Sent $10,701.03 to Coinbase. Still missing bitcoins.

Yeah. While it sucks that HN has been commandeered for coinbase support issues, at the same multiple people seem to have lost 10k+, and if this is what it takes for them to get their funds back I fully support their posts.

But damn, wouldn't it be nice if coinbase did some kind of simple error checking to see if transactions are being handled properly? This is a downstream simple check - does the monetary transaction correspond with a similarly sized bitcoin transaction, and do the bitcoin transactions add up to the reported balance?

I opened a coinbase account a week ago but haven't used it yet. I'm glad I didn't!

Coinbase may have a track record of terrible support, but they also have a track record of doing the right thing (eventually), so I would think "whining on some Internet forum" (which happens to be one their CEO and employees browse, that's run by one of their investors) would in fact be a very efficient way of resolving the problem. Somebody else did the same thing yesterday and got a prompt response from Coinbase about rectifying the situation, so there's even precedent for this being a useful tool with them.

I am aware of everything u said.

Coinbase is dealing with real money here. Just on HN today, 30k USD have been locked up. Assuming 50 customers suffer from the same problem and same amount, they locked up 1.5 million USD. Bitcoin's has dropped its value from 1200 to 600 in 2 weeks. Assuming that trend continues, Bitcoin can potentially wipe out half of their customer's money. I know that is just a hypothetical but this is a real possibility.

You cannot excuse yourself for poor customer service just because you are a 'startup'.

I'm not sure if it is fraud or not. Maybe an attorney can comment, but here is how I look at it:

Fraud:

(1) a false statement of a material fact,

(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue,

(3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim,

(4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and

(5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

The attempt at buying coins on coinbase while selling coins outside of coinbase, then if the coin price falls… If Coinbase doesn’t deliver the coins according to their TOS and you say to the bank that you want to do an ACH chargeback due to them not delivering, it doesn’t fit the definition of fraud in multiple ways:

The statement you would make to the bank would be: “Coinbase did not deliver the coins based on their TOS so I request my money to be sent back to me via ACH chargeback and if they do send the coins, I will send them back to Coinbase”

1) it isn’t a false statement

2) doesn’t apply since it isn’t a false statement

3) not deceiving anyone

4) they are relying on it, but it isn’t false

5) no one is injured since Coinbase waited to fulfill the transaction, they can just resell the coins at the current market price, assuming they are able to actually sell coins.

Assuming this post is legitimate, what kind of organization of that size (an article published today indicates that there are 8 employees!) has a hierarchy and culture where if an individual working in a customer support role sees something wrong they have no way of communicating with the CEO?

Scary, if true.