
Ask HN: 5 months and counting waiting for Coinbase customer support. Advice? - benbreen
So Coinbase&#x27;s disastrous customer service has come up on HN before [1]. But my issue is rather more extreme than a wire transfer that takes a few weeks to go through - I&#x27;ve been waiting for over <i>five months</i> for Coinbase to unlock my account and allow me to access my funds. Since August 20 of 2017 to be exact.<p>I&#x27;ve never experienced or even heard of such a long wait time for action to be taken on an open customer support ticket and I honestly have no idea how to proceed. Should I start contacting the CFPB or BBB, writing registered letters, etc?<p>To be clear, I have had contact with various Coinbase customer service reps since August. I also have tried emailing and tweeting at the CEO and Coinbase executives. The refrain is always the same: &quot;We&#x27;re expanding fast and adding to our customer service team. Your case has been escalated for further review. Please bear with us.&quot; I&#x27;ve been patient for months now and am thinking that maybe I&#x27;m not following the right strategy - any advice?<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16106793
======
benbreen
Ok, an update, since I can't edit the original anymore. "Kyle" at Coinbase
reached out to me via email: "I’m so sorry for the delay in our response. We
were able to clear your account."

I can't imagine that it had anything to do with bad publicity from being on
the front page of Hacker News... anyway, I'm glad it was finally resolved.
Thanks HN.

~~~
thrownaway954
Sorry you had to go through this.

It's pathetic that nowadays the only way to get the attention of a company is
to shame them in a public forum. While I'm not a big social media fan myself,
I'm glad it's there when we need it to call out people and companies like
this.

This is the only reason that "Kyle" reached out to you, not because they care
about you as a customer. It's a shame really.

~~~
asclepi
Social media has partially democratized access to public shaming, in the US at
least, as you no longer need to know someone at a media outlet. But luck
remains an important factor. If OP had posted an hour earlier or later, it
could have never broken out of 1 or 2 upvotes on HN, and his issue would not
have been solved.

~~~
thrownaway954
I think the fact that (as someone pointed out) Coinbase is a YC had some help
as well. No one likes it when the fight starts coming into their own
backyeard.

------
mv4
It's been over a month for me. My case hasn't been touched, except for one
automated "read the FAQ" update. Lost my ETH transaction.

Thousands are having the same issue (lack of support), based on Twitter alone.

Tweeting at the CEO is useless, unless you're someone famous.

The really sad part - with the amount of money they are making ($1B/yr), they
should be able to handle support. It's only several categories (account
verification, transfer delays, lost transactions) that can be easily
parsed/routed, and even answered to, programmatically in 80% of cases.

~~~
hellcow
I actually founded a company that does ML-based customer service alongside
humans. [https://www.abotlabs.com](https://www.abotlabs.com)

If anybody at Coinbase wants to reach out, I can probably automate 20-50% of
your queries with integrations into your backend systems. Email is in my
profile.

~~~
tw1010
Awesome, I'd love it if you could help Coinbase resolve poor OPs problem
swiftly and economically with the warm friendly response of a robotic
rejection.

~~~
jlgaddis
Yeah, I'm sure that "instant replies" are exactly what CoinBase customers are
longing for. /s

~~~
SwellJoe
They already have a chat with instant replies...that point you to a website
with the answer they should have just linked you to when you went searching
for the answer. I had to go through this rigamarole to reset my 2FA because my
phone had to be reset and I didn't have backups of my Google Authenticator
keys. The process went something like this:

1\. Search docs for how to deal with lost 2FA device. Find entry about it.

2\. Docs say, "contact support to blah blah blah" with a link to a realtime
chat thing for support.

3\. Ask question in chat thing.

4\. Receive a link to a web page with a description of what to do from the
chat bot

5\. Follow those instructions, which involve logging in with a different
browser (or incognito) and clicking "lost my device".

6\. Verify identity, etc. etc. which finally gets the ball rolling on fixing
the problem, which takes a couple of days, as I think it actually involves a
human at this point, though I never actually talked to one.

It wasn't _super_ painful, but it made me think, "What idiot came up with
this? Why would I want to talk to chat bot only to have it take me to the web
page that it _should_ have directed me to in the first place when I was
looking at the documentation?"

------
mankash666
They seem like a chronic bad actor. I believe small claims court, BBB, CFPB
are all valid recourses.

Better still - if you can make this a class action by eliciting similar
victims to come forward, you _may_ actually get them to change their ways.
Right now it seems like they can simply fuck with you without consequence.

And then there's the irony of coinbase being a middlemen in a market that
aimed to remove the middlemen

