
Visa confirms Coinbase wasn’t at fault for overcharging users - hysan
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/visa-coinbase-not-at-fault/
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justherefortart
Having many friends that worked out at Visa, that place is a fucking train
wreck in IT (mostly due to the politics, well that and the attempted
outsourcing). Not surprised in the least.

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ehPReth
Their PKI is apparently none too good as well:
[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/NNV3zvX43vE/rae9kNkWAgAJ)

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omarforgotpwd
What terrible press for Coinbase. I'd be furious at Visa if I was working
there. A suspicious person might even suspect sabotage?

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iovrthoughtthis
Hanlons razor.

It was probably just stupidity.

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bitL
Hanlon's/Occam's/etc. razors are just heuristics.

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travmatt
And accusations of sabotage without proof of any sort is baseless conjecture.

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bitL
Heinlein's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately
explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice."

More on common razor heuristics:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29)

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor)

~~~
zaroth
A better way to state it, IMO;

Stupidity should be assumed. Malice demands evidence.

But it comes down to intent. Impute intent only when indicated. Which when you
think about it is only fair. It’s self-evident Visa fucked up, but a claim it
was malicious must be substantiated or it’s just trolling.

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bitL
I am not saying somebody at VISA did it intentionally, I just don't understand
why am I supposed to assume they didn't given whatever popular logical razor
that can't be a tautology on its own.

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zaroth
Because supposing malicious intent without any evidence to support the
conclusion is uncharitable at best, and libelous at worst.

It’s a philosophy which many people find beneficial, to try to shape your
thinking in a way that you set a higher bar before believing something
negative was done intentionally rather than unintentionally.

The inverse (converse?) is also be true — when lacking conclusive evidence
either way, assuming positive things are done intentionally and not
unintentionally.

Another way to think about it is; what’s the cost of being wrong? It’s as
simple as giving the benefit of the doubt.

~~~
bitL
> uncharitable at best

I am fine with that. I am not going to assume "good intentions" by default,
but case by case as I see fit. Even if my biases get in the way (like with any
untrained human). If there is a non-zero probability of somebody intentionally
causing something, i.e. it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to
be handled as one possible explanation, however unlikely it is.

Haven't you ever seen how people cook the books for businesses to appear
flawless? Ohh, that small mistake? Just an error, don't look too much into
that! Let's have a drink and here is your ticket to a strip club to entertain
you! Have fun!

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ZephyrP
> i.e it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to be handled as one
> possible explanation, however unlikely it is.

ergo, we must accuse all others of whichever crimes are not literally logical
impossibilities.

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bitL
Nope, just keep it in your list of probable reasons. Like when you do particle
filters, you have your most probable states but nevertheless keep
probabilities that you are wrong and you are in fact in any of the other
possible states.

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Animats
Where's the statement directly from Visa or Worldpay? All we have is a blog
entry in Coinbase's blog. "Joint statements" that only come from the
beneficiary of the statement are always suspicious. Visa has both a press
release site and a number of blogs. None seem to mention Coinbase.

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emh68
If you look at what actually happened, it’s pretty obvious that it was Visa...
they were trying to retroactively change how they applied cash advance fees
for the past month, and something went wrong.

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iamleppert
Maybe people jumped to conclusions in blaming Coinbase because of all the
horror stories about them? It seems like every other day someone is posting up
a blog post or story about them locking an account or disappearing
transactions, inconsistent ledgers, and months without adequate resolution. It
seems in many cases people have been forced to publicly shame them in order to
get help.

This one maybe wasn’t there fault but they certainly have a checkered past.

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swang
Have the solved the issue of people never seeing their money they've sent via
wire transfer?

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ivoflipse
Report the issue with CFPB
([https://www.consumerfinance.gov](https://www.consumerfinance.gov)). I waited
for ~3 months with barely any info from Coinbase's side. After reporting it,
the issue got resolved in a timely fashion.

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stefano
I find it hilarious that people "investing" in decentralization have to turn
to a central authority to be protected.

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DennisP
Only when they're stuck dealing with centralized entities.

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stefano
Isn't it a failure of a decentralized system the fact that most, if not all,
persons using it end up depending on a centralized system?

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zeroxfe
> Isn't it a failure of a decentralized system the fact that most, if not all,
> persons using it end up depending on a centralized system?

The centralized system you refer to here is the status quo (banks, fiat
currencies, etc.)

For all practical purposes, you can't bootstrap a new decentralized monetary
system without depending on an existing one -- value needs to be transferrable
between the two entities until most of the world has migrated.

This isn't a failure of decentralized systems -- it's just the cost of any
large-scale transformation with huge powerful incumbents.

