Coinbase ID Verification Problems

[Prevan]

EDIT: 3-11-14

I managed to get my account verified by fixing inaccuracies in my credit reports by contacting the credit agencies.

To someone who is having the same problems as me, I would first recommend getting all of your credit reports for free from https://www.annualcreditreport.com/, it is set up by the government to get you one free credit report for all three credit agencies a year.

If you have any trouble getting your reports, find a way to get them. In my case, I had to end up ordering all three reports from another credit agency. However, this isn't necessary unless you want them now. After checking my information, I noticed that a lot of my information was old and different.

I then contacted the credit agencies who had problems with my identity and got it fixed. After that was complete, I was able get my identity verified.

By the way, it seems that Coinbase uses TransUnion for checking your identity. So, TransUnion will be the most important one to get fixed and compare information from.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

--

Original Post:

I have had an incredibly hard time at attempting to get my ID verified on Coinbase.

I am a US resident, have a social security number, credit report, etc. However, I still have not been able to verify my identity.

I have been trying to verify my account for almost a month now. I have tried contacting their support, but they have been really unhelpful. They pretty much tell me that there is NOTHING that they can currently do.

At first, when I was taking the quiz, I would receive the error message that:

records associated with your identity are incomplete

I then contacted the support, and they basically told me there was NOTHING they could do, and to keep trying. So, after a few more tries, I decided to get a credit report done. I then used the information on the credit report, and received the error:

Your ID could not be verified at this time. Not Eligible For Questions

I then contacted the support again, and once again, they have told me that there is nothing that can be done to fix this. They then told me to keep trying.

I'm not really sure what I should do next, nor do I know what the errors even mean. I was wondering if anyone here has had the problems? If so, how have you managed to fix it?

[mayax]

use other exchanger.

Simple !

[justmyname]

I would go to your Coinbase account and see what information is missing. Their should be a blank field.   

[DeadwoodDan]

well, the very first thing I'd do is stop sending more and more identity-theft-enabling information to the exchange, right?

then I'd contact them via registered mail and inquire as to what the hell was fucking up with their shit, except of course couching the expletives, as we literates often do

after that, well, lawyers, ah s'pose!

but if it's a scam, it's going to be built around having ten thousand people go missing a couple of hundred, rather than one person go missing two billion, so lawyers are going to be basically useless.

this is bitcoin!  do not invest!

[Prevan]

I would go to your Coinbase account and see what information is missing. Their should be a blank field.  

What exactly do you mean?

When I take the ID verification quiz, I fill everything out completely. Their error messages are not really helpful.

use other exchanger.

Simple !

Other exchanges do not offer the ability to instantly buy up to $1000 worth of bitcoin/week.

[dave111223]

"Not Eligible For Questions"

Lol; NO SOUP FOR YOU

[Prevan]

"Not Eligible For Questions"

Lol; NO SOUP FOR YOU

Lol yeah, I'm not really sure if that is what it is saying.

[Prevan]

I received this response today:

At this time we simple cannot verify your identity, and you will not be able to pass it.

Unfortunately, we do not have a process in place to manually verify accounts at this time. Please know that you are still able to purchase and sell up to $3000 of bitcoin per day, and take full advantage of our bitcoin wallet services,.

Please know that we're actively working to improve this system so that it becomes a much more convenient process in the future. Implementing new identity verification measures requires careful consideration to provide convenience while maintaing necessary safeguards to protect against malicious users who may be trying to steal others' identities.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Apparently after wasting a month of my time, THEY CANNOT EVEN VERIFY MY ACCOUNT. I was completely lied to the whole time. I wish they would have at least stated this before I spent a month of trying to get my account verified.

Honestly, this has to be some of the worst support I've dealt with.

(However, I do like Coinbase, but their support hasn't been that great)

[Prevan]

Apparently it's not over yet.

I talked to the support once again, and this is what was said..

I said:

When talking to you earlier, you had said:

However, each question in the identity quiz does have an answer that is considered correct, and it is certainly possible to repeat this as many times as needed

So this is no longer true, and I have wasted a month of my time attempting to get my ID verified?

I was replied with:

That is still true, it just seem that from your past experience that you would not pass it, but you are welcome to continue to try to pass the identity verification.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do?

[tvbcof]

...
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do?

As near as I can figure your best bet is to do whatever 'normal' people do to get their personal infomation into the mainstream financial networks databases.  Buy shit with plastic, stay at hotels, try to take out loans, sign up for a credit report, etc.  I'll probably take a few years

If you are not legit you might have your work cut out for you since it seems like these guys do run a fairly tight ship.

I don't mean to be nosy, and I don't even want an answer, but it strikes me as a funny use-case to have a need for immediate BTC.  Mostly because I don't have that need myself I suppose.  If you do have that need for some sort of business purpose, I guess you'd be best off to build your business and BTC reserves up over time then essentially be your own supplier for short-term needs.

