8 ms·
Coinbase Multiple Charges
- minikites 9y agoIt's been interesting to see the users of regulation-dodging services like Uber and Bitcoin slowly learn why those regulations came about in the first place.
- yetanotheruser 9y agoI read another comment on hacker news today that referred to a type of regulation that is actually accountability. Perhaps if we were able to classify regulation further it would be easier to analyze the tradeoffs of certain regulations rather than saying all regulation is bad or all regulation is good.
- vec 9y agoBut if we do that we have to accept that there are tradeoffs in the first place. We have to recognize that reasonable people might disagree about which tradeoff to make. We have to accept that even good decisions are likely to leave someone somewhere worse off. We might even have to gasp understand the historical and cultural context in which the current system arose. Applying a slogan is so much easier.
- minikites 9y agoUber et al should have thought about those tradeoffs. That's my point.
- maxxxxx 9y agoIt's much easier to be binary. Thinking about tradeoffs is hard and can't be used for scoring political points.
- noarchy 9y agoI don't think this is a failure of regulation (or the lack thereof), but a QA/testing failure.
- analyst74 9y agoI imagine regulations are not there to prevent financial institutions from making mistakes, they are there to wreck those who do.
- rajacombinator 9y agoActually this is another example of how regulation allows rent seeking rapacious incumbents like Coinbase to stay in business.
- Relys 9y ago"Bu-bu-but it's too big to fail" (e.g. the banking crisis of 2008 and recent Equifax breach).
- thephyber 9y ago> Actually this is another example of how regulation allows rent seeking rapacious incumbents like Coinbase to stay in business. I fail to see how "this is an example". Care to elaborate? Rent seeking is traditionally used when it comes to regulatory capture or certain types of actions by monopoly companies. CoinBase, although large, is not the only place nor has it built a moat with lobbyists+regulators friendly to it.
- g09980 9y agoOne of those situations where software bugs may (temporarily) ruin people's lives. Many threads on this topic from people who had a relatively small amount to their name in their bank accounts, it was linked to Coinbase, and they now can't pay living expenses: https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xot6y/freaking_out_coinbase_drained_my_bank_account/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xot6y/freaking_o... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xspus/what_happened_im_rekt_now_all_my_credit_score_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xspus/what_happe... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xs2zr/i_have_been_charged_double_for_all_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xs2zr/i_have_bee... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xsyf4/17x_charges_nope_i_just_got_hit_with_50_count/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xsyf4/17x_charge... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrq4k/welp_officially_broke_charged_17x1000_on_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrq4k/welp_offic... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xq3xc/you_drained_my_bank_account_and_now_i_have_nothing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xq3xc/you_draine... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrf02/3x_5x_how_about_12x_duplicate_charges/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrf02/3x_5x_how_... https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrfhs/double_charged_withdrawals_posted_what_the_fuck/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7xrfhs/double_cha... Many more on that subreddit... and that's just from people who use Reddit.
- sxates 9y agoNot to judge how people spend their money, but surprising how many people are buying crypto while they only seem to have a few hundred dollars in their bank account. Very risky putting in money it sounds like they can't afford to lose. If it all comes crashing down at some point (which I don't expect, but is possible) I wonder what the ramifications are if millions of people are depending on whatever they have in their coinbase accounts to pay bills.
- g09980 9y agoThere is a difference from risking a few hundred dollars you can maybe afford to lose, and the remainder (unspent) of your bank account being overdrawn.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jboggan 9y agoThey aren't still using MongoDB to handle USD deposits / withdrawals are they? I know that was the root cause a few years back when this cropped up. Edit: past context - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428382
- stingraycharles 9y agoYou would be surprised to learn what Stripe uses as their backend for pretty much everything then. And they appear to be doing fine.
- jboggan 9y agoI am surprised, but maybe I should just be impressed that MongoDB has progressed so far that this isn't a big deal all that often.
- james_pm 9y agoTwo weeks this has been going on, apparently. Nothing on their blog, nothing on Twitter. No notifications to customers? Smells of an active attempt to keep the whole thing quiet.
- anonova 9y agoThey just posted on Twitter about it: https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/964248915695448064 https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/964248915695448064
- thesimon 9y agoReferring to wrong charge categorization due to MCC changes, not multiple charges though.
- thephyber 9y ago> Referring to wrong charge categorization due to MCC changes, not multiple charges though. Not exactly. They are referring to "some customers recently were charged incorrectly". They identified the culprit as the MCC change which they call "downstream" of them. The only thing that makes me think the current MCC message might not be relevant is that Reddit users seemed to be reporting multiple ACH charges against the same checking account. The previous MCC category change messaging suggested it would only affect credit cards. Perhaps that category change affects how the ACH API responds and the CoinBase system interpreted it as a "needs retry" kind of state.
- FireBeyond 9y agoAfter several hours of shaming their CS people on Reddit. "Oh, it's good that you're responding here to people complaining here about it to Reddit users. Because there's nothing on your Twitter, your main page, any email to customers, status pages, account information. That looks really bad." And then they flurried to update things. Like the parent says, multiple issues for at least a week, and the first communication is responding to (some) people on Reddit, and only after they're called out do they think "Shit, we should probably tell our other customers, too". Wonder how many wouldn't have noticed?
- lasgsf 9y agoThese guys are just crap now. Awful customer service as an example I have BTC stuck in their vault for 4 months now with no response to move it out.
- zaidf 9y agoTLDR: if you notice an unauthorized ACH charge, call your bank and dispute it ASAP! Time matters. The scary thing about ACH is that your total possible exposure is not limited to the money in your account. Coinbase could do a $10,000 charge via ACH and in many cases even if you only had $100, the charge would go through. HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO: for unauthorized ACH charges, every minute matters. If you call your bank and report the charge within 12-24 hours, you’re likely to have the charge reversed fairly quickly. However, if it’s been more than 3-4 days since the charge, disputing and getting resolution to an ACH charge becomes more laborious and time-consuming.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- 1812Overture 9y agoGotta love using trendy non-ACID databases for financial transactions and suddenly rediscovering why ACID databases were invented.