Coinbase honors the original rate for orders erroneously cancelled as high risk?

[almostmike]

Hey, newbie poster here (but longtime lurker and small-time bitcoin investor/user since April).

I love bitcoin and I've loved Coinbase up until recently. I'd read about people on here having their bitcoin orders cancelled as "high risk" by Coinbase, with some people claiming that Coinbase is a scam company that profits by holding people's money and canceling orders when the bitcoin price goes up. I'd read all those things and yet I still trusted Coinbase because it had never happened to me.

Well, it happened to me. I'm a Level-2 fully verified (bank account + Visa card on my account) Coinbase user since April with three completed buys over the course of several months. Nothing has changed on my account, and yet when I tried to buy more bitcoins this weekend, it cancelled the order immediately. I got the rejection email right away. Thinking it was maybe a fluke error, I tried again (though the price of bitcoins had already jumped $20 per coin), but my order was immediately cancelled as "high risk" yet again.

Completely disheartened, I looked up a few threads here (with some of the Coinbase haters encouraging my worst fears), but I gathered my composure and sent a polite email to Coinbase's customer support, asking them if there's any way to have my account whitelisted, as some on this forum say they've done after their orders were incorrectly flagged as high risk. At this point, I still have faith in Coinbase as a company and I don't believe that they're doing the shady things that some people accuse them of.

I noticed that Olaf from Coinbase has said on this forum that they "review transactions all the time and can push them through at the original exchange rate upon request." Is this true? Has anyone here successfully had this done?

Anyway, I'm hoping that Coinbase can make this right. They're still by far the best and easiest way for people from the U.S. to get started in bitcoins (that I've seen anyway). I love the site and I still have faith in the company (at this point), but this has been pretty stressful.

Don't know how long it will take for Coinbase support to get back to me, but I'll update what happens, since it can be helpful to others who find themselves in the same situation.

Great being here and I wish everyone the best of luck! 

[PASSO3058]

I was getting nervous for a solid week after a transaction didn't go through… I had a couple of orders in… and the one I had in there listed as "pending" didn't have listed a "Delivery date" where my other purchases did.  After several emails… (which seemed to take a few days, per email) eventually got my order pushed through. 

I am assuming that they are running with a skeleton crew… and I want to make a few more purchases when some of my other accounts free up… but I'm hesitant… but where else am I going to get my fix?  if you know what I mean.  I'm looking into coinx.com right now.  Anyone try them yet?

Paul

[I_Wanna_Ride]

To the 'wailers', which included me (though not on a forum):

Had similar experience with "high risk" episode. However, I really have found Coinbase to be honest and reputable. They seem a great place for wannabe bitcoin owners to jump in, or a quick buy from their app while on the run.  Sign up, do the verify, wait patiently and contact support if you have a problem.

Yes, even "angels" like myself have had a "high risk" drop on my account, even after being fully verified, etc. etc.  It has been mentioned in numerous posts that due to the nature of their business, they are subject to scams (do the research) and are very, very careful.  I also see that their support does respond, sometimes quickly, sometimes in 2-4 days.  Once aware, they FIX problems! Copy of email received this day...

"Sorry about that! After manually reviewing your account I've whitelisted it so your transactions will no longer be flagged as high risk - you shouldn't experience any additional issues going forward. I've also pushed through the transaction that was canceled previously (at the original exchange rate you locked in), so you should have those coins soon.

Hope it helps and sorry again for the trouble!
-Rees D. Sloan

Customer Support Specialist"

Kudos to Coinbase!

[almostmike]

I'm happy you got your situation worked out, I_Wanna_Ride.

I'm still very stressed out about my situation, however, and have been waiting 7 days now for a response from Coinbase support. I'm fully verified and all I want is for my account to be whitelisted and last weekend's orders to be pushed through at the original exchange rate. They weren't even big orders -- 3 coins for one, 2 coins for the other.

I hope they get back to me soon. I still have faith in Coinbase, but the waiting is disheartening and stressful.

[almostmike]

OK, I finally got a reply back and I'm sad to say that it wasn't as good as I_Wanna_Ride's.

Hi, sorry for the confusion on that. It looks like your transaction was canceled due to appearing high risk, and a refund has been sent to your bank account.

I know it must be frustrating to have this happen, but it's an unfortunate necessity that we exercise caution when selling bitcoin online in order to protect ourselves and the bitcoin community from fraudulent transactions. If you would like to try purchasing again in a few weeks you may have better luck then, but we can't guarantee the sale of bitcoin to every account due to the high risk nature of selling them online. Thank you for bearing with us as we work to improve our service.
-Rees D. Sloan

Customer Support Specialist

Why was I not whitelisted and why were my transactions not pushed through?

I've been a big supporter of Coinbase and a faithful, honest, fully verified customer, so this stinks. 

[alabamafan1]

This is the generic response you'll get from coinbase everytime, I've read many threads and basically they cancel your order if price has gone up enough basically for one of two possible reasons:

1) They claim they only buy about 90% of the coins purchased at the moment you buy them, due to the chance your bank account has insufficient funds. Thus with their only 1% margins, a decent sized price increase would put them at a loss for the transaction, thus they cancel it "due to high risk" and refund you.

2) They simply want to raise their margins in a unethical way by canceling orders that occurred before a large price increase, thus padding their pockets with greater profits.

Either way, I believe they are being unethical and not transparent about this whole "high risk" bullshit. They definitely never cancel transactions where the price went down afterwards from what I've seen. And honestly, who would fraud or not pay if the price went up afterwards, I'd say greater chance of "high risk" after the price dips drastically after a purchase.

Just my two cents, good luck to all who use coinbase. I personally have stayed away and will continue to do so.

[InwardContour]

i'm glad to see one response that said the situation was resolved successfully. unfortunately, i've seen WAY to many posts that are the opposite -- coinbase reneges on the reserve and refunds the money. i wouldn't deal with them to be honest.

[aryanet]

OK, I finally got a reply back and I'm sad to say that it wasn't as good as I_Wanna_Ride's.

Hi, sorry for the confusion on that. It looks like your transaction was canceled due to appearing high risk, and a refund has been sent to your bank account.

I know it must be frustrating to have this happen, but it's an unfortunate necessity that we exercise caution when selling bitcoin online in order to protect ourselves and the bitcoin community from fraudulent transactions. If you would like to try purchasing again in a few weeks you may have better luck then, but we can't guarantee the sale of bitcoin to every account due to the high risk nature of selling them online. Thank you for bearing with us as we work to improve our service.
-Rees D. Sloan

Customer Support Specialist

Why was I not whitelisted and why were my transactions not pushed through?

I've been a big supporter of Coinbase and a faithful, honest, fully verified customer, so this stinks. 

I am in the same shoes. All the orders have been cancelled and Rees send me this exact reply which basically rephrases the automated email. I am a new user. I can assume they see me as a risk because I have no history with them. But frankly if even your first order gets rejected, you will never reach level 2 or be able to buy consecutively. Then what is the point? They should be a way to deal with this. They just haven't figured it out yet. I think if they cancel your transaction as high risk because due to nature of ACH transactions can be fraud (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6758649). Maybe a good solution would be for them to open a branch so that people can walk in with a physical check that they cannot reverse. That way their risk is minimized.

[malaimult]

i try to purchase btc after 2 weeks and still the same high risk bullshit. anyone successfully purchase btc after high risk problem?