Tradehill does not execute my bitcoin withdraw order

[aq]

Yesterday I withdrew some bitcoins from tradehill. I was under the impression that this is a fully automated process, hence it should take less than 2 hours. However, I still have not received my coins. That means this process either was never or is no longer fully automated. I doubt that is is the former, so I ask myself how to interpret this change to manual at tradehill?
Does anyone else have the same issues?

[epetroel]

How much was the withdrawal for?  I've been told that withdrawals over a certain amount (like 100BTC or so) are automatically flagged for manual review.

[goldk]

look at the receiving address. if it doesn't show confirmations you can go to blockexplorer and manually find you transaction.

[aq]

How much was the withdrawal for?  I've been told that withdrawals over a certain amount (like 100BTC or so) are automatically flagged for manual review.

It was 130BTC. I withdraw such amounts on a regular basis. Had no issues until now. And Tradehill states on their website that it takes no longer than 12hours...

look at the receiving address. if it doesn't show confirmations you can go to blockexplorer and manually find you transaction.

I did this, and there is nothing in blockexplorer - that is how I know that Tradehill did never execute the withdraw.
The point is I see no reason why they would even delay some withdraw in the first place. I mean tradehill does not do fractional reserve banking with our bitcoins (at least I hope so), which would be the only valid reason to delay it.

[PatrickHarnett]

Get in touch with them to see if it is a problem.  They are pretty good at sorting things out.

Larger withdraws are not automatic and need clearance - might be a pain in the arse, but its there to help stop your account getting cleaned out if compromised (although it still might get emptied).

[Adam S (TradeHill)]

How much was the withdrawal for?  I've been told that withdrawals over a certain amount (like 100BTC or so) are automatically flagged for manual review.

It was 130BTC. I withdraw such amounts on a regular basis. Had no issues until now. And Tradehill states on their website that it takes no longer than 12hours...

look at the receiving address. if it doesn't show confirmations you can go to blockexplorer and manually find you transaction.

I did this, and there is nothing in blockexplorer - that is how I know that Tradehill did never execute the withdraw.
The point is I see no reason why they would even delay some withdraw in the first place. I mean tradehill does not do fractional reserve banking with our bitcoins (at least I hope so), which would be the only valid reason to delay it.

Hi Aq,

Answers to your questions:

1). BTC withdrawals under 100 BTC are automated.
2). Withdrawals over 100 are manual and the accounts are double checked.
3). We've been providing service on Sat and Sun from 10AM to 6PM EST but were unable to this Saturday and part of Sunday.
4). We've got ALL client USD, BTC, and other currencies. Planning to release public audits in the near future - stay tuned!

Excuse the delay in processing, it's not typical.

Thank you!

Regards,
Adam

[aq]

How much was the withdrawal for?  I've been told that withdrawals over a certain amount (like 100BTC or so) are automatically flagged for manual review.

It was 130BTC. I withdraw such amounts on a regular basis. Had no issues until now. And Tradehill states on their website that it takes no longer than 12hours...

look at the receiving address. if it doesn't show confirmations you can go to blockexplorer and manually find you transaction.

I did this, and there is nothing in blockexplorer - that is how I know that Tradehill did never execute the withdraw.
The point is I see no reason why they would even delay some withdraw in the first place. I mean tradehill does not do fractional reserve banking with our bitcoins (at least I hope so), which would be the only valid reason to delay it.

Hi Aq,

Answers to your questions:

1). BTC withdrawals under 100 BTC are automated.
2). Withdrawals over 100 are manual and the accounts are double checked.
3). We've been providing service on Sat and Sun from 10AM to 6PM EST but were unable to this Saturday and part of Sunday.
4). We've got ALL client USD, BTC, and other currencies. Planning to release public audits in the near future - stay tuned!

Excuse the delay in processing, it's not typical.

Thank you!

Regards,
Adam

And why is this information nowhere stated on your withdraw page? It should be right there, instead of this armada of unused input boxes.(*)
If I had known this before I would have withdrawn 65BTC twice instead of 130BTC at once - a method which BTW renders this manual delay completely useless...

The way I see this is: when I want to withdraw MY bitcoins from your site, you have no right to decide if I am allowed to withdraw MY coins. From my point of view they belong to ME, I purchased them with my money - that you already took from me.
If you really want to add some security, add another authentication (smartphone app, yubikey, you name it) for withdraws - but don't hold back MY coins when I urgently need them.

(*) You need a single "if" statement to suppress those unused boxes - what does it tell us that you guys are unable to add a single line of code?

[PatrickHarnett]

gee, you're grumpy - try some of the other exchanges and see how much help you get.  Out of the three exchanges I've had issues, TH was the only one that actually fixed stuff.

yes, they could have put the manual approval required somewhere, but I have seen it elsewhere, and it's not normally a huge issue.

