> You're basically telling me if I pay for a car from a dealership, and they fail to deliver, that I or a lawyer can't sic law enforcement on them.
No, you are over-extrapolating what I said. Cars and BTC are not comparable.
Buying a car is a business model that everyone understands. There are governmental regulations in place to track every vehicle, so claims about cars being delivered or not are easy to verify or refute. So if a dealership fails to deliver a car that you paid for you most likely won't even have to sue them, they'll just give you a refund, because if you did sue them there are well-established processes for determining the facts of the case, and clear rules about a dealership's obligations to deliver.
BTC is a completely different situation. There are no government regulations, no rules, no precedents. To prevail, you will have to prove in court that coinbase failed to deliver. You will have to prove this to a jury of people who barely understand how to use an iPad. How do you do this? Consider the possibility that the OP is not telling the truth, but wants to generate bad PR for coinbase in support of some ulterior motive. How could the OP prove that he's telling the truth? It's not so easy, even when you're addressing an audience that actually understands how BTC works.
Also, have you actually read the coinbase TOS? (I haven't.) Do they say that BTC purchased will be available by a certain deadline? I'd be really surprised. If no deadline is specified, none is implied. So all coinbase has to do to get the lawsuit dismissed is cough up 10BTC. If push came to shove, that is the best outcome you could hope for, and you'd still be out your legal fees.
Unfortunately you give the system too little credit. In Aug 2013 a Federal judge recognized bitcoin as akin to a currency (stores value, can be used for exchange of goods). It also opened the doors to allow SEC to pursue these cases[0].
No, you are over-extrapolating what I said. Cars and BTC are not comparable.
Buying a car is a business model that everyone understands. There are governmental regulations in place to track every vehicle, so claims about cars being delivered or not are easy to verify or refute. So if a dealership fails to deliver a car that you paid for you most likely won't even have to sue them, they'll just give you a refund, because if you did sue them there are well-established processes for determining the facts of the case, and clear rules about a dealership's obligations to deliver.
BTC is a completely different situation. There are no government regulations, no rules, no precedents. To prevail, you will have to prove in court that coinbase failed to deliver. You will have to prove this to a jury of people who barely understand how to use an iPad. How do you do this? Consider the possibility that the OP is not telling the truth, but wants to generate bad PR for coinbase in support of some ulterior motive. How could the OP prove that he's telling the truth? It's not so easy, even when you're addressing an audience that actually understands how BTC works.
Also, have you actually read the coinbase TOS? (I haven't.) Do they say that BTC purchased will be available by a certain deadline? I'd be really surprised. If no deadline is specified, none is implied. So all coinbase has to do to get the lawsuit dismissed is cough up 10BTC. If push came to shove, that is the best outcome you could hope for, and you'd still be out your legal fees.