Live data from Hacker News

Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

news.ycombinator.com

321–330 of 515 posts

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#321

Brian from Coinbase here. Sorry for the delay on that - definitely not the customer experience we are striving for. We should have things squared away for you by end of day. Edit: your bitcoin credit has now been processed. It looks like as we were performing server upgrades last week a handful of jobs didn't run as normal. We should have certainly caught it and responded sooner so that was our fault. My deepest apol…

Off-topic, but since you guys have ignored: 3 emails from me, and a tweet...

I sent you an XSS vulnerability to whitehat@coinbase.com according to https://coinbase.com/whitehat almost 3 weeks ago and haven't received so much as a confirmation "thanks we are looking into it" email from you guys.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#322
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's really shocking for a company that is trying to play a role as a financial institution. That is probably the scariest part about the current Bitcoin community. Many of the big names are simply "playing a role". We have no idea of their technical expertise, the viability of their software, their USD/Bitcoin reserves, how they plan to address disputes like this, or even whether they are skimming of the top.

Likewise, unlike banks, there is no legal system in place or organizations that assess companies like this and determine whether their transactions complete and such. The downside of the Bitcoin market, pretty much.

> Likewise, unlike banks, there is no legal system in place

There may not be a well-developed specialized regulatory system in place with authority over some bitcoin firms, but in most of the places that bitcoin firms operate there is a legal system in place, and entering into a sale contract, accepting payment, and then failing to deliver the product is the kind of thing that is well within the scope of competence of most of those legal systems.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#323
post #185

Brian from Coinbase here. Sorry for the delay on that - definitely not the customer experience we are striving for. We should have things squared away for you by end of day. Edit: your bitcoin credit has now been processed. It looks like as we were performing server upgrades last week a handful of jobs didn't run as normal. We should have certainly caught it and responded sooner so that was our fault. My deepest apol…

Forget the difference in the exchange rates. Are you saying you have no system in place to monitor if transactions execute successfully ? I'm not trying to be hyperbolic but that's really shocking for a company that is trying to play a role as a financial institution.

Take it EASY everyone! They made a mistake, took responsibility for the error, resolved the issue, and compensated the user for his inconvenience. Good for them!

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not ridiculous at all. With that much spread and at prices as high and fluctuating as much as they currently are you cannot expect to take 10 DAYS for a transaction of this nature. Honestly, looking at this from the outside what is the difference between this an actual larceny? A large purchase comes in while the commodity is priced high, the commodity is not purchased but instead funds are held on to while the p…

Umm, if the Bitcoins were purchased at a lower price that would be good for the buyer. It's "Buy low, sell high", remember? The problem, it seems, is that the price was locked in at the original, higher, order price, but the transaction didn't go through and so the buyer had no liquidity as the price continued to drop. Had the transaction gone through the buyer would've lost an equal amount of money (and so the accus…

What he meant was coinbase could have easily used some of the 35k to buy the 40 by cheaper, and keep the rest. They could have done this, and still said what they said and the net effect to the customer would be the same.

This is not good for coinbase, even if it was an accident.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#325
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually NO from an independent point of view they JAMMED him. Trades and transactions have a SETTLEMENT day and date in the financial markets. If a trade is not settled, i.e deposited and the funds available by the said settlement date the trade is called a FAILED trade. Both parties return at original transaction or go to arbitration. This alone is a reason not to touch coinbase. The system is too immature and new…

Yes. The question is why did they refuse to act until this public outcry. My theory? Proprietary trading. The CoinBase guys were probably trading on behalf of the company and screwed up royally, taking a big hit, so they decided to try and pass that loss onto customers or until they balanced the books

Considering the loss of position over the last week, it's certainly feasible.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been keeping my mouth shut here about Coinbase after starting that thread 9 months ago. I feel bad for someone that can't put a finger on his 30K, but I can't feel that bad if he didn't do a little research here first. Hopefully on the next bubble people will be a little more enlightened.

As highlighted in the thread and in PG's reply, the default response to criticism of Coinbase is to nuke the conversation. As PG wrote: > Strictly speaking I should have killed the post entirely Now, it's possible that other complaints on HN were nuked by PG or some other moderator, making it difficult for someone to find it.

Apparently, referring to a thread which is highly critical of Coinbase, while participating in another critical thread, is proof enough for you that Coinbase criticism is silenced. I hope when I frame it like this, you understand how stupid it is, what you wrote.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#327
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny dynamics for bitcoin to be used as a currency For now its swings are like the Zimbabwe dollar

This isn't a failure of Bitcoin. It's a failure of the market. Bitcoin has an approximate "intrinsic value", which in economic terms is a bit above the cost of mining. Current market price has been very far from that. Bitcoin market right now is pretty much the definition of a bubble. Beware. In a "bubble" market, your money can disappear overnight. But again: that's not Bitcoin's fault. It's the fault of idiots vast…

> Bitcoin has an approximate "intrinsic value", which in economic terms is a bit above the cost of mining.

The current cost of mining is a rough replacement cost of bitcoin (and thus, in a sane market, ought to be a ceiling on its market value, since if the exchange cost is higher than that, you are better of mining then buying), but since mining isn't inherently reversible its not an intrinsic value.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#328
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because of your delay, he lost $13226.98 at current market rate: http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/177828-where-my-bitc... I hardly think $50 is going to make him feel happy.

And because of their delays, many others have made money on the transaction. They pay out at the market price of when the order was placed. The OP thought it was worth it then, and bought them then.

On the contrary. I don't want to fan the flames of conspiracy theories... but there is a very real possibility that if the market went _up_, Coinbase would have refunded the money as USD instead of BTC.

Only if Coinbase can prove to the public that they are consistent on matters like this would your assertion be correct. But if Coinbase were inconsistently applying their policies... they can make a very pretty penny on scamming their customers.

Transaction Delays are a serious problem.

Now, according to the edit, Coinbase did the right thing here and are eating the loss. So Coinbase is doing a good job at damage control...

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#330

> Further avoidance by them will lead me to make a few calls to news stations. Eek. The best case scenario is that you'll get a news blurb on local TV where you're portrayed as a sucker. "Weird online currency thing does weird stuff in the way you'd expect weird online currency thing to do, and look at this greedy rube who got sucked in and lost it all! Film at 11."

Clearly you don't know who mGrunin is. I'd do a little research before making comments like the one above.

Some guy who creates users to respond to criticism? Oh and looks like an idiot.
Post reply on HN