Consumer complaint received 2021-07-06
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: VA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, my wife and I decided to invest in cryptocurrency and chose to create wallets with Coinbase. As Coinbase does not support jointly owned wallets, we created one for both myself and my wife at the same time, with the intent of investing equally within both wallets. 

Almost immediately, we observed multiple examples of disparate treatment and fraudulent activities in how Coinbase treated my wallet ( as a white male ) and my wifes ( who is a non-white female ), even though both accounts were created at the same time, and we intended to use them equally. Specifically : When we first created our wallets on the same day, XX/XX/XXXX my wallet was established as verified by just answering a few questions, whereas my wifes wallet required her to upload her drivers license to verify her identity. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, my wifes attempts to purchase cryptocurrency were denied by Coinbase due to a suspicious activity warning, whereas my attempts to purchase the same amounts of the same cryptocurrency on the same day went through without any problem. We made a request for online support the same day, and we did not receive a reply from Coinbase support until three months later a generic response that provided no specific explanation for why my wifes purchase attempts were denied. Our support case was closed a few days later with no resolution provided. 
On or around XX/XX/XXXX, my wifes ability to send and receive cryptocurrency to external accounts had been removed entirely, and my wife had to upload her drivers license ( again ) and take a webcam photo to verify her identity. At this point, I still had not had to provide a drivers license at all, and was able to fully access my wallet and buy cryptocurrency throughout. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, after this second round of verification of my wifes identity ( and after Coinbase had obtained a photo of her ), my wife found that her ability to buy cryptocurrency from a separate bank account had been artificially limited from $ XXXX/day to only $ XXXX/day, with no explanation and no justification in the online documentation. My bank transfer limits remained unchanged at $ XXXX/day throughout. 
We made a request from online support to return her bank transfer limits to where they had been ( and where mine remained ), and we received an email a few days later saying that our request was denied with no explanation. 

Coinbase has a responsibility to ensure that their system does not discriminate against any protected basis. As a result of their discriminatory acts, which happened at a time when XXXX prices were rising dramatically, my wife was unable to purchase the same amount of cryptocurrency as I was. As a result, my wifes wallet has approximately 1/3 of the overall investment in XXXX that I was able to invest in. 

In addition to the above described discriminatory acts, Coinbase has no real option for phone support, so consumers have no recourse but to send an email or complete an online form and hope for a response and the responses received from customer services are generic and unhelpful. We have since realized through numerous complaints we have seen online that XXXX has gotten away without providing customer service since its inception. 

My wife and I have detailed documentation and evidence supporting the claims made above, and will be happy to provide them if needed.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation