news section. Everyone just freaked out about it. Nevermind that nobody else offers you the ability to buy bitcoins, and gives you the coins before the ACH transfer goes through. Even paypal doesnt do that.

So this reeks of them just being stupid. They probably just set up some automatic fraud detection thing, and just figuring all they have to do is deal with customers case by case when it gets it wrong. Great plan, right? They are just being STUPID, and not realizing the damage to the brand that kind of thing does.

Hey Olaf, if you're reading this, I suggest instead of having it cancel the order, put it on hold for review. Then encourage the customer to contact support. Just saying transaction cancelled makes people feel ripped off. Yes, fraud is a big problem, but there has got to be a better way than just cancelling the order.
People use coinbase like an exchange, and if they can't trust that they can buy some coins from you without worrying about you just randomly cancelling the transaction, that only gives opportunity to the competition.

So far in my own experience, support has been very responsive, and I would definitely raise hell with support if I got flagged for fraud before making a new post on bitcointalk just trying to smear them.

I urge everyone to ignore any complaints about coinbase.com unless it includes a statement like "I contacted support about it and ____". At least give them a chance to make it right first before skipping to telling everyone they are a scam.
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November 09, 2013, 03:35:17 PM
 #15

Regarding them accepting orders, then later denying them for high risk... I don't think coinbase is a scam, but rather they just do a lot of stupid things.

Rememeber when they just sprang the policy change without warning where you had to add a credit card (not a debit card, but a go-into-debt credit card) to continue getting the instant purchases? The only mention of it was on their support site, in small letters in the news section. Everyone just freaked out about it. Nevermind that nobody else offers you the ability to buy bitcoins, and gives you the coins before the ACH transfer goes through. Even paypal doesnt do that.

So this reeks of them just being stupid. They probably just set up some automatic fraud detection thing, and just figuring all they have to do is deal with customers case by case when it gets it wrong. Great plan, right? They are just being STUPID, and not realizing the damage to the brand that kind of thing does.

Hey Olaf, if you're reading this, I suggest instead of having it cancel the order, put it on hold for review. Then encourage the customer to contact support. Just saying transaction cancelled makes people feel ripped off. Yes, fraud is a big problem, but there has got to be a better way than just cancelling the order.
People use coinbase like an exchange, and if they can't trust that they can buy some coins from you without worrying about you just randomly cancelling the transaction, that only gives opportunity to the competition.

So far in my own experience, support has been very responsive, and I would definitely raise hell with support if I got flagged for fraud before making a new post on bitcointalk just trying to smear them.

I urge everyone to ignore any complaints about coinbase.com unless it includes a statement like "I contacted support about it and ____". At least give them a chance to make it right first before skipping to telling everyone they are a scam.


You can't be serious. Their support is abysmal. It takes 1week + for them to get back to you or they completely ignore you.

When they do get back to you, it's the usual copy and pasted response "We're sorry you had trouble doing *some action*..." and no actual attempt to resolve the issue.

My experience:

I tried to verify my bank account through the non-instant method. After multiple calls to my own bank, I verified with my bank that CoinBase only ever debited me and never credited me.

I sent an email to support. It took 1 week to get back to me and they told me to verify with my bank again. I took their request and verified with my bank a second time and sent them an email back. One and a half weeks later I still get no response. I eventually decided to use the instant-method.

2 days AFTER I had verified, I finally get a email back from support saying that they see I had verified my account. I sent an email back to them specifically stating that the original verification method failed due to errors on CoinBase' part and was concerned about future issues I may run into with the account. I never did get a response back about this email.

Of course after I made my first purchase and BTC went from 140-220, my transaction is canceled. After a month of going back and forth with them, they threw the TOS in my face.

When I decided to make a purchase, I read through their TOS. First thing I noticed was the "high risk" transaction. Their definition of "high risk" transaction allows to categorize EVERY transaction as high risk so they can chose what to cancel. Usually companies do this as a CYA, but they are actively screwing customers with this.

They do not make their purchase process clear either. Once you purchase the BTC and a popup comes up saying "You will receive your BTC by...", you assume you would receive your BTC and that the transaction was approved. However, in fact your transaction has not actually been approved and just put in purgatory for a week.



The best part is this blog post by CoinBase CEO:
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/44046687068/high-risk-transactions

Statements posted here contradicts certain parts of CoinBase' own TOS. And makes believing in their story absolutely ridiculous.

Take for example:
Quote
1. There is no human reviewing the transactions deciding they are high risk.  These are automated systems that make educated guesses looking for suspicious signals, and they only get 80-90% accuracy right now.
Why does it take the automated system 1 entire week to determine if a transaction is fraudulent? 1-2 days would be believable if bank transfer requests get denied. Instantly would be believable too if the automated system thought that the bank account was linked fraudulently. There is absolutely no excuse for 1 week.

To further support this:
Quote
It’s also worth noting that we only buy the amount of coins we expect to pay out, adjusted for estimated fraud. For example, if we have 100 bitcoin of purchases and estimate 3 bitcoin are fraudulent, we only buy 97.
Coinbase themselves know of the high volatility of BTC. It's right in their TOS. This would mean they would know they have to obtain the BTC quick once a transaction goes through. Again, there is absolutely no excuse for a 1 week wait if they can determine 97% of a batch of transactions is non-fraudulent right off the bat.

Then take their TOS:
Quote
3.5 When buying or selling bitcoin, you are buying or selling from Coinbase directly. Coinbase does not act as an intermediary or marketplace between other buyers and sellers of bitcoin.
This is an absolute load of crock. This contradicts the quote from the CEO in his blog post "For example, if we have 100 bitcoin of purchases and estimate 3 bitcoin are fraudulent, we only buy 97.". In addition every time BitStamp goes down, tickers/buy/sell all stop working. It's a well known fact by now that when a customer starts a transaction, that the customer is giving money to CoinBase and CoinBase is using that money to obtain BTC from BitStamp to resell to the customer.