~~~
benbreen
It really does seem like they don't care about the consequences. I was
listening to Reid Hoffman's "Masters of Scale" podcast where he talked about
LinkedIn simply unplugging their customer service line when they were in the
midst of a particularly fast period of expansion.

That's _maybe_ acceptable if you run a social network, but I fear that
Coinbase has taken that lesson to heart and applied it to a business where
real money is at stake. I'm increasingly concerned that Coinbase will either
get sued or regulated out of business before they can give me my funds back -
which at this point should be around 2.5k, so not a fortune, but also not
inconsiderable either.

I guess I'll look into a lawyer but it bums me out that it has to come that...

~~~
orarbel1
Wasn't he talking about PayPal? (Also money service)

------
consultutah
I had to go here before I received any response from the company:
[https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/)

~~~
benbreen
Thanks, I've seen this said a couple times online, will go ahead and fill out
a complaint.

------
iguana
I'm in the same boat. At this point, "growing pains" is not a legitimate
excuse for this level of incompetence. I (wrongly) assumed that since Coinbase
is based in SF and funded by YC, that they would not be able to get away with
this level of negligence. This reflects very poorly on YC and specifically YC
leadership.

Serious question for YC insiders: has YC leadership made any effort to advise
Brian on this, and how poorly this negligence reflects on YC as a whole, or
does no one care because they're getting such a high return on their
investment?

~~~
fjsolwmv
YC is a VC firm. Why would they care about anything but ROI?

------
snissn
Coinbase really needs to suspend their new account creation. AFAIK almost all
of the other "reputable" exchanges have gone through periods of not allowing
new users so that their support network can catch up.

[https://medium.com/@mseiler1/coinbase-support-is-non-
existen...](https://medium.com/@mseiler1/coinbase-support-is-non-existent-and-
its-a-big-problem-95f38bed7e2e)

~~~
FireBeyond
What, and turn down the money faucet?

Sure, that'll happen. Coinbase just sends out a quarterly tweet that "hey,
we're ramping up support!" and calls it good.

------
kuon
After complaining to support that my bank account would not verify after I
made a SEPA transfer, I suddenly had my coinbase account locked. A few days
later, I got an email from support telling me my account had been locked for
security reasons. I wasn't home so I couldn't do anything. The fun part is
that, when back at home, I realized that my coinbase firefox tab was still
open (after 2 weeks) (I had only 100$ on it, so I wasn't really careful). I
was still logged in, and I was able to transfer those 100$ to uphold.

