Consumer complaint received 2023-06-27
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
By XX/XX/2023. I transferred total of USD {$17000.00} from my bank to my Coinbase account for investment in cryptocurrency. 
- XX/XX/2023 : {$10000.00} - XX/XX/2023 : {$1000.00} - XX/XX/2023 : {$6000.00} Scammers have used professional site like XXXX and social media like XXXX and XXXX to make friend then to approach their schemes. Overtime, I interacted with multiple individuals and they were affiliated with different entities. 
Scammers presented investment opportunity with cryptocurrencies. The investment would be safe through these exchanges. They preferred and suggested Coinbase. The fund transferring can be done from personal bank to Coinbase, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, via wire transfer and ACH. Coinbase can send cryptocurrency funds to other exchanges ( centralized or decentralized exchanges ). I trusted Coinbase to handle the authentication in all transfers for both sending to and receiving funds from other exchanges. Coinbase have had all records for each transaction and would have known the identity of these exchanges overtime if Coinbase has followed SEC regulations. I relied on Coinbase for my investment protection and can collaborate with authorities to retrieve the lost fund from the fraudulent exchanges. At that time I didn't realized that Coinbase didn't register to SEC until the news came out on XX/XX/2023 that SEC sued Coinbase related to this issue. 
The investment opportunities were presented with high yield interest up to 20 % ( or higher ) and safe trading methods including spot and future contract trading. I have been given access to register, to open my account to deposit funds, to trade, to track my assets and profits on the trading apps running on my phone in either standalone mode or in web browser. I have done a small amount of fund transfer for my account transaction test on each entity and to allow Coinbase to detect any issue and to inform me. This also helped Coinbase to retain the records of the cryptocurrency transaction addresses. The initial test transactions with small funds were no problems. These successful transactions encouraged me to continue sending investment funds to the trading exchanges. The reason I have a few exchanges is to diversify funds to prevent total lost at once. 
However, when my fund amount including the profits are higher than the original funds in my accounts, I couldnt withdraw my funds. They kept my account frozen. I tried to contact via calls and online, but they didnt respond after few auto replies. Couple exchanges asked for adding more funds to allow unfreezing my accounts. This was a ransom type trick for more lost. I realized the fraudulent acts from these exchanges since then. I also contacted Coinbase to retrieve the funds after providing the evident of the fraudulent info. Coinbase refused the responsibility for transaction tracking and ability to identity the fraudulent exchanges to recover the lost. Coinbase also locked my access to the transfer and withdrawal functions in my account. From the information disclosed by news about Coinbase sued by SEC. I was shocked to know that Coinbase did not meet some critical requirements from SEC. I wouldnt lose or at least can recover my lost if Coinbase complied to SEC requirements. This could have allowed fraudulent exchanges to exploit the Coinbase issues to continue scamming investors in cryptocurrency investments.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation