All my coins are belong to Coinbase.

[TERA]

What is this 'high risk" order cancellation BS? If there is a problem with your account information then they should notify that of you beforehand in your account and block you from trading, before you are led to believe that you can trade or that you have placed a trade!

I made a great buy last week at $560, and now I find out it is cancelled! What's worse is many of the coins were for someone else, and I've already given him the coins from my stash. So basically I'm in the hole for the price difference, as if I sold my own coins at $560!

I heard Coinbase does this intentionally and maliciously for their own insider trading to profit off of customers. We need to do something about this? What can we do?

[1713522181]

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[CoolStoryBro]

Just thinking: how can they "do this intentionally and maliciously for their own insider trading to profit off of customers".

How can they profit from it? I guess it's better for them to process your order and get commission?

No idea about coinbase service tho

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I suspect coinbase's risk management takes in account the possible loss at it's current value - ie, if BTC goes down while pending, the possible loss would be lower and you would have a greater probability of it approved, vice versa. Shady & malicious? Definitely.

But the simple solution is to not use coinbase and use a real exchange. Go.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Just thinking: how can they "do this intentionally and maliciously for their own insider trading to profit off of customers".

How can they profit from it? I guess it's better for them to process your order and get commission?

No idea about coinbase service tho

You place order for BTC at $500 price. Coinbase doesn't actually buy (or account for / match) BTC when you place an order.

Scenario A: BTC rises to $600 each. Coinbase cancels your order.

Scenario B: BTC drops to $400 each. Coinbase approves your order, buys/matches BTC at that point, makes $100 point + spread.

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

What is this 'high risk" order cancellation BS? If there is a problem with your account information then they should notify that of you beforehand in your account and block you from trading, before you are led to believe that you can trade or that you have placed a trade!

I made a great buy last week at $560, and now I find out it is cancelled! What's worse is many of the coins were for someone else, and I've already given him the coins from my stash. So basically I'm in the hole for the price difference, as if I sold my own coins at $560!

I heard Coinbase does this intentionally and maliciously for their own insider trading to profit off of customers. We need to do something about this? What can we do?

I bought at an even better price - $550 - and now I am also worried about cancellation, there is too many stories on these forums about people who were happy to buy close to the bottom only to see Coinbase cancel it.

I have talked with their customer support and they told me they "cannot disclose" what are the reasons for cancellation. They cannot even disclose what I can do to avoid it! I bought on June 14th, they cannot even tell me today if the transaction went through ... Looks like I will have to deal with exchanges, after all. If after weeks of analyzing the charts and being glued to the terminal I made a big purchase almost perfectly timed to see it cancel - that would be the last time I used Coinbase

To answer the question why they would cancel instead of take 1% provision? If we buy close to the bottom, they can make much more by re-selling our coins on the market. It will be of course insider trading and completely illegal, but after talking with coinbase support I have bad feeling about it.

[lemfuture]

ive had my share of headache from cancelations too at first, but after my instant buy/sell got approved things got smoother

[LittleD]

They do this ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLll the Time your not the first and you wont be the last

[TERA]

My speculation is that Coinbase doesn't execute all of its customers orders in real time on an exchange but rather in a batch process where they buy all of the coins at one point in the day or at intervals during the day.  If the average price that a customer bought at is below the price that their batch needs to execute at, then they are in the hole and have to selectively remove some of the lower buyers to balance the equation. In addition, they may be interested in making a profit so they remove even more low buyers.

[lyth0s]

My speculation is that Coinbase doesn't execute all of its customers orders in real time on an exchange but rather in a batch process where they buy all of the coins at one point in the day or at intervals during the day.  If the average price that a customer bought at is below the price that their batch needs to execute at, then they are in the hole and have to selectively remove some of the lower buyers to balance the equation. In addition, they may be interested in making a profit so they remove even more low buyers.

Obvious question, have you contacted them? They will honor the bitcoin price purchase as long as your info is actually valid and the order was placed. This has happened to many people, issue is always resolved at the original price.

