www.BITSTAMP.net Bitcoin exchange site for USD/BTC

[solex]

Bitstamp, please consider moving all your customer's fiat out of this sick dog of a bank!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-20/raiffeisen-junior-debt-signaling-distress-as-currency-woes-mount.html

Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI)’s junior bonds slumped to levels typically viewed as distressed after gains in the Swiss franc added to woes triggered by the tumble in the Russian and Ukrainian currencies.

Subordinated bonds sold by the Vienna-based lender slid as low as 63.4 cents on the euro, with yields of as much as 10 percent, after trading at 91 cents at the start of December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“When bonds get to 60, 70 cents it’s fair to say it’s a sign of distress,” said Robert Montague, who helps oversee about $8 billion as a senior credit analyst at ECM Asset Management in London.

[Turanjian]

BE AWARE: Bitstamp's Withdrawal Fees Effectively Increased Since Hack

Today I gave up trying to resolve two problems with Bitstamp's so-called customer service post-hack:

While I have no reason to believe that they are dishonest, they appear to be either incredibly stupid or simply callous. It makes one wonder how long they intend to stay in business. Perhaps this has something to do with Bitstamp's financial problems; I don't know.

What to watch out for since the hack:

(1) When you withdraw funds in USD from Bitstamp, expect bank fees + withdrawal fees to now exceed 0.3%. Bitstamp refuses to "investigate" these outrageously high fees, or to state any position whatsoever. In fact, if you ask any questions, they want to CHARGE you €30 before they will do anything. This happened twice in a row for me, so this is obviously not a one-time thing.

(2) Do not expect to get your money quickly - my two recent withdrawals took 9 days on average. And if your money is missing, don't expect them to do anything about it quickly. In fact, over the past two years I have yet to see them do anything at all, ever.

[Turanjian]

As long as they're unable to verify their reserves on the blockchain stay away. Don't trust any service that claims to have coins and can't use the most basic of Bitcoins functions to prove it, they could be another Gox.

It's certainly possible, but at a minimum their customer service is behaving very strangely. There must be a reason for this.

[pawel7777]

...
What to watch out for since the hack:

(1) When you withdraw funds in USD from Bitstamp, expect bank fees + withdrawal fees to now exceed 0.3%. Bitstamp refuses to "investigate" these outrageously high fees, or to state any position whatsoever. In fact, if you ask any questions, they want to CHARGE you €30 before they will do anything. This happened twice in a row for me, so this is obviously not a one-time thing.
...

? They tried to charge you €30 just for answering question? I don't use BitStamp, don't have much sympathy for them, but I find it hard to believe.

And what do you mean they refused to investigate their own fees. The fees may be high, but if they charge them as agreed, there's nothing to investigate.

[Turanjian]

...
What to watch out for since the hack:

(1) When you withdraw funds in USD from Bitstamp, expect bank fees + withdrawal fees to now exceed 0.3%. Bitstamp refuses to "investigate" these outrageously high fees, or to state any position whatsoever. In fact, if you ask any questions, they want to CHARGE you €30 before they will do anything. This happened twice in a row for me, so this is obviously not a one-time thing.
...

? They tried to charge you €30 just for answering question? I don't use BitStamp, don't have much sympathy for them, but I find it hard to believe.

And what do you mean they refused to investigate their own fees. The fees may be high, but if they charge them as agreed, there's nothing to investigate.

The official withdrawal fee is 0.09%, and in theory the intermediary bank in the US might charge a fixed fee, of, say $20 plus perhaps an additional 0.05%. Including Bitstamp's fee, in my case I was charged $373 to withdraw $120K. Such high fees do not occur in normal banking transactions. But Bitstamp's customer service said that I would have to agree to pay another €30 (their "bank charge") before they would ask the bank to justify this charge. When I asked them if they considered this bank charge to be reasonable, Marko in customer service refused to answer the question.

[pawel7777]

...
What to watch out for since the hack:

(1) When you withdraw funds in USD from Bitstamp, expect bank fees + withdrawal fees to now exceed 0.3%. Bitstamp refuses to "investigate" these outrageously high fees, or to state any position whatsoever. In fact, if you ask any questions, they want to CHARGE you €30 before they will do anything. This happened twice in a row for me, so this is obviously not a one-time thing.
...

? They tried to charge you €30 just for answering question? I don't use BitStamp, don't have much sympathy for them, but I find it hard to believe.

And what do you mean they refused to investigate their own fees. The fees may be high, but if they charge them as agreed, there's nothing to investigate.

The official withdrawal fee is 0.09%, and in theory the intermediary bank in the US might charge a fixed fee, of, say $20 plus perhaps an additional 0.05%. Including Bitstamp's fee, in my case I was charged $373 to withdraw $120K. Such high fees do not occur in normal banking transactions. But Bitstamp's customer service said that I would have to agree to pay another €30 (their "bank charge") before they would ask the bank to justify this charge. When I asked them if they considered this bank charge to be reasonable, Marko in customer service refused to answer the question.

