What happened(this is my initial post from 10 October):I am a Kucoin user with verified account since like 5 years or more if I remember correctly. I used it with no problem until today something really disturbing happened. I tried to withdraw my funds to another exchange (like i did million times before and with greater numbers) and my transaction put on "pending approval" status. While I was trying to understand wtf is going on, I received a mail from Kucoin which is telling me that my withdraw functionality is on hold and asking for many many documents and a long questionnaire which includes questions like why am I withdrawing the funds and what is the source of money, where do I live, my job, job documents etc.(yes they really asked those) They also asked for certain photographs and video recordings of me that I needed to say some legal stuff and hold some papers in my hand etc. I send to them. For the last 3 hours, I was dealing with this. I just threw up due to stress and have no idea what is going on. I am an average crypto user who don't and can't do anything shady or whatever. I asked them about what is going on on multiple channels but they give that robotic answers and tell that they will return in few business days. From my research I found many other people are also in the same situation. The company is in Seychelles I think and my fear is that they are coming up with bullshit excuses to take away people's money since nobody will actually go there and take on a legal battle or anything. If anyone has a similar experience I would be grateful if they can shed some light on what is going on and if they got their money back. I literally feel physically sick right now.
Result(12 October): Solved. Not a scam(I think, but I suspect they might be dodging insolvency by winning time on withdrawals. I am not sure). My withdrawal is approved today and I finally got my funds out of Kucoin.
HOWEVER, I still stand by my original topic header:
STAY AWAY FROM KUCOIN. I will never use it again and definitely delete my account. I'll explain why below. It'll be a mixture of facts, my experience, other peoples' experiences (we formed a telegram group with some people in a similar situation) and my interprations of what I learned while I research abouth this issue, you guys can make your own deductions.
1) You will not experience this while you are logging into kucoin, while you are depositing to kucoin, while trading on kucoin or doing anything else on kucoin. You will experience this
ONLY WHEN YOU INITIATE A WITHDRAW. So you will have no prior knowledge, this will only happen when your funds are already stuck inside the exchange. (yet kucoin still advertises like you can do X amount of withdrawals without kyc, Y amount of withdrawals with kyc etc. and this process is nothing like kyc, it is way beyond kyc as I will explain)
2) You will be completely in the dark about wtf is going on. You will only see that your withdrawals are blocked (you can't cancel the withdraw either, it is just locked) and you will receive an e-mail that asks you information(check the third part). And along the whole process, they will not answer ANY of your questions. Your chat messages and questions will not be answered and you will be straight up ghosted with your funds stuck inside the exchange. One person from the group says he is on his 60+ day of this issue, still stuck on kucoin with 5 figures in US dollars and he said that he provided everything they asked for and he is still waiting. since his original ticket is not being answered, he opens up a new ticket every day but that ticket also gets a copy-paste answer telling him to wait and nothing else.
3) Say goodbye to your privacy. From my experience and the experience of others whom I speak, if this happens to you, you will receive an
e-mail from kucoin
which asks you to provide extremely intrusive stuff about yourself, about your wealth, reason for your certain financial decisions, your occupation, your rental agreement, your bills, your bank statements, your income,
video recording of yourself saying legal stuff , photo of yourself while holding your ID in one hand and a six digit code in the other hand which they will provide. One person from the telegram group states that they asked him to do a
VIDEO OF LOGGING INTO ANOTHER EXCHANGE which he sent the funds from. And you have to provide it. They literally completely ghost you and straight up don't answer any question you ask. They just expect documents.
4) There is no timeline, I found out many people who are going through this and the timelines range from 2 days to 3 months(still unresolved). I am very lucky with 2 days I guess.
5) Suspicious communication from customer service. In the telegram group two people found out that they are accused with exact same wording: "We have received a report form someone who believes that you're involved in certain frauds with sufficient evidence. The case is still under investigation". I saw those screenshots but I'll refrain from sharing, that did not happened to me. On my case the
suspicious communication message was a question from customer service that if I am "insisting" on my withdrawal or not. I explained this on another entry of this post too. I asked what does it mean, of course they did not answer.
6) While I research, I found out some people claiming that this is happening to them for the second time. This is the main reason I am deleting my kucoin account forever and advice everyone to stay away. Because it means that this nightmare can happen anytime and everytime again and again.
7) Health. No sleep for two days straight, took pills to calm down. Always on computer. I am a mess right now. I don't want to see the website of that exchange ever again.