------
jandsgames
I wired in a large amount of money to coinbase on the 12th of January and have
yet to see my account credited. I have opened several support requests and
call twice only to get the runaround. Anyone else have a similar issue? Did
you eventually get credited? Everything was done correctly , confirmed with my
bank as well as coinbase's bank

~~~
consultutah
That was the sane thing I had happen. I had to file a complaint with the
consumer finance bureau. Then my money was returned to the original account
with no note as to why the wire transfer was rejected.

------
dev_throw
I faced this too, my coins were locked by Coinbase for more than 3 months (due
to mismatch in name and my ID) and I could not reach out to anyone in support,
although I submitted requests and placed calls. Their ID verification is
fubar, I really don't know how it was deployed.

Their phone lines were always busy and the person on the phone was unhelpful
and actually gave me false information that my account would be enabled. It
took another couple weeks after the call, for it to be enabled. I will not do
business with them again, and urge everyone I know to do the same.

When there are threads about finding their HQ in meatspace
[[https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7majpn/this_is_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7majpn/this_is_coinbase_hq_front_door_in_san_francisco/)]
to confront them, you know you're dealing with a really shitty business. IIRC
their correct address is 13+ Floor, 1 Front St, SF for folks in the Bay Area.

------
shireboy
I recently had an issue where I'm fairly certain someone in Coinbase's
verification process stole my credit card info and started charging it
fraudulantly. I was able to cancel the card before any damage was done. I
contacted support, got a "we're looking into it" email, then nothing for over
a month. Good to know I'm not alone, at least.

With that and these other complaints in mind, what is a HN preferred
alternative? I'd still like to buy some ETH/BTC/etc with USD, but am gun-shy
on these now.

------
subcosmos
Boy you'll find my story hilarious...

I uploaded a photo of my driver's license for identity verification, and they
either use humans or ML to read my name. Suffice it to say, they got the wrong
name on my account and I've been unable to change it for months!

Check out this email I got from them!
[https://steemit.com/coinbase/@subcosmos/coinbase-
incorrectly...](https://steemit.com/coinbase/@subcosmos/coinbase-incorrectly-
parsed-the-name-on-my-drivers-license)

~~~
tyingq
Lol...they parsed your first name as "Cunt"? That's worth teasing
here...you'll get more interest in clicking through to your blog post.

~~~
subcosmos
My real name is Clinton, so they sorta got it....

Still trying to figure out if its an OCR process, or some human did it.
Thought for a while I might have an enemy working there ;)

And its really rather hilarious. All of this ID verification stuff is needed
for DHS regulations to prevent money laundering and terrorism.

~~~
busterarm
a) probably a human b) probably someone that hates HRC.

~~~
zaroth
Someone is definitely having a laugh at Clinton’s expense. Funny except it
isn’t.

~~~
subcosmos
Story of my life! :p

------
flashmob
Here's an interesting metric which I think is behind all the support troubles
at Coinbase:

Take a look at Coinbase's Alexa ranking:
[https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coinbase.com](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coinbase.com)

220 - up from around 3000 12 months ago! That is simply incredible. A site
like that would get buried in support tickets fast, especially after such
growth.

Another interesting metric, they are beating
Citibank:[https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/citi.com](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/citi.com)

------
colonelxc
I suggest making a popular post on HN.

------
ratsimihah
Hi there, just personal feedback here. I contacted Coinbase on September 14,
2017 because I was locked out because of 2FA and a cell phone I had no access
to anymore. I couldn't upload or get any document verified, but a human being
at Coinbase helped me and after a few uncertain emails, I was able to gain
access back to my 4 years+ old account on September 20, 2017.

I'd say hang in there. With the recent bubble their statement make sense, so
try to be patient.

~~~
yeukhon
Five months is more enough to be continued in a limbo state....

------
smarky
Is there a reason your account was locked? Something personally incriminating?
For instance sending funds directly to a darknet market, or online casino.

If not, perhaps hire a lawyer.

~~~
benbreen
It was locked for a quasi-legitimate reason, but one that should be easily
resolvable. I accidentally opened the app while on vacation in Iran and got an
automated message from Coinbase about Iranian nationals not being allowed to
use their service, etc.

Fair enough. The email simply asked me to prove that I was a US resident by
sending in my driver's license and proof of residence (like a utility bill).
Which I promptly did. Then nothing.

For the record, I also opened my Bank of America app in Iran and BofA didn't
seem to care at all. It's not like I was trying to trade, buy or sell - I
literally just opened the app.

~~~
jlardinois
I had a similar issue with Venmo—a friend tried to pay me back for a Cuban
sandwich, and the transaction was held up because he just wrote "Cubans" as
the description. Only in Venmo's case, the issue was resolved mere hours after
he sent an email explaining the situation.

I opened a Coinbase account back in college ~6 years ago when they were giving
$10 in Bitcoin to anyone who signed up with a .edu email address. I forgot
about it until last summer, when I realized that amount was now worth around
$160.

I didn't have access to my college email anymore, so having to provide proof
of identity was reasonable; having the entire process take a month wasn't.
They also do this particularly insidious thing where if they don't respond to
your request for two weeks or so, _they automatically close it as unresolved_.
They do automatically reopen it if you send another email, but that you have
to do that in the first place is dumb.