Coinbase transactions that take fiat money from your bank account or credit card have to go through national clearing houses, just like every other transaction. If the clearing house holds your transaction then the coinbase purchase cannot go through and your order is cancelled. This same process can happen with sudden increases in paypal spending, credit card fraud etc. It's just a part of the purpose of the clearing houses, also a major reason to switch to bitcoin transactions in the future (separate from buying bitcoins in the first place)

[Arvicco]

Anyone using Coinbase service is just asking for trouble. It is well known that they routinely reverse your bitcoin purchases if the price was "too good" with only a bullshit explanation. BTC withdrawals often do not come through for a long time, if ever: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=652707.0. And now, they are also profiling their customers and closing the accounts they don't like: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=654572.0

I would not keep BTC balance on Coinbase for the life of me. If you are lucky to purchase BTC through them, immediately withdraw it to a safe place. The company is a total joke.

[TERA]

Coinbase is working with me and is resuming the transaction. Disregard. Sincere apologies to Coinbase.

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

My speculation is that Coinbase doesn't execute all of its customers orders in real time on an exchange but rather in a batch process where they buy all of the coins at one point in the day or at intervals during the day.  If the average price that a customer bought at is below the price that their batch needs to execute at, then they are in the hole and have to selectively remove some of the lower buyers to balance the equation. In addition, they may be interested in making a profit so they remove even more low buyers.

Obvious question, have you contacted them? They will honor the bitcoin price purchase as long as your info is actually valid and the order was placed. This has happened to many people, issue is always resolved at the original price.

Coinbase transactions that take fiat money from your bank account or credit card have to go through national clearing houses, just like every other transaction. If the clearing house holds your transaction then the coinbase purchase cannot go through and your order is cancelled. This same process can happen with sudden increases in paypal spending, credit card fraud etc. It's just a part of the purpose of the clearing houses, also a major reason to switch to bitcoin transactions in the future (separate from buying bitcoins in the first place)

I asked Coinbase what causes order cancellations, but they refused to tell me  Sounds like you believe it should be something like with credit card, unusual pattern?

Some examples cited on this forum were very concerning, like one guy (RockHound, iirc) buying btc almost daily and only his transaction with best price being cancelled. I have 3 more days to find out if my btc bought at $553 will arrive OK. I hate this uncertainty, it is definite disadvantage as compared with exchanges.

[Wardrick]

If you look at the past history of BTC exchange sites, they've almost all failed or have a lot of pissed off customers. My best recommendation would be to not use any exchange sites.

[tvbcof]

If you look at the past history of BTC exchange sites, they've almost all failed or have a lot of pissed off customers. My best recommendation would be to not use any exchange sites.

All to true.  Exchanges (e.g., Bitstamp), bucket shops (e.g., Bitfinex), and direct sellers (e.g., Coinbase) are reasonably easy places to use with risk mitigation.  All one has to do is limit one's account to what they can afford to lose.  I don't have a big problem with that.  Those exchanges which have not 'failed' yet demand a lot of high value identity data with absolutely no guarantee that it won't be either lost through some hack or outright theft and sale.  That has kept me away from them.

I do use Coinbase (when the mainstream banks allow me to anyway.)  I prefer them because they do not demand high precision personal identification documents (from me.)  They apparently pass on the cost of identity verification to the banks.  Smart!  And they are located in the U.S. and it would be relatively more easy to put their nuts in a vice if they did something blatantly illegal like sell my docs.  Also, I trust them to not get hacked or employ poor hiring practices and avoid losing my private data in that manner.

I'm anxious to get a backup to Coinbase.  e.g., Circle if/when they reach an understanding with the Feds about how they are and are not to operate.

[gijoes]

Just thinking: how can they "do this intentionally and maliciously for their own insider trading to profit off of customers".
How can they profit from it? I guess it's better for them to process your order and get commission?

You place order for BTC at $500 price. Coinbase doesn't actually buy (or account for / match) BTC when you place an order.

Scenario A: BTC rises to $600 each. Coinbase cancels your order.

Scenario B: BTC drops to $400 each. Coinbase approves your order, buys/matches BTC at that point, makes $100 point + spread.

This should be required reading for anyone buying and selling through Coinbase. Seriously.

[SunBin]

By comparison, localbitcoin offers much better service at slightly higher fee.

[galbros]

First, great title thread for the shenanigan's CB seems to pull.

I've basically come to the conclusion that if the market is moving against them or they don't have someone to offset my trade and buy/sell my coins to, Coinbase is going to pull some BS and refuse my order but yet magically be willing to still do business with me.

Tradefortress nailed it.