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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#101

Post by permanence »

brandon272 wrote: post #79

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.

Just to clarify what the problem is now. Coinbase reconciled my purchase of 10 bitcoins by giving them to be at todays market price. I'm still missing 2 bitcoins from an old purchase that says it's been cleared.

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

#102

Post by permanence »

aidanlister wrote: post #32

Does anyone else get the creepy feeling that this is mgrunin posting to stroke his own ego? "That guy must have been one of our extremely high volume VIP users or something in order for something like that to have happened." That just does not sound right. And it's not the first time he's tried a sockpuppet account [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6930297

Hah - good guess, but incorrect. Coinbase reached out to me this morning from this post. They've reconciled a transaction for 10 bitcoins, but there's 2 bitcoins from an old transaction that are still "missing" despite it being marked as completed, more than a week old and the withdrawal cleared from my bank.

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

#104

Post by Tehnix »

this_user wrote: post #46
Tehnix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Bitcoin crashing can only be an advantage to them since they lock the prices when the customer buys from them. As in, they just got an order for 20 btc at $1000 pr. btc, but, since it's crashed, they only have to pay $500 pr. btc and the customer still only gets them as if they still cost $1000. Effectively leaving them with a $500 profit pr. btc.

It may be a short-term advantage, but it will leave them with lots and lots of disgruntled customers which is terrible in the long run if you try to start a business. IMO all of this just goes to show that the BTC ecosystem is not yet mature enough and that you should only play with amounts that are not meaningful to you when lost.

Actually, not really. Correct me if I'm wrong in the assumptions I make on Coinbases' process (I only gathered from comments since I'm not US based and therefore can't use it).

If a buyer buys the 8th, they then lock the price to what it is the 8th. They first deliver the bitcoins after they have received payment, which takes a couple of days (or is ACH instant?).

They will have received the payment on the 13th, given them a 5 day window (or how ever many days it takes for the transfer) for bitcoins to drop in price.

They then buy the bitcoins (which can be done almost instantly when you're on an exchange with funds) and send them to the user.

See, they first buy the bitcoins when they have the payment. If the bitcoins drop in price, they benefit from the locked price, and the customer gets his bitcoins as promised.

SO! no disgruntled customers, and, they aren't doing anything shady. They simply benefit from the time delay in paymet. This of course only works in their favor when btc drops, not when it rises.

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

#105

Post by mathattack »

znowi wrote: post #18

When it takes a public outcry on HN for a company to do their job, I no longer deal with such a company. Simple as that. I don't care if you raised $25 million - if you can't treat your users fairly, you deserve neither.

Apparently multiple public outcries.

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

#106

Post by mathattack »

robinhoode wrote: post #84
sheetjs wrote: post #66

The same class of problems (questions regarding account balance, money taken out but BTC missing, support went dark) happened earlier this year and there was another front page conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5427985 Sadly, it seems that the key takeaway (the importance of customer support) was lost upon the Coinbase staff. Based on the last response, its clear that they have not learned their less…

Using MongoDB to process payments is a double facepalm fail.

I'm not an expert, but it seems risky to trust MongoDB for that. Isn't it the wrong tool for that space?

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

#107

Post by pg »

mattmaroon wrote: post #78

Can we make a new rule? HN is not an end run around companies' bad customer support (even YC ones). We could probably fill this site with these pretty easily.

We already have that rule. The site guidelines explicitly ask that people not use HN as a support forum for companies we've funded.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We let this and the last one go lest people think we were censoring bad news, but we're going to kill these in future.

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

#108

Post by sjp »

permanence wrote: post #97
d23 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing it's someone just spreading FUD, for whatever reason. I don't know that it's mgrunin, but they probably just imagined the company being some monolith that is actually quite small. That's also an incredibly unprofessional response that completely throws their company under the bus, which I have a hard time believing anyone who isn't a complete moron would do. Seems quite convenient that it fits the poster…

Surprisingly this is word for word the response I got from customer support. Rees from Coinbase reached out to me after this post and they've resolved 1 of the 2 transaction problems. I'm still missing bitcoins.

They will get you the bitcoins (I got mine yesterday afternoon after a promised Friday delivery) the question will be at what price they give them to you.

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

#110

Post by gojomo »

znowi wrote: post #18

When it takes a public outcry on HN for a company to do their job, I no longer deal with such a company. Simple as that. I don't care if you raised $25 million - if you can't treat your users fairly, you deserve neither.

Have you quit Google? Because sometimes it takes an HN thread, a post by a famous blogger, or even a blurb in the NYTimes before Google addresses festering customer service issues.
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