~~~
cryptoz
Woah. Venmo parses and makes decisions on the description field before
performing the transaction? That's wild. I would have thought that to just be
a convenience field for the customers. So Venmo decides what you can spend
money on and what you can't? Yikes, I'm happy to not use it regularly.

~~~
PeterisP
Every payment service provider is required to filter transactions if they
offer payment services to consumers. (Part of AML, anti-money-laundering
legislation) In essence, there's a set of things that money can't be spent on,
and it's their responsibility to take measures ensuring that their customers
don't spend (in significant amounts) money on that, and show that these
measures are reasonably effective (i.e. that they're not just for show - if
they assist their customers to circumvent their filters, that's a crime) or
not offer payment services at all. For some of the wider restrictions (e.g.
payments to cuban nationals) it may result in quite wide-catching automatic
filters; and it's the choice of the company whether just to block the payment
or spend time and $ to have a human look at the payment and make a decision on
whether you can spend money on that or not.

If you want to use services that ignore what you can spend money on and what
you can't, you literally have to use illegal services - no legitimate company
in the western world is allowed to offer that.

~~~
cryptoz
> If you want to use services that ignore what you can spend money on and what
> you can't, you literally have to use illegal services

Cash between friends is not illegal. Venmo, for lots of people including me,
just replaces cash for paying your friends back. That's even _their_ #1
example they have on their website for why you might use Venmo.

There is no agency or anyone in charge of asking what I'm spending the money
on when I give my friend a $5 for lunch. If Venmo wants to replace that
experience, they can't refuse the payment because they think I'm suspicious
and expect to keep my business.

I understand the pressure they are under as a payment processor. But the
alternative to Venmo to keep payment privacy intact is not illegal, it's just
plain old cash.

~~~
PeterisP
Well yes, that's kind of the point - replicating this part of the experience
of paying someone directly in cash is illegal. No matter what Venmo wants it
can't replace that (part of the) experience and, more importantly, neither can
any of their competitors. So you either keep using cash or (no matter if you
pick Venmo or someone else) get a different experience.

Also, don't forget that above certain amounts cash between friends also needs
to obey a bunch of reporting rules and can not be entirely private. Simply
taking a briefcase of cash from your buddy and leaving it at that _is_
illegal.

------
meritt
Since they are ignoring your online requests, have you considered simply
visiting them in person? I understand that's not an option for many people but
your profile indicates you're geographically close. Bring a lawyer for good
measure.

~~~
benbreen
I thought about this but decided it could be construed as creepy, or even
harassment. I have to imagine that there are some crazy people out there who
are mad at Coinbase and it could be taken the wrong way.

I have tried to be as polite and understanding as possible and not get mad
throughout this whole process - even when the customer service rep I waited
two hours to talk to told me that the mere act of replying to an open ticket
causes a _new_ ticket to be created, and then demotes the old ticket to the
bottom of the priority list! (That was absolutely Kafkaesque).

But honestly, I have been so disappointed by the utter lack of concern or
sympathy among Coinbase's employees. I can follow them on Twitter and watch
them gloating about the enormous profits they and their company are making.
Meanwhile hundreds, probably even thousands of people are waiting for weeks
and months for basic help. It has been a source of significant anxiety and
stress for me to be honest.

~~~
aphextron
You're being taken for a ride. This company's entire business model is
predicated upon holding your money as long as physically possible. They have
zero incentive to help you, and there is pretty much zero legal recourse
beyond small claims court. I would be standing in their stupid shiny SOMA
lobby harassing every single employee I could find until someone got off their
ass and made the two keystrokes it takes to fix your problem. This dystopic
world of casting humans off as liabilities to be queued in a chatbot ticketing
system once you've received their money is really getting old.