As an aside, it is worth note that in Coinbase's verification process there is no need to have instant-buy.  It is NOT the same track as having a level-1 limit.  I specifically did NOT want to have instant anything in my use case since it puts me at risk but I did want a decent sized transaction limit.   It was not clear to me that instant-buy is easily avoided.

[Prevan]

As near as I can figure your best bet is to do whatever 'normal' people do to get their personal infomation into the mainstream financial networks databases.  Buy shit with plastic, stay at hotels, try to take out loans, sign up for a credit report, etc.  I'll probably take a few years

Yeah, I imagine this will probably be the only way. It's just annoying because they won't even explain what the problems with my identity are. Like, why are there error codes if they are not used?

If you are not legit you might have your work cut out for you since it seems like these guys do run a fairly tight ship.

I am completely legit though. I've offered to send official documents, and I have all of the other verifications passed. They just do not currently offer any other way to get your account verified besides this quiz. I've even gotten a credit report showing the same information I enter.

I don't mean to be nosy, and I don't even want an answer, but it strikes me as a funny use-case to have a need for immediate BTC.  Mostly because I don't have that need myself I suppose.  If you do have that need for some sort of business purpose, I guess you'd be best off to build your business and BTC reserves up over time then essentially be your own supplier for short-term needs.

I always have friends who want to buy bitcoins, and the price is considerably higher everywhere else. For instant bitcoins, the limits are $100/week, and for level 2 $1000/week. It's not that I'd be using the complete limit, but $100 isn't very much for a week period.

I do kind of have plans to start selling bitcoins locally, so it'd be nice to be able to get them instantly if someone wanted more than I had. But yeah, I've already started buying bitcoin for purposes like this.

As an aside, it is worth note that in Coinbase's verification process there is no need to have instant-buy.  It is NOT the same track as having a level-1 limit.  I specifically did NOT want to have instant anything in my use case since it puts me at risk but I did want a decent sized transaction limit.   It was not clear to me that instant-buy is easily avoided.

The 2 factor authorization with phone calls is to help avoid problems like this.

Thanks for the response though, I will try to follow your advice.

[Prevan]

I just ordered two other credit reports, so now I have all of the information on my identity.

I could see why I am having problems.. All of the different credit agencies have different addresses listed for me. However, I have lived at all of the addresses listed.

They also have my birth year incorrectly listed on some of the different credit reports. Weird.. Hopefully I can get my identity verified now, I'll update this if I have any luck.

[ajw7989]

I am guessing coinbase made the verification much harder?  I was verified within 20 minutes, back when I did (it was very simple) besides waiting time for first bitcoin transaction. coinbase is not a scam site since they have pretty large investments from well known sources. Also besides coinbase and localbitcoins there is nothing else unless you consider the joke of a site called campbx. Keep trying is my best advice.

[Prevan]

I am guessing coinbase made the verification much harder?  I was verified within 20 minutes, back when I did (it was very simple) besides waiting time for first bitcoin transaction. coinbase is not a scam site since they have pretty large investments from well known sources. Also besides coinbase and localbitcoins there is nothing else unless you consider the joke of a site called campbx. Keep trying is my best advice.

I don't think they made it any harder. There are a lot of people who I have talked to recently who did not have problems.

I feel like it's just a problem with my identity, but the error codes do not help.

[Prevan]

Does anyone have any other information for this?

I'm currently correcting inaccuracies in my credit reports by sending documents to them.

I'll update this if I make any progress.

[Prevan]

And I got it verified!

I just had to fix inaccuracies in my credit reports. Thanks for the suggestions.

[tvbcof]

Thanks for the follow-up.  It might help some people, and I found it interesting and insightful.

[Prevan]

Thanks for the follow-up.  It might help some people, and I found it interesting and insightful.

No problem.

I just hope that no one else has to go through all of the trouble that I did. It was also really hard to find any information on how to get this fixed. The support mainly told me that is was impossible.

The most important detail that I've noticed was that TransUnion credit information seems to be the credit agency that they verify your identity with. So hopefully using that information, people will be able to get their identity verified in less time.

[wamatt]

Having so many hassles with this ID Verification.

I keep getting the error "Insufficient Data for Questions". I've pulled my TransUnion credit report, everything checks out and the data matches (name, addy, ssn etc).

Really sucks.

[Prevan]

Having so many hassles with this ID Verification.

I keep getting the error "Insufficient Data for Questions". I've pulled my TransUnion credit report, everything checks out and the data matches (name, addy, ssn etc).

Really sucks.

Was the age set to "0"? If so, you have to get that corrected.

Did you pull your other credit reports?