Comment by coinbase-craig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coinbase-craig | Hacker News Reader

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On rare occasions we are not able to provide bitcoin at a locked-in price. When we can't, we offer the ability to place an order in USD for an amount of BTC equal to the exchange rate at the time that we receive your USD from the bank, 4 business days later. When this is offered as an option, we display a note on the buy page that says: "Note! We've exceeded our normal buy limits for today. If you would still like to purchase you will receive the market price of bitcoin on [some date] after your funds have arrived." You are also required to agree to a term like this before placing an order: "I acknowledge that the amount of BTC I receive will vary based on future exchange rates." Some users check the box without reading it; maybe this happened to you.

We're trying very hard to scale our support team. We've gone from 1 to 12 support in a matter of months, and we are hiring more support staff, and it is still difficult to keep up. We are responding, but it is almost impossible to grow fast enough. That said, 10 days sounds way too long. If you send your coinbase email address to me at craig(at)coinbase, I'll get your ticket prioritized.

Thanks Craig, posting about my personal issue here feels a bit like cheating, but it was nice of you to jump in. I can imagine support is already a priority, but consider this my nudge about it.

And also note that it is 3:30 am in San Francisco. Go to bed coinbase-craig!

Yes, but there are situations where you don't honor the confirmed price even for instant buy purchases or sales. You can read about my experience below in a separate thread!

...at the time that we receive your USD from the bank, 4 business days later.

Is there really no faster way for coinbase to receive a payment? This doesn't seem practical, or rather it seems a bit too practical for a company that wanted to set up a one-way "pump" to profit by alternatively: immediately completing, or stretching out, transactions based on which action pulls value directly out of the customer's pocket.

This is the speed of ACH bank transfers. There is nothing we can do it about it. It's part of the reason bitcoin is important.

Sure, but why can't I transfer money to you, receive confirmation that the transfer has completed, wait some reasonable amount of time (no more than a month maybe?) and then convert to BTC at the exact moment I prefer? Then I would feel like an investor, rather than a chump.

EDIT: actually it would be nice if you responded to some of the many seemingly-reasonable customer complaints on this page.

They on purpose don't allow balances in USD as maybe then they will be considered a bank. Once you go thru their verification process, you get buy instantly up to 10 BTC/week without waiting (although sometimes they turn this feature off for whatever reason). Also, you don't need to wait a whole week - you get hourly increases of the 10 BTC quota, which is nice... when it works.

They on purpose don't allow balances in USD as maybe then they will be considered a bank.

It seems e.g. PayPal, Amazon, Coinstar, and Bitstamp have negotiated this particular obstacle somehow.

Yeah, I found several arguments against my own statement - even in the Bitcoin context such as CampBX.

4 days is very reasonable. My broker settles most trades in 3 days. And, that's for public stocks which have been around for a couple hundred years and are well understood. 4 days is also in line with what credit card gateways will settle in for higher risk accounts. And, yes, bitcoin is high risk. Oldschool guys who still don't like email get to decide what's high risk so bitcoin will set off red flags for a while.

That being said, I personally think coinbase should burn some of that VC fuel to bring that 4 days down. They will lose money to do it but they'll gain customers like you who aren't used to a 4 day settlement period.

I've also had tickets dropped on the floor (explicitly, actually), and the email reply address bounced. FYI.

Also, I can't find any way to open support tickets any more. FYI.

I really wanted to like you guys, and I field a lot of questions about how to buy these days.

Craig, on another note: I am based in SF, and I'd like to get in touch with someone at Coinbase (I am writing a book on Bitcoin). Can you help?

I'm considering to apply for the support position, is there anyone I can speak to for more information?

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