~~~
benbreen
I mean, I kind of agree with you, but honestly, would you really want to be
the crazy guy yelling in a lobby? Or the employee getting yelled at for
something you didn't do? I'm not a confrontational or angry person and would
far prefer someone who reads this and works for Coinbase to just reach out to
me and make it right.

Then again, if another month goes by with no action, I really might end up
being the guy marching around with a sign in lobby, who knows...

~~~
ridgeguy
Take a lawyer with you. Mutter "intentional infliction of emotional distress"
and a few other phrases s/he may give you.

To me, it sounds like you're treating Coinbase as a friend who's hit a tough
patch, rather than as a business.

Requiring them to perform as a business does not make you "the crazy guy
yelling in a lobby". It makes you a customer.

~~~
aphextron
>Requiring them to perform as a business does not make you "the crazy guy
yelling in a lobby". It makes you a customer.

Precisely. The inculcation of the former attitude among the masses has been a
huge victory for this wave of monopolistic industries. Companies like Google
have effectively trained humans to act like software bugs.

~~~
benbreen
Huh, food for thought. I may end up writing a blog post about this whole
ordeal, and I think that's an interesting takeaway from it. "Training humans
to act like software bugs" in particular is an interesting turn of phrase.
Thanks.

Anyway, to be honest -- and this reflects not so much my unfamiliarity with
the law but my quasi-familiarity with it, having worked as a legal assistant
-- I was actually afraid of bringing lawyers into the mix. At some level, I
feared that this newly monopolistic, venture-backed company would be more than
willing to see me in court and would somehow manage to win, leaving me with
crazy lawyer fees.

It's sad that this was my train of thought, but in retrospect, it's why I took
such a weirdly friendly, almost abject tone with them throughout the whole
process. I have known and worked for enough lawyers to know that once you open
that Pandora's box with a well-funded adversary, things can get unpredictable.

------
my_usernam3
Oh hey me too!

First I bought a bunch of ETH. It went up and I went to sell them in November.
Coinbase wanted Identity verification. No problem, filled out the form. Forgot
a required field during the process and when it refreshed, it knocked my
birthday up 10 years! Now they think I'm 16.

On the other hand, it might be a feature because of how much ETH has gone up
while my (apparently teenage) self can't do anything about it!

~~~
yeukhon
Did you mean it has knocked down your age?

~~~
slackoverflower
A 6-year old can't buy ETH? Crypto truly is mainstream.

~~~
yeukhon
Of course not? Try register an account with a 2012 birthday on Coinbase? Did
you even read? I bet not?

------
jayess
I tried opening a business account more than six months ago and it's still not
verified. I've uploaded files, my driver's license, everything they've asked
for... still nothing.

------
greenleafjacob
Coinbase is a U.S. company. Perhaps a small claims suit (if applicable) or a
lawsuit will get their attention.

------
levifig
From my personal experience, you have another month to wait… I waited 6 months
for a withdrawal to be handled. To be fair, I withdrew to the wrong account
number (to Simple, to the old account number with Bancorp), but the bank
bounced the transfer and the funds were returned within the week. After that,
Coinbase drug their feet for 6 months before I finally got the money right
around Christmas time (i.e. I initially withdrew in June).

What bothers me even more than horrible communication is the fact that I
converted BTC to USD and withdrew the money because I need the cash at the
time (baby + move) and never saw it until much later. Had I kept it BTC–which
I would've had I not needed it–that same BTC would've been worth about 8x what
I got.

I don't want to scream "foul play" but it REALLY seems that way. There's NO
WAY it takes 6 months, including a lot of pointless repeated "Have you checked
with your bank? We're so sorry it's taking so long."

So yeah… good luck with Coinbase support. FWIW, Coinbase is the reason I'm
done with crypto for good (as currency/investment). It's a minefield of bad
actors and greed, incredibly susceptible to foul play and literal criminal
activity. I willingly paid more fees with Coinbase because I thought they were
a legit business… Nope!

