“Upvote If [Coinbase] Wire Withdrawal Still Missing” | Hacker News Reader

“Upvote If [Coinbase] Wire Withdrawal Still Missing”

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71 pointsg0998021 comments

I've posted about my experience on some of the other Coinbase links on here, and will continue to do so to be informative.

I had an issue with Coinbase back in early 2016, where my bank account was charged for a transaction that I didn't initiate, and I contacted their support and got no response. I waited a few weeks and reached out multiple times and got nothing. I contacted my bank and they initiated a fraud investigation, and determined it was fraud and refunded my money, partially because Coinbase refused to communicate with myself or the bank.

Do NOT use Coinbase. Use Gemini or Bitstamp, yes you have to get verified, but it's worth the headache.

BTDT, in 2013.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5427985

Just tread lightly about criticizing Coinbase here. You're still on YCombinator turf.

Nobody should have to tread lightly about criticizing YC companies on HN, the mods specifically note taking a light touch on threads like this to avoid the perception of censorship and bias.

Dig into the thread I posted and you'll see a different attitude back then.

If it's changed, that's great. But you're still on their turf. And I'm getting downvoted for saying it. Draw your own conclusions.

Perhaps it needs a mow and some weeding.

That thread contains numerous people claiming their USD withdrawals were marked as completed, but the money failed to appear. Overloaded customer service reps from Coinbase appear to be looking into and handling them individually.

I think this is what it would look like if their systems had been hacked, and thieves were cleaning them out by changing the destinations of wire transfers. If that was happening, they wouldn't necessarily be insolvent - they were probably holding lots of Bitcoin during the massive rise in price, and the losses would be in USD - but it'd certainly mean they were in trouble.

Every article I read about Coinbase is either about the system being down, people not able to withdraw their funds, or not being able to contact support.

Who's the primary competition for Coinbase in the USA? Seems ripe for a competitor to step up.

I mean there's some degree of survivorship bias. I've had no problems with coinbase on my personal account, but had a serious snafu with a corporate (non profit) account I had on there - for reasons that had more to do with the irs than coinbase I suspect.

No kidding. I've been trying to recover my account for almost a month now. They're not answering the support thread anymore, nor on twitter.

Primarily because people tend to complain only about issues. I've both funded and withdrawn from bitcoin on several occasions, no issues at all, always quick.

We're talking millions of users with significant money at stake, when things go wrong it turns to vitriol very quickly (and there is a lot of room for user error, too). You don't see others catch as much flak because nobody is even close to the size of Coinbase, but there are similar issue threads for e.g. gemini out there.

This rings true, but also, a "no response" from support is never acceptable.

I suspect it's less no response and more extremely delayed response. They added hundreds of thousands of users (maybe a million +) in the space of a couple weeks. December growth of the crypto space was absolutely massive - something like 10 exchanges have closed off new registrations. I'm sure their support is currently massively overworked and they can't hire quickly enough.

Kraken has similar problems (regarding often being down). Before that, it was bitfinex who had trouble with withdrawals. And beginning/mid 2017, it was poloniex.

I'm afraid there is no exchange (in my experience) who managed to have a flawless experience, and nowhere to go when you're not satisfied with your usual exchange. Maybe decentralized exchanges will help with that? Time will tell.

While I don't think Coinbase is scamming users, and they are certainly highly regulated. They are definitively the most incompetent organisation this year.

Bitfinex does get lots of heat in the crypto space, but comparing it to the rest of exchanges they have been rather very professional and fast to fix issues.

Hopefully this is just growing pains and not the first signs of insolvency. MtGox stopped most USD withdrawals by June 2013 but didn't shutdown until Feb 2014.

Well, as a counterexample, I have been withdrawing to bank account from Coinbase for a couple weeks now with zero problems.

The telltale sign of a business with cash-flow issues.

Mt. Finex and Mt. Coinbase are in a race to see who can claim the title from Mt. Gox. Unfortunately for cryptocurrency markets, the end result will be disaster regardless of who wins that race.

Many more threads like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7mpk7s/upvote_is_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7o6nqb/880000_wit...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7o4tgz/please_hel...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7o7wxa/its_time_f...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7nnqxx/us_wire_tr...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7mpk7s/upvote_is_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7kwllo/stop_givin...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7kt75b/coinbase_n...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7mcy2n/up_vote_if...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7nntqf/waiting_fo...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7o6oyv/list_of_ca...

Having met some early (and I'm assuming still current) Coinbase employees several times in social situations, I can say without a doubt that "I would trust these guys with my money" wasn't among my thoughts about them.

They were the types of people who could make any social interaction feel like an MLM pitch.

It's a currency trading platform - like all businesses created for the sole purposes of making money, but that's certainly a more prominent mission in this type of company. It's about money, and it's purpose is to help make more money. It's not surprising that this kind of business attracts a certain type of personality and people.

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