As for coding, they actually might be running a business, not coding a web page - I know what I'd prefer to spend time and money on.  Not every one who does BTC is a programming geek.

[bitcon]

As for coding, they actually might be running a business, not coding a web page - I know what I'd prefer to spend time and money on.  Not every one who does BTC is a programming geek.

it doesn't take a programming geek to write up a simple TOS warning users (when they sign up, not after the fact) that their money might be trapped or frozen without their consent due to any activity the exchange deems "suspicious". In my case MY coins have been frozen for about 3 days and meanwhile TH drags their feet getting back to me. By the time i get MY coins back the value of a coin could be worth nothing.

[ssaCEO]

Would you mind if I asked the nature of the business that sent this up the flagpole to a level where it would cause you to be threatened with closure? Can you at least confirm or deny whether it has anything to do with gambling?

Certain countries around the world would obviously love to freeze the bitcoin funds of any kind of gaming houses (whether they operated legally and outside those countries or not). Are there any cases where you're closing accounts or seizing funds even when the account holders have provided valid ID up to normal AML standards, based on size of transaction alone or what they may be doing with their own Bitcoins? Would our funds, for example, be safe with you as a licensed entity in Costa Rica, even if some other country wanted us shut down? Or does this depend on who asked and how much pressure they were able to exert?

With 20k US Marines about to start camping with the 'roos, I imagine Oz might start looking less and less like a good place to bank, high interest rates or otherwise... I think some clarification might be necessary here to restore user confidence in maintaining wallets on your site, if no one knows what triggers could cause those wallets to be arbitrarily seized.

[PatrickHarnett]

I am continually fascinated by people who expect real world protections on an unregulated "wild west" trading system.  There is essentially no recourse on anything people do with bitcoin and you are trusting that you can even get your coins back after willingly sending them to some exchange or other.

I recommend you stick with equities or something more appropriate where there is 8/5 trading and three days clearance times.  And it still might be worth nothing by the time you get to trade.

[Adam S (TradeHill)]

As for coding, they actually might be running a business, not coding a web page - I know what I'd prefer to spend time and money on.  Not every one who does BTC is a programming geek.

it doesn't take a programming geek to write up a simple TOS warning users (when they sign up, not after the fact) that their money might be trapped or frozen without their consent due to any activity the exchange deems "suspicious". In my case MY coins have been frozen for about 3 days and meanwhile TH drags their feet getting back to me. By the time i get MY coins back the value of a coin could be worth nothing.

Hi Bitcon,

Our apologies for the delay in processing.

As I was telling aq, no one was available this weekend to clear manual bitcoin withdrawals.

Typically, this is done every hour during the week from 9AM EST to 9 PM EST and during weekends from 10AM to 6PM EST.

If someone makes a really *large* BTC withdrawal they need to verify themselves for AML reasons.

We are planning to raise the automatic withdrawal limits to 200 or 300 BTC soon.

Regards,
Adam

[Adam S (TradeHill)]

Would you mind if I asked the nature of the business that sent this up the flagpole to a level where it would cause you to be threatened with closure? Can you at least confirm or deny whether it has anything to do with gambling?

Certain countries around the world would obviously love to freeze the bitcoin funds of any kind of gaming houses (whether they operated legally and outside those countries or not). Are there any cases where you're closing accounts or seizing funds even when the account holders have provided valid ID up to normal AML standards, based on size of transaction alone or what they may be doing with their own Bitcoins? Would our funds, for example, be safe with you as a licensed entity in Costa Rica, even if some other country wanted us shut down? Or does this depend on who asked and how much pressure they were able to exert?

With 20k US Marines about to start camping with the 'roos, I imagine Oz might start looking less and less like a good place to bank, high interest rates or otherwise... I think some clarification might be necessary here to restore user confidence in maintaining wallets on your site, if no one knows what triggers could cause those wallets to be arbitrarily seized.

Just to clarify:

The only reason aq's withdrawal was delayed was because noone was available on Saturday to clear the transaction. This was simply a staffing/scheduling mistake - that's all.

I don't have Bitcon's user ID so I can't comment on the exact nature of his delay but I suspect it was the same issue. If he opened the request on Friday night last week and no one was working on Sat or Sun, that would've been three days his request was outstanding.

At no point did we "seize", "threaten to close", or "arbitrarily seize" any accounts this weekend or will we ever!

If you want to transact large volumes in either USD or BTC on our site then you must verify yourself for AML/KYC reasons.