I would normally end this with "…but mileage may vary." Not here. Good luck
and godspeed, my friend. o/

------
jwatte
Whenever you have a real customer service problem, send a written letter,
registered mail, demanding a specific action or written explanation why the
action cannot be taken, sent to you within 30 days. If it doesn't clear itself
up, consider small claims court or regular court. You can claim attorneys fees
when you win, but beware of you lose (or if there are actually enforcible
arbitration agreements in place.)

------
jimmies
I had the same experience. I couldn't get them to change my country, I
provided ID, but somehow they thought it was not real.

It was over 1 year and I would have bought bitcoins from them if they didn't
make this too much of a pain in the ass. Finally, I bought bitcoins from my
friends. Lately, I need to sell them and say fuck it, I will create a new
account. It worked!

------
norellana
I've been waiting 3 months for them to find my $20,000 I wired to Coinbase,
Inc in October 27th. During the 1st month I thought it was ok, 2nd month I
thought I was crazy but now is unacceptable. It seems that they stole my
money.

I'm not crying over some losses, I'm crying over money I wire to buy cryptos
but It got lost. Nobody fucking care. They should put their shit together.

I filled a complain with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and
Coinbase, Inc replied that "they are working in my case" ... hope it help me.
BUT Seriously people, stop working with them, you would say ... its ok for me
BUT until is not.

------
aagha
There's a lot of people here frustrated with Coinbase and a lot of talk about
BBB.

I think if you're going to punch, punch hard: If you're in CA, file a small-
claims case. If a Coinbase rep/lawyer fails to show, you're likely to win your
case.

Then, contact the SF County Sheriff and have the entrance to their office
locked until you receive your money back in full. Details here:

[http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/small_claims/collect.shtm...](http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/small_claims/collect.shtml)

------
dataker
This is pretty terrible support management. In our company, if a case is
opened for more than 5 days, the entire team is notified.

If then nobody does anything, the entire department is notified. That never
had to happen.

------
pbreed
My coinbase issues is now going on 4 weeks, they debited a tranasction twice
and credited once, leaving a negative balance, where a significant number of
>5 BTC just vanished into thin air.

------
faitswulff
Damn, I just opened a coinbase account, thinking they were the only reputable
exchange around. Luckily I don't have that much invested. Does anyone have
suggestions for competitors?

~~~
mrgordon
It works fine 99.9% of the time. I know many people who have used Coinbase /
GDAX for years without any issues.

You can also try Kraken (they just upgraded but had a lot of site reliability
issues before) or Robinhood once it launches next month.

------
heuristo
I always thought it was weird that when you sign up for coinbase they make it
clear they will take a % of your transactions... like a bank! So where is the
magic?

~~~
dewey
It's a convenient place for a lot of people who don't want to sign up for more
"complicated" exchanges or are less familiar with the whole crypto currency
ecosystem to buy into the hype.

Also you can transfer your balance to GDAX for free (it's part of Coinbase and
trade there with lower fees)

~~~
amenghra
Give Square Cash a shot? Bitcoin support is being rolled out [1]. Full
disclosure: I work at Square.

[https://www.bitsonline.com/square-expands-bitcoin-pic-
guide/](https://www.bitsonline.com/square-expands-bitcoin-pic-guide/)

------
bowlich
Man 5 months? I'm on two right now. Still getting idiotic automated responses
from their customer support. I ping the ticket every couple of days, and
nothing. Been thinking of going the Twitter route.

No way to get in and retrieve the % of a coin that I bought a couple years
ago. Quite a bit of a scam to accept money for storage, lock a user out, and
then provide no support for getting back in while still taking on new
customers.

------
crisopolis
My account at coinbase has been in a stuck status forever and I've contacted
support. I never get any responses.

Not sure how they operate with horrid support.

------
sushid
I've mentioned this in other threads but I had a very significant holding in
ETH (more than enough to buy a car) stuck in limbo for about a week until I
emailed them every day about it.

I would say call and be on hold for about a hour (no joke, it was around 70
minutes when I called about a month ago) and talk to them to escalate your
case to priority 1. It'll then be resolved in about two weeks.

