
Beware of Coinbase. They Reversed My BTC Sale - abijlani
I sold 5 BTC on December 6th: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;d.pr&#x2F;i&#x2F;n9Zc<p>Couple of days later the BTC showed up again in my account saying they needed to &quot;offset&quot; my transaction which makes no sense because I originally purchased the BTC using Coinbase. I let it be. On December 13th I got a notice saying that the sale had finally completed and so I waited hoping any day my bank account would be credited with $4,118.94.<p>Instead of the money, they added a transaction to my account saying that I had &quot;Purchased&quot; 5 Bitcoins which I never did. So now instead of having sold 5 BTC at $832. I&#x27;m holding 5 BTC at a much lower price which I never wanted. How convenient Coinbase. You obviously benefited from my sale because you sold my coins to someone. And now you conveniently added it back into my account since the price is lower.<p>The worst part of all this is that I have opened support tickets, tweeted at them, wrote an email directly to the CEO Brian Armstrong. And there is nothing but silence. I even wrote a blog post: amit.roon.io&#x2F;an-open-letter-to-coinbase<p>Things can go wrong in a fast growing startup but ignoring customers is the worst thing you can do.
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bushido
I will refrain from calling out coinbase for their alleged improper management
and execution of transactions(alleged by me in great details in the previous
threads) due to retracting a couple of my comments (on my own behest) due to
drawing conclusions based on misunderstanding a reply to one of my posts. I
have decided to subdue my biases against CoinBase practices for a few days for
health reasons.

But, some of the issues that were highlighted may be prevalent here, as they
do seem to behave like an exchange (even though they are allegedly not one
even though they fit the definition).

Before someone points this out, its true that bitcoin is not recognized as a
currency in the US, but it is considered a security by SECs definition of what
a security is.

By CoinBase's definition they buy and subsequently sell or buy-back BTC like
an ecommerce product. Wonder why an e-commerce product previously sold by them
would be "offset" or reversed due to potentially fraudulent activity?

Also, it can be alleged that the OP is not being completely forthright about
the full story? I don't believe that the OP is hiding anything.

If the OP did send and receive BTC thus technically having different BTC than
the ones CoinBase sold to the OP is there any reason that all incoming BTC
transactions cannot be classified as fraudulent?

I will not personally answer any of these questions even though I want to.

The previous threads are at: [0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6929705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6929705)
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933360)

edit: spelling and grammar

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bcl
Time to stop these posts. This isn't coinbase support and it isn't a forum to
air your problems.

~~~
AnotherDesigner
I'm glad all of these threads happened. Now I know that Coinbase isn't a
reputable company and I should never trust them with my money.

All of these posts show the truth, even when YC posts things like this:

[http://blog.ycombinator.com/coinbase-yc-s12-is-becoming-
the-...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/coinbase-yc-s12-is-becoming-the-most-
trustworthy-consumer-brand-in-bitcoin)

~~~
crcastle
I've been more than pleased with the service Coinbase provides. I have been a
customer for almost three months and have bought and sold several thousand USD
worth of BTC in that time.

How do you know these posts show the truth? What if these poor experiences we
see posted on Hacker News are occurring at a rate of 1 in every 1000 Coinbase
transactions or even 1 in 10,000 transactions? I agree that with money the
error rate should be low, but BTC is the wild west.

You're taking on risk wherever you buy and sell BTC these day. As a US
citizen, I'd rather take a little bit of risk with Coinbase, a US-based
company supported by reputable US-based VCs, than take on the risk of sending
my money to Slovenia or Japan -- not to mention the extra fees to do
international wire transfers to/from those countries.

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PhantomGremlin
You only need to know two things about BTC. Both courtesy of @ReformedBroker
(but origin may of course be elsewhere).

Don't get me wrong, I really really really wish that a practical and honest
and low-friction anonymous virtual currency existed. It doesn't currently.
Bitcoin isn't it.

1) "You know what's cooler than a million dollars? Virtual currency backed by
nothing and nobody."

2) The second explains BTC using a Venn diagram. If you don't understand this
diagram, you're the ideal BTC user.
[http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2013/11/20/bitcoin-
likely-u...](http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2013/11/20/bitcoin-likely-users-
venn-diagram/)

------
staunch
They probably reversed it because they (wrongly) suspected fraud. I'm sure
it's well within their Terms of Service.

You're the one gambling money on an unproven digital currency, created by an
anonymous person on the internet, via an unproven and completely overwhelmed
little startup. If you can't handle losing money on a failed transaction then
don't play the game.

~~~
abijlani
It wasn't a failed a transaction. They never said the transaction failed. I
got a confirmation that the sale was completed.

~~~
staunch
It's failed if Coinbase suspected fraud and it's reversed.

~~~
abijlani
From their Terms of Service:

> 3.5 When buying or selling bitcoin, you are buying or selling from Coinbase
> directly. Coinbase does not act as an intermediary or marketplace between
> other buyers and sellers of bitcoin.

~~~
staunch
Also from their Terms of Service:

> _Coinbase may cancel or reverse potentially high-risk buys or sells of
> bitcoin, including those made using reversible payment methods._

Could very easily be that your transaction was flagged and then reversed. Your
BTC was returned in full. If the price had gone in the other direction I doubt
you would be offering to compensate Coinbase for the difference.

~~~
abijlani
If it failed then why did they take 7 days to return my BTC? That's the
benefit of BTC that things can be verified in a matter of minutes.

~~~
bradleysmith
coinbase has been overwhelmed with increased volume and rapid fluctuation in
the last two weeks. As staunch has said, to have only lost time in the
transaction process and missed chances to get in or out at a particular price
was an inherent risk in placing the transaction in the first place.

I have also been held up by coinbase delays in transactions over the last few
days (though nothing was reversed), so I empathize with the pain. If you know
of a more reliable and more quickly servicing online bitcoin exchange, I know
many who would be happy to hear about it.

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lafar6502
Heh, they're not exactly _IGNORING_ customers. They're using them as milking
cows.