Now my favourite part of the TOS:
Quote
3.3 Coinbase users are in control of their bitcoin at all time, and Coinbase keeps 100% of customer funds in storage. Coinbase does not engage in fractional reserve lending.
CoinBase may not be doing fractional reverse lending with BTC, but they sure as hell are with customers money. If they were able to determine a transaction was fraudulent or unable to obtain BTC at the agreed rate from an exchange at the time of the transaciton, there is NO excuse for holding the the funds or the pending transaction over the customer for an entire week.

Sign off bit from CoinBase blog post:
Quote
Thank you for bearing with us as we continuing working on improving things.
Apparently not because it has been a serious enough issue to  get addressed in a blog post all the way back in March. There seems to be increasing number of complaints. And back in July CoinBase changed the TOS such that you no longer have to try to work out any of these transactions with your customers. This doesn't seem like any sort of improvement at all. I think CoinBase is rather going in reverse.
csun
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November 09, 2013, 03:54:02 PM
 #16

Hello,

i feel with you, but  i dont understand how they could steal you the money. Do you mean you buyed, and left the bitcoins at your account?
How much time passed between your buy and their scam trick ?

from my expierience, avoid MT. Gox also.

greetings

Basically, he purchased bitcoin, they took his money, bitcoin increased in value dramatically, and they canceled his order.  The gain in value of bitcoin between his purchase and the cancellation is lost to him.  Presumably Coinbase actually did purchase the coins back when he placed the order and they had the cash, so they're probably making a lot of money refunding him and selling those coins to someone else today at a higher value.
No, they didn't take his money.  They probably didn't even take the money out of his bank account.

I hate to say it, but this guy IS high risk.  Adding and deleting bank accounts, making large purchases right after small one's...

Every business in the real world has fraud management.  I don't see why Coinbase shouldn't.

They did take his money. Even if they do not take your money, your money is still tied for the entire transaction as credit towards the transaction.

Also, in what world is adding and deleting bank accounts under the SAME NAME high risk.

I don't know of any company that has fraud management where, if an account is flagged, they will hold the transaction and customer funds for an entire week after they decided it's "high risk", refuse to attempt to resolve it, or even accept the transaction in the first place.

Edit: At least I don't know of any non-shady ones.
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November 09, 2013, 04:11:13 PM
 #17

Regardless of exactly how the Coinbase transaction was initiated and cancelled, the OP's issue is with US regulation, not Coinbase's business practices.

Money services businesses have to obey aggressive KYC and AML processes or face the possibility of huge fines or getting shut down. And the rules are pretty gray, leaving regulators plenty of leeway to interpret. Thus, a high-profile business with VC investment like Coinbase is going to be aggressive about identifying "high-risk" accounts so that they can show regulators they're acting in good faith, and that there's no basis for a regulator to say they were being intentionally slack. They are going to generate a lot of false-positives, and it really sucks to be one.

But that's where they're coming from: keeping regulators off their back; not scamming you for $1000. So lobby for changing the very onerous KYC/AML/BSA legislation instead of ranting on the company that's forced to obey such regs.


Bitcoin is the first monetary system to credibly offer perfect information to all economic participants.
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November 09, 2013, 04:59:01 PM
Last edit: November 09, 2013, 05:10:33 PM by csun
 #18

Trying to divert the topic.

The OP was clearly complaining about the practice itself.

I do not care if CoinBase is aggressive towards flagging transactions as fraudulent and cancels the transaction and/or returns funds in reasonable time.

You and every other white knight of CoinBase so conveniently skip over why it takes automated software 1 week to determine a transaction is fraudulent or why accounts that are flagged as "high risk" are even allowed to place transactions without additional verification. This would in fact go very much against the grain of KYC/AML. If they were to allow this and not give customers their instant gratification of purchase after instant linking bank accounts, they know it would shrink the growth of their customer base. So... they chose not to. This doesn't seem to be acting in good faith of KYC/AML does it?

There is a serious issue that CoinBase accepts transaction from accounts they flagged and then holds funds for one week or longer before notifying customer and the refusal to even attempt to work out transactions with the customer.


They are doing one of the following:
- Decided your account is high risk and accepted the transaction only to cancel 1 week later. Again holding your funds for 1 week + without the intention to even sell.
- Decided right off the bat that a transaction is high risk and NOT obtain any BTC from exchange for resell. Again, they hold your funds for 1 week + without intention to sell.
- Decided later on in the transaction AFTER the BTC was already obtained to flag the transaction as high risk. Absolutely no reason in this case as to why they cannot settle on the original transaction rate with the customer. This one in particular reeks of fractional lending for themselves against their own TOS.
- Could not obtain BTC off exchange at agreed upon rate + premium and hold your funds for 1 week +. In this case, "You will obtain your BTC by..." is patently false.

None of what I stated above, has anything to do with CoinBase' action in good faith to comply with KYC/AML/BSA legistlation. NONE whatsoever.

In fact, if they were truly attempting to comply with KYC/AML/BSA, they would not even be accepting transactions on flagged accounts. But they obviously are not.
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November 09, 2013, 06:47:45 PM
 #19

I'd love too see where in the aml/kyc land it is good practice to flag a customer as "high risk" and then invite them to try again later without any additional verifications?

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November 09, 2013, 07:09:06 PM
 #20

file ripoff reports non stop.

It will be pushed onto the first page of Google.
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