
Trouble at Coinbase - taytus
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/
======
thephyber
Flash message currently on the CoinBase support website[1]:

> Partial System Outage: We're investigating an issue where some customers
> recently were charged incorrectly for purchases of digital currency with
> credit and debit cards. This is related to the recent MCC code change by the
> card networks and card issuers charging additional fees. We have identified
> a solution and any future purchases will not be affected by this issue. We
> will ensure any customer affected by this issue is fully refunded. We expect
> this to happen for customers automatically through their bank. If you
> believe, you were affected by this issue. Please contact support at
> support.coinbase.com.

[1] [https://support.coinbase.com/](https://support.coinbase.com/)

~~~
siruncledrew
That message is there every time I go to the website. It's been 3 weeks and
support has still not resolved my issue. Yea, more people are using the
service now, but they are struggling really hard at client services.

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geoffreyhale
"it appears to affect specific banks including Scotiabank and USAA" \-
[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/15/17017374/coinbase-
cryptoc...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/15/17017374/coinbase-
cryptocurrency-bitcoin-ether-unauthorized-charges)

------
thephyber
I think this is the official investigation thread:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xs1aq/update_on_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xs1aq/update_on_multiple_charges/)

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greenyoda
Earlier discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386774)

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ben_jones
I don't get how you can raise $225 million dollars in VC and not manage basic
financial transactions.

~~~
thephyber
> not manage basic financial transactions

Do you have any reason to believe that CoinBase doesn't manage financial
transactions at least as well as the next largest CryptoCurrency exchange?

~~~
toomuchtodo
The bar is not other CryptoCurrency exchanges. The bar is traditional
financial institutions, who do this flawlessly day in and day out except for
Wells Fargo’s recent bill pay error.

When was the last time Fidelity or Schwab made mistakes of this level? Never
that I can recall (and I’m old).

I would encourage anyone who has been impacted by this file a complaint with
the CFPB.

[https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/)

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jxub
Looks bad. BitGrail 2.0 with implications many magnitude worse.

It's a shame that a technology with so much possible positive impact on the
world, getting rid of untrusted and sometimes scammy 3rd parties is itself
exposed so much to scam.

~~~
thephyber
> getting rid of untrusted and sometimes scammy 3rd parties is itself exposed
> so much to scam.

One could argue that CoinBase was among the least "scammy" or "untrusted"
actors in the Crypto exchange space.

It's important to keep perspective. BitCoin is not quite 10 years old.
Coinbase had to scale up transactions 10x from late summer to mid fall while
keeping and dealing with the process of currencies forking (including
supporting transactions for one of those forks), cycling hot wallets to cold
and back to hot only when more currency was required to transfer. Also, the
run DAX, which is the market-making system used for all CoinBase transactions.

There's no reason to think CoinBase is 7x charging purposefully at this point.
It's _far_ more likely that they are adding an item to a message queue,
processing the task but not marking it as complete, then retrying each task
6ish times before permanently removing from the queue marking it as "unable to
complete".

No new technology will be immune to "scam" or human error. It's probably time
to reset your expectations.

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ilaksh
The transactions were being repeated, right? To me this is further evidence
that traditional banking is obsolete and should be replaced by more
sophisticated technology that has built in protection from problems like that.

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hyder_m29
This comment sounds troubling.

> Very interesting.

> My bank told me that they used the transaction authorization code from the
> last transaction. According to this statement, they had to manually enter
> the previous transaction authorization number and then tag the transaction
> as a "force post".

> "A force-post transaction allows the merchant to bypass the authorization
> process by manually entering a previously obtained authorization code.

> The transaction is then routed through clearing and settlement and
> subsequently force-posted to the issuer."

> The key word is MANUALLY.

There's another user claiming to have heard from his bank that coinbase used
force-post transaction.