~~~
karmapolic
get a linkedin premium for trial and inmail one of the top level executives.

------
enraged_camel
I really wish YC had some conditions for helping startups, one of the
conditions being "you must offer stellar customer service."

------
yeukhon
Out of the many startups out there, GitHub support is so far the best. Tickets
in, within a day (usually 1-3 hours) someone will respond. My questions are
usually very general so getting a response in an hour or so is ridiculous for
me. Sometimes in just 30 mins. Response is friendly and professiobal. No BS.

~~~
gkgicccj
> out of the many

How many are you talking about, assuming personally tried? Which are these?

------
sxyuan
I had a similar problem where I was stuck in automated response hell for
several months. I finally decided to threaten legal action in the support
ticket and surprisingly enough, I was put in touch with a human within a few
days.

------
ghayashi
Five months is way too long. Email them again, preferably using the email that
is linked to your coinbase account. They got back to me within ~3 weeks
although a 24 hours turnover would be FANTASTIC IF YOU ARE READING, COINBASE

------
temc
Is this my Kyle? The one that wrote me two months ago and hasn't responded
since - If you're out there Kyle - please attend to my customer support
request!! What are we to do with coinbase's atrocious support???

------
anigbrowl
If you find yourself in a situation like this hire a lawyer and file
complaints already, if they're keeping you waiting for 5 months it means they
don't care about your issue.

------
artur_makly
IF Coinbase support is reading this - It's been 3 months since my ID
validation issue has been submitted. Please respond with a human: Case
#3462400

~~~
gkgicccj
Coin base if you're reading this I'm waiting for you to reply here unless you
want me to go to another exchange. I'm going to be buying some stuff soon.

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amitlzkpa
I've been having similar issue. But mine has been locked for about a month
now. Coinbase people. If you're reading. Please help!

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langseth
If you have cash in your account rather than just various coin, you may be
able to file a complaint with the FDIC.

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wingworks
Maybe I'm just lucky or something, but I've been with Coinbase for a few
months now and I've yet to have any issues with them. The biggest issue I have
is that their fees are kinda high to transfer anything, I would love a super
slow / low-cost transfer option.

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aerodog
how many hours are needed to solve outstanding issues? 1,000,000? if each hour
costs $20 / worker, that's what, $20 million? Haven't they raised over a
billion?

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karmapolic
get a linkedin premium for trial and inmail one of the top level executives.

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hellbanner
I've been ignored trying to setup a COinbase business account

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GoRudy
this has been my experience as well!

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knodi
This!! Coinbase support is so bad.

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dna_polymerase
At one point in the next few hours coinbase employees will enter this
discussion. They will probably elevate your issue and make sure you are
responded to within hours.

This is of course just a measure they take to keep the crowd silent. And it
will not help other people with the same/other problems.

Please report them to BBB and other authorities within your reach. Companies
should receive no love for this kind of behaviour.

If you can't scale your customer service with demand stop the signups, like
binance did. Coinbase seems to be constantly unable to satisfy spikes in
demand, such a company should not be trusted with money.

~~~
miles
> _Please report them to BBB and other authorities within your reach._

The BBB is not part of the "authorities":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau#Critici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau#Criticism)

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-
bureau-...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau-
millions/index.html)

[http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better-
business-...](http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better-business-
bureau-should-give-itself-a-bad-grade/)

[https://www.ncconsumer.org/news-articles-eg/the-better-
busin...](https://www.ncconsumer.org/news-articles-eg/the-better-business-
bureau-bbb-is-powerless-tohelp-resolve-consumer-complaints.html)

~~~
pharrington
This should be a top level comment. Racketeers like the BBB absolutely must
not be confused for legit public institutions.

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albertTJames
make your own coinbase.

~~~
dang
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN?

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carbongixxer
I have been going over a month with no response on my escalated case with
them. I'm locked out of my account and they can't seem to provide any way
forward.