Regards,

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

I am continually fascinated by people who expect real world protections on an unregulated "wild west" trading system.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I'd just like to provide one anecdote for comparison. I did a bank transfer today. My bank sucks (actually all the banks here in Ireland suck) so I had to go to the bank physically. This bank has over 100 years history. The document I was given to sign says this:

Note: It may take up to 5 business days for a Euro payment to be credited to the beneficiary account in the Europan Union, as defined in the terms and conditions, and 7 working days for all other payments to arrive at the Beneficiary bank.

Maybe TH just needs better documentation.

[disclaimer201]

This is really old news. People -I think - have known for a long time that you couldn't transfer more than 100 BTC back to your wallet without manual approval. No reason to get angry, if you haven't even informed yourself about the basic rules of sending btc back and forth from TH. It's just luck that it didn't happen earlier (perhaps when BTC seemed a littles less volatile. On the other hand, I can see how one can get nervous over it if things got delayed over the weekend.

What I would love to know from the TH-crowd is if and when SEPA will come back. Since Tradehill is one of the few (perhaps the only) exchange I trust this may just as well decide whether I continue or discontinue my involvement with Bitcoin in general. This is quite important to me (and I'm sure many others) actually.

I can't risk to exchange my btc over some insecure 3rd party OKPay service. Ever since that happened, I was unable to get money in or out of TH. This cannot be good for TH, either.

Best regards,

d.

[PatrickHarnett]

I am continually fascinated by people who expect real world protections on an unregulated "wild west" trading system.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I'd just like to provide one anecdote for comparison. I did a bank transfer today. My bank sucks (actually all the banks here in Ireland suck) so I had to go to the bank physically. This bank has over 100 years history. The document I was given to sign says this:

Note: It may take up to 5 business days for a Euro payment to be credited to the beneficiary account in the Europan Union, as defined in the terms and conditions, and 7 working days for all other payments to arrive at the Beneficiary bank.

Maybe TH just needs better documentation.

Yes, they could do better, but would people read a larger terms and conditions?  When I send international transfers there is normally an A4 of small print to read, and it takes a while for funds to turn up (normally I work on a week to allow for weekends and timezones).  I can at least do internet banking for my accounts here and in Australia.

I've only been caught on AML once previously because I was making regular funding payments to my business in Australia and we needed to move a largish block of money to pay for something following a capital raising - it was easy to get through because one of my directors knew the head of corporate banking and a five minute phone call to say "hi" sorted it out.  But even then, it would take days (still does).

[Adam S (TradeHill)]

This is really old news. People -I think - have known for a long time that you couldn't transfer more than 100 BTC back to your wallet without manual approval. No reason to get angry, if you haven't even informed yourself about the basic rules of sending btc back and forth from TH. It's just luck that it didn't happen earlier (perhaps when BTC seemed a littles less volatile. On the other hand, I can see how one can get nervous over it if things got delayed over the weekend.

What I would love to know from the TH-crowd is if and when SEPA will come back. Since Tradehill is one of the few (perhaps the only) exchange I trust this may just as well decide whether I continue or discontinue my involvement with Bitcoin in general. This is quite important to me (and I'm sure many others) actually.

I can't risk to exchange my btc over some insecure 3rd party OKPay service. Ever since that happened, I was unable to get money in or out of TH. This cannot be good for TH, either.

Best regards,

d.

Hi Disclaimer201,

Thanks for the nice words. Trust is our greatest currency and it comes from being principled.

Our previous SEPA account will be back up and operating *any day* now. With our new SEPA configuration, the likely hood of ever having interrupted SEPA service will be very low.

Additionally, BitInstant is also planning SEPA options in the future - however, I don't have a timeline for that. You can ask Yankee at BitInstant. I believe he is working mostly on USD options and inter-exchange transfers first.

Thanks again!

Regards,
Adam

[repentance]

If you want to transact large volumes in either USD or BTC on our site then you must verify yourself for AML/KYC reasons.

I think it would be much better if the exchanges didn't use vague terms like "large volumes".  People are being asked to ID/verify for transactions which are well below the AML threshold for mandatory reporting so it would be better if the exchanges didn't imply that only large transactions are subject to AML/CTF laws.  In many places the reality is that the banks at which the exchanges hold their accounts containing user funds can require the exchanges to identify the individuals behind transactions to and from those accounts at any time, whether or not those transactions are above the AML threshold amount, and that complying with such requests is a condition of them holding a bank account.

At this point in time it would probably be easier if all of the exchanges required new users to ID when first opening an account.  Their may have been a time when exchanged hoped that they'd be able to fly under the radar and not be required to ID their customers but it's been apparent for some time that their banks are going to force AML/CTF compliance and their is little to be gained by pretending otherwise.  It's a reality which users might not like, but expecting the exchanges to risk permanent closure by non-compliance is not reasonable - they want to stay in business and users also want exchanges to continue existing.