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I sent Coinbase the following email: I paid for bitcoins on Feb 27, 2013. My natural assumption was that bitcoins will be deposited into my account in the next
by cft 14y ago
I sent Coinbase the following email:
I paid for bitcoins on Feb 27, 2013. My natural assumption was that bitcoins will be deposited into my account in the next couple of days. It did not happen: the transaction was marked "pending". After a week, I suddenly hot an email saying: "Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel this order because it appears to be high risk."
I must say that this response is quite disappointing. Accusing an honest new customer excited about your new product of potential fraud as the first communication from coinbase.com is probably the worst thing a company can do for its PR.
This has been a valuable lesson for me that accusing customers of fraud before they actually commit it is not a great way of promoting a new service. I saw posts to this end on news.ycombinator.com (i.e. do not use Coinbase to purchase bitcoins), but I ignored them and tried anyway...
The result was: "we have white listed your account", so now I am free to buy bitcoins at 30% more than what I wanted to.
I cannot explain to them that the attitude "guilty until proven innocent" will cost them more in good will of new users long term than the actual money lost on fraud otherwise, had they relaxed their insane risk controls.
- makomk 14y agoI know there's some justified suspicion on the Bitcoin forums that Coinbase are cancelling orders if the value of Bitcoins rises between you paying and them actually delivering the coins, meaning that they get to profit from any rise in the Bitcoin price whilst dumping any loss if it falls on the purchaser.