Why not use something like Deel or Remote if your goal is to pay international folks?
Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
11–20 of 134 posts
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#12Bitcoin exists exactly so we don't have to deal with this kind of bullshit. Find another app/service to send BTC.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#13Have you tried Wise (formerly TransferWise)? I don't know if they have issues with transfers to Ukraine, but in general they have provided an excellent service for paying contractors in foreign currency.
We also use Deel and I can recommend it. It's $50/month for contractors which is usually sufficient depending on employment law (FTE through Deel is more expensive ). They handle all payments and we just connect our bank account. Contractors can choose to be paid in their currency which is facilitated through Wise.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#14https://remote.com/
there are dozens of services/agencies like this. not sure why you'd try to do it the hard way.
the problem isn't payment, which seems trivial via a mutually agreed upon cash app or western union or literally mailing cash or cash-convertible cards. the problem is tax compliance, for which BTC payment won't help you at all.
i have never and never would use coinbase. (not your keys, not your coins.) however i find your criticism misplaced.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#15I think this level of heavy-handed measures are a result of cases like this [0] where a Sony employee embezzled $150 millions and converted them to BTC using Coinbase. Probably their silly security flags went up thinking you are trying to steal your business's money using BTC? Edit: people who want to know more about the case, here's a Money Stuff article by Matt Levine [1], jump to "Coinbase compliance". Bunch of re…
Well, the accounts share nothing in common other than me. And, I deleted my personal account, like they asked. They seem unable to move forward after that.
As a developer myself, it's clear that request (delete personal account) was a hail mary. They had no idea if it would work.
And, the amounts of money involved are very small.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#16Coinbase is really a pain to work with. I tried to open a business account for my i401k and eventually just gave up due to the same dual account issue. Even just a straight forward personal account started causing me issues. Every step in the process is so much more complicated than it needs to be. I switched to Binance US as my fiat to crypto on ramp and have had no issues so far. I have no idea if Binance US even supports business accounts though. Last time I properly used coinbase was years ago when they onboarded chainlink and there were massive arbitrage opportunities for several hours. Price on Coinbase was 25 - 45% higher on coinbase than other exchanges. I spent hours just buying chainlink on other exchanges, sending it to coinbase, selling it, sending those funds to the original exchange and repeat.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#17You want to use Bitcoin to make international payments without headaches... so you open an account on a custodial service? I don't understand what you expected to happen.
All you had to do is download a wallet and transfer your Bitcoin directly.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#18This isn't coinbase, this is the exact regulations that everyone is screaming that are necessary in cryptocurrency land.
You could have easily substituted coinbase for chase bank here.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#19I'm done with Coinbase too. I first started using it in 2017 or so, things went smoothly until I sold some crypto and tried to cash it out. Transaction was stuck in pending with no way to contact anyone or fix it. I finally got a resolution through some Coinbase employee's social media account.
Then I mostly purchased and sent very little of my crypto out of coinbase, using them as my wallet. Over a five year period I spent (sent out of Coinbase) maybe $500 or so of completely legal purchases around the web.
Last year I wanted to send my crypto to my own private wallet and they wouldn't let me (account restricted, no explanation). They claimed my account wasn't verified, when it was. By then they had chat support, but chat support couldn't help me, they just told me to verify my account again and again and again in some kind of loop of insanity.
Thankfully they let me sell the crypto and transfer the USD back to my bank account and leave that awful platform forever.
Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)
#20I'm on Coinbase's side. From their point of view, this story reads like "I am trying to launder money". Why not just use a payment method with a settlement period, instead of insisting on using a (new) debit card?
While I agree that the process could have raised red flags with the customer's behavior, why not have a human look into it and verify that it's legitimate?
Why the ghosting/poor communication?