From the FAQ on their website:

Not regarding to withdrawal method, a fee will be displayed before executing the withdrawal and deducted from amount. SEPA withdrawals are charged with fixed 0.90€ fee once your funds are converted to EUR. Minimum amount for SEPA withdrawal is $10.00. International withdrawals are charged with 0.09% fee, minimum fee is $15.00. Minimum amount for international withdrawal is $50.00.

So you've definitely been overcharged.
You can pay and then threat them with legal dispute. They're UK registered and by UK law they need to properly inform you about any fees.

BTW do they provide any receipts with all the fees shown?

[Turanjian]

From the FAQ on their website:

Not regarding to withdrawal method, a fee will be displayed before executing the withdrawal and deducted from amount. SEPA withdrawals are charged with fixed 0.90€ fee once your funds are converted to EUR. Minimum amount for SEPA withdrawal is $10.00. International withdrawals are charged with 0.09% fee, minimum fee is $15.00. Minimum amount for international withdrawal is $50.00.

So you've definitely been overcharged.
You can pay and then threat them with legal dispute. They're UK registered and by UK law they need to properly inform you about any fees.

BTW do they provide any receipts with all the fees shown?

No receipts provided. If I want to obtain any information about who took the money, I have to pay 2x€30, i.e. €60. But since Bitstamp has no standards for acceptable bank changes, it is useless to pay these €60. I would simply be out $70 more than before, i.e. a total of over $400.

No doubt you're right that one could sue them in theory. But it would not be worth it for $400. What remains is to let others know about their hefty withdrawal fees and strange customer service attitude. [I use the term "strange" because it is hard to understand why Bitstamp would be trying to prevent investigation of theft of customer funds by banks.]

Update: Their manager did offer me a month-long 10% rebate off of trading fees to compensate for this. That was a nice gesture, but kind of meaningless, since I would have to buy/sell almost 6000 bitcoins to recoup the loss.

So what is going on here? Is Bitstamp artificially padding the bank transfer fees to help make up for recent losses due to the hack? Or is it having banking problems, so that it has to tolerate its banks essentially robbing its customers? Or is its management simply too lazy to work out a deal with their bank(s) regarding fees?

[pawel7777]

No doubt you're right that one could sue them in theory. But it would not be worth it for $400. What remains is to let others know about their hefty withdrawal fees and strange customer service attitude. [I use the term "strange" because it is hard to understand why Bitstamp would be trying to prevent investigation of theft of customer funds by banks.]

Update: Their manager did offer me a month-long 10% rebate off of trading fees to compensate for this. That was a nice gesture, but kind of meaningless, since I would have to buy/sell almost 6000 bitcoins to recoup the loss.

If you're UK resident then you could just use the Small Claims process to get the overcharged amount back. It's not that expensive, and if you win, you can get all the costs back: fees, interest, or even cost of your time you've spent on making the claim.

Not sure is that an option for non UK residents, but you can still write them a formal letter requesting either money back or proper breakdown of the fees they charged. If they don't reply, you can make a complain:

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-a-limited-company

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/action/how-to-complain-to-a-company

[Turanjian]

I appreciate the advice, but since I'm not a UK resident I'll think I'll have to leave it at that and let them get away with it.

While I still have no particular reason to consider Bitstamp to be fraudulent, they certainly seem unlikely to win any customer service prizes. But I guess that's nothing new.

[Rampion]

Quick question: how are Bitstamp's fiat withdrawals working lately? I always had no problem with them, but after the hack I never requested any withdrawal, and I may need to request a bigger one in the next couple of months.

Any experiences with that? Withdrawals as smooth as usual?

[logocreator]

Quick question: how are Bitstamp's fiat withdrawals working lately? I always had no problem with them, but after the hack I never requested any withdrawal, and I may need to request a bigger one in the next couple of months.

Any experiences with that? Withdrawals as smooth as usual?

I need to know that too! anyone ?

[Rampion]

Quick question: how are Bitstamp's fiat withdrawals working lately? I always had no problem with them, but after the hack I never requested any withdrawal, and I may need to request a bigger one in the next couple of months.

Any experiences with that? Withdrawals as smooth as usual?

I need to know that too! anyone ?

I guess no news is good news? Anyhow this silence is quite unsettling

[leoragraves666]

Quick question: how are Bitstamp's fiat withdrawals working lately? I always had no problem with them, but after the hack I never requested any withdrawal, and I may need to request a bigger one in the next couple of months.

Any experiences with that? Withdrawals as smooth as usual?

I need to know that too! anyone ?

I guess no news is good news? Anyhow this silence is quite unsettling

Everything is working as usual, only ripple acting up from time to time.

[Rogue_Sol]

Quick question: how are Bitstamp's fiat withdrawals working lately? I always had no problem with them, but after the hack I never requested any withdrawal, and I may need to request a bigger one in the next couple of months.

Any experiences with that? Withdrawals as smooth as usual?

I need to know that too! anyone ?

I guess no news is good news? Anyhow this silence is quite unsettling

Everything is working as usual, only ripple acting up from time to time.