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Domenic_S
> _This isn 't a failure of decentralized systems -- it's just the cost of any
> large-scale transformation with huge powerful incumbents._

This is equivocation bordering on intentional dishonesty. GP is saying that
without engaging the incumbents, the decentralized system would have absorbed
his money and given him nothing in return. That is in no possible way a win
for decentralization.

Crypto proponents assert that the world is better without centralized
currency/money systems. Yet when push comes to shove, people have been forced
to engage with the centralized systems in order to force the people behind the
decentralized systems to do the right thing.

~~~
DennisP
> without engaging the incumbents, the decentralized system would have
> absorbed his money and given him nothing

I don't see how that follows, given that the failure was at VISA, a
centralized system, in its interaction with Coinbase, another centralized
system. The decentralized cryptocurrencies continue to work as designed.

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spookthesunset
> The decentralized cryptocurrencies continue to work as designed.

Well then they aren't very well designed, are they... I mean, if they don't
interface with the real world in a workable way, who's at fault?

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aussie12345
Is there somewhere a link to a Visa statement? The one referenced seems from
the Coinbase blog. I couldn't find any information from Visa, besides the one
public post they made saying they aren't at fault. Its quite the tragedy for
some people apparently.

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ghusbands
The article clearly states: "The following is a joint statement from Visa and
Worldpay, which is Coinbase’s payment processor partner. While Coinbase
initially distributed the statement on its own blog, we’ve also received the
statement directly from Visa." In that statement: "This issue was not caused
by Coinbase."

~~~
aussie12345
Will until a statement comes out from Visa it wasn't them. I'd expect a joined
statement be published on visa and wordplay as well - not solely on Coinbase.
It least coinbase should push for that, otherwise to me it's a pretty weak
post.

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ghusbands
A statement did come from Visa to the news agencies; they clearly don't feel
the need to add anything. As I quoted, "we’ve also received the statement
directly from Visa"

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nukeop
Visa confirmed this... on Coinbase's blog. Why didn't they post it on their
own website?

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runeks
Because it’s really bad press.

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nukeop
Visa has vested interest in cryptocurrencies never getting anywhere. They have
a motive to make them seem like a dangerous investment. I'm not saying that a
purposeful action happened here, but it is a possibility.

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criddell
Does anybody know what happened with the people on Reddit trying to organize
and armed group to head to Coinbase to confront the CEO?

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pmorici
Wouldn't surprise me if it was an organized (paid) troll campaign trying to
stir up anti Coinbase sentiment. Small block fanatics have had it out for
Coinbase ever since they published a blog post advocating for raising the
block size. Ever since any hit of a problem they go out of their way to blow
the issue out of proportion.

~~~
ryanlol
Perhaps the excessively angry reactions are just a natural response to the
very poor customer support that these companies offer?

Often it feels like overreacting is the only way to extract a response from SV
companies. Reminds me of the upwork story a few days back.

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ShabbosGoy
I think we can all agree there’s a huge difference between overreacting and
plotting to arm yourself and storm Coinbase’s headquarters to “talk” to the
CEO.

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ryanlol
I think this only holds true if you assume the “plotters” were serious about
their intentions.

Otherwise they were just silly people venting on internet forums. That
certainly seems like a fairly standard form of overreaction.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending this behaviour. I’m just more interested
in if there’s something that SV firms are doing that’s exacerbating it.

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paulgb
The problem with the broadcasting intentions on the internet is that even if
you're not serious about your intentions, you could influence other people.
Look at the guy who went into Comet Pizza with a gun, for example.

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maximexx
And this is one of the major points of cryptocurrency as a replacement for the
current payment systems. In the end we don't want Banks, Visa, Coinbase, etc..
because they F __* with our money.

~~~
ebbv
Are you for real? There’s major headlines about screw ups with crypto
codebases and exchanges constantly.

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AgentME
The headlines are practically always either about centralized bank-like
exchanges that hold crypto on behalf of others losing it, or about people
losing money they put into a badly-written Ethereum contract. The number of
situations that people lost properly-handled cryptocurrency (they didn't send
it to the wrong address, they had a backup, and they used a hardware wallet or
malware-free computer) with a mainstream client have been practically non-
existent.

~~~
ebbv
You realize the user hostile nature of basically all crypto currencies is not
a feature right?

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AgentME
"You should have a backup and double-check the address you send to" is a user-
hostile high bar? I mean, maybe for non-technical people, but I'm not exactly
recommending bitcoin or any cryptocurrency to them. Something can have its
uses without having to be everything to everyone.

~~~
ebbv
The comment I was replying to was saying we need to replace banks with crypto.
The user hostility is one reason why that's nowhere near happening.

