Legitimacy of Paxful, Kraken, LocalBitcoins, other

Thought I'd chip in with my kraken feedback everyone knows I love kraken....

Good customer service but... when you need to use the platform the most it ALWAYS has serious downtime and you can not get in, happens every time there is a pump somewhere... It is beyond frustrating so much so I have moved to other exchanges. It's not good enough coming form a company who say they are the best around... I think it's ran on dial up.

Also be careful of how you use it, I bought a coin for MARKET VALUE 16.20 the other day, they charged me 16.50.... That shit adds up! They told me it was a spread to keep me safe.... Yeah ok..

I would use them as back up only if I was you.

Also AVOID COINBASE, their customer service is shocking... I waited 5 days for a reply, and they just sent an automated bot response... truly shocking.... still not got an answer here!!!!

You cannot imagine how much I can relate with everything you said.
In the first occassion, Kraken, is constantly experiencing downtime which is infuriating when you're trading. The moment you press Buy/Sell, the damned thing crashes and times out. This is the main reason I withdrew all my money and moved to Bitstamp. Moreover, I didn't really fancy the layout/design, never had any issue with the support or the verification though.

On the other side, Coinbase, has the slowest support I've ever seen. After some research, we found an account (With a completed Bitcoin deposit at some point) in my girlfriend's email (You never know someone well enough it seems, lol). She didn't remember the password, so we tried resetting it to no avail. The reset email wouldn't go through.

We contacted their support, after a few hours we received an email, and you guess right, it was an automated response telling me to try resetting the password by the reset field. You don't say?! Like I didn't try that already. It also mentioned that if we're trying to recover the password via a non-authorized device, the email wouldn't go through. Okay, but I already told you that, why am I receiving an automated response for something I have already explained?

It's almost a week and have received no response.

Bitstamp requires SSN! What if they get hacked? I do not want my SSN anywhere!

This is highly unlikely, all reputable exchanges ask for verification. It makes sense, you can't be buying cryptocurrency with a card if you haven't verified your ID. How do they know that this card is yours, they need to know your details, or they will get screwed if someone was planning to deal with stolen credit cards. Same goes for withdrawals and deposits to bank accounts.

How would you know that those individuals won't share your information online at any time? They could be laughing about your face in your ID with their friends, just kidding. However, supposing that Bitstamp gets hacked, which as I said, is highly unlikely, the least I'd care would be my ID leaked. I think my balance is way more important. Moreover, I don't think that such info is easily obtained, even if it gets hacked.

Bitstamp was the only one to ask for SSN. Others wanted privacy-invasion verifications, but not one so flagrant as to require SSN. Which they say they are "required to collect" - NOT TRUE in fact it's illegal to require to collect SSN for ANY service (even though US banks require SSN, the practice is actually illegal per US law. They just have too much power, so without suing them and finding a judge who isn't bought and paid for, then you won't win either, not to mention the bank would not make life easy for you if you put them through that. Utility providers often say they require it. But when you insist no you won't give it and talk to someone higher up until you find someone high enough, they admit, "no you don't need it we just input 0000" - it isn't without a hassle, but it is actually illegal to demand it for any public utility).

NEVER!! give your SSN ANYWHERE. Except banks if you want to actually bank anywhere - but not because it is required, but because banks have too much power and it's a lot of hassle to sue a bank for breaking the law.

Don't give it to doctors, apartments, utilities, no one. It's worth the hassle to protect your privacy.
For doctors, just write N/A. For apartments, you might have no choice because they might not rent to you, and your alternative is to not rent there. Utilities, never give it to them, and be prepared for a fight, just keep asking for the higher ups, if they don't give it to you hang up and demand the next rep transfer to supervisor. May take a few times. You may have to pay a deposit. Worth it IMO.

Snap, you're talking about SSN (Social Security Number) sorry, I was thinking of ID verification when you mentioned SSN, I am not familiar with foreign acronyms. However, I don't recall submitting anything rather than my driver's license on Bitstamp.

Yes, Social Security Number.

Bitstamp now requires it, which is absurd. I don't want to give them that. Combined with everything else they will want, they will have enough to 100% steal my identity and impersonate me, access bank accounts, credit history, everything. It's too much to give an online service, especially considering that many online services can and have been hacked.