No so smooth as usual 
I have not got withdrawal dated 26/01. International wire transfer not SEPA.

[Parazyd]

I got a quick fiat withdraw to Croatia recently. No problems at all.

[dscotese]

Warning!  Theory Ahead
(Keep your wits about you, it's called "theory" for a good reason!)

Someone in Bitstamp organized the heist.  The only name I have associated with Bitstamp is Nejc Kodric, and he hasn't posted here on the forum for almost 2 years.  I suspect he has been bought out.  The company has gone through a very helpful audit, but that was before the heist.  The current owners might be using Kodric's name because unique names such as his (and mine!) are valuable assets.  However, this would mean that he sold them his Twitter account too.

Bitstamp has not offered any kind of reward for the return of its stolen bitcoin.

A "bank run" is what the authorities have named something I would prefer to call a "collective audit".  Since Bitstamp had planned to do an audit more than just the one time and has not done so, I think it's time.  Some ideas:

• If you are withdrawing some cash, withdraw extra (and all of it if it isn't too much trouble)
• If you have BTC on Bitstamp, move it off.
• Since it is easier to withdraw BTC than fiat, expect the price on Bitstamp to rise in proportion to the strength of this collective audit.  It is currently about $1 lower than Bitfinex for all of us USD users.
• You can help other people (means you lose money) by leaving some fiat there.  If you can stomach it, leave enough there to make a lawsuit worthwhile (possibly against Bitstamp or against its bank) and then try to withdraw all of it when they are looking really shaky, and start your lawsuit as early as possible.  This is a very narrow path, so make sure you know what you're doing, and please give Bitstamp every opportunity to do the right thing.

I would like this collective audit to be powerful, and for Bitstamp to meet it with grace, but several things prevent me from expecting this:

• People are not scared enough of continuing to trust Bitstamp
• I'm making a very provocative recommendation and many people won't have the balls to promote it even if they understand how valuable it is.
• Many bitcoin enthusiasts value the privacy of others more than they value the sharing of information (this is in reference to the idea of taint and how its use would be implied by any effort Bitstamp made to recover its bitcoins.
• Bitstamp has not been very open lately.  Sure, lower fees are nice, but silence in response to the idea of a new audit is actually pretty loud.

[Armis]

In the coming weeks I want to launch PICISI -- a crowdfunding website that accepts fiat and cryptocurrency.   PICISI will be where crowdfunding (CF) Organizers, Sponsors, Donors, and Contractors gather to materialize dreams.   The platform will accept all publicly traded CCs, and any fiat accepted by Paypal.

PICISI will have many sponsorship opportunities for CCs:
  -  Host CC - is the currency that all other CCs will be converted to for a particular Campaign.
  -  Campaign - sponsor’s logo is affixed to body of campaign.
  -  Donor Perk -  CC escrowed on behalf of a specific campaign to be used as a perk, if not sold is converted to host CC and donated to the campaign
  -  Advertising Perk -  CC escrowed on behalf of a specific campaign to be used as a perk, if not sold reverts back to the sponsor.  Unsold funds are NOT donated to campaign.
and
  -  Video - 5 sec message at start of campaign video: “This video is brought to you by …”


We will also have a fantastic sponsorship opportunity for CC exchanges

After we issue the PICISI tokens, on a regular basis we plan to use the fees derived from fiat to buy PICISI tokens at our sponsor's site. 

Unlike most other coins the PICISI token will be connected to a business, a business that would actually use the token in day-to-day transactions.   PICISI largest payable will be paying for assignments, most specifically promotions via marketing, publicity, and outreach.  Our site will hire a sea of independent contractors all around the world to do work from an extensive list of assignments everyday.  Work of varying sorts from creating graphics, videos, and badges, to writing articles, doing interviews, and making a referrals.  Everyone is paid with PICISI tokens, when fiat arrives we immediately use it to buy PICISI tokens, at prevailing rates, at the site of The Official Exchange of PICISI.

You sponsor us, we use your site to buy PICISI tokens, over and over again -- one big cycle of happy.  You have a choice of paying for the sponsorship opportunity or providing in-kind service for the transactions we do.   

[pawel7777]

In the coming weeks I want to launch PICISI ...

Why would you post it in BitStamp thread?

Is it in any way related or just spamming?

[Armis]

In the coming weeks I want to launch PICISI ...

Why would you post it in BitStamp thread?

Is it in any way related or just spamming?

Good question, as indicated in red, I want sponsors. so I'm specifically reaching out to exchanges inviting them to consider being the Official Exchange Sponsor for PICISI.

If you read the material there you will see why I posted, as well as why I believe it would be good for BitStamp to be involved.    As I'm developing the site, I'm also building the community. 


 

[bernard75]

The link to Bitstamps exchange rate is not working:
http://www.raiffeisen.si/ceniki_in_tecaji/menjalni_tecaji/2

Is it this one?
http://www.raiffeisen.si/en/pripomocki/exchange_rates/

Or have they changed the bank again?