Consumer complaint received 2018-02-25
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: OH
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Money was not available when promised

Complaint:
My account containing XXXX BTC and XXXX BCH was restricted at some point in XX/XX/XXXX. Coinbase did not notify me as to when or why this occurred. I had stopped using their service on XX/XX/XXXX because they erroneously charged my credit card ( backup payment method ) for purchases that had cleared and posted from my linked checking account. 

I attempted to contact them through their support email on XX/XX/XXXX in response to their notification about my credit card. Here is the text which can also be found on their support ticket. 


( REDACTED ) XX/XX/XXXX XXXX There were no failed or reversed transactions that would require you to charge this card. All of the transactions have appeared on my checking account, which has more than enough money to cover them. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX, Coinbase <XXXX> wrote : [ Coinbase ] </accounts/primary> Hi ( REDACTED ), Your card ending in XXXX ( REDACTED ) has been removed from your account. 

Reason : We attempted to charge this card as a backup payment method for a failed or reversed transaction, but the charge could not be processed. 

Kind regards, The Coinbase Team They gave me an automated response amount a declined charge. Because the charge was in fact not declined, and I had already stated as much in my response and awaited an actual response for the ticket. 

I never received another response and had moved on to a competing service. At some point in the future I logged into my Coinbase account to check the status of my funds. This is when I found the message : " We couldn't complete one of your buys due to an issue with your payment method. Please select a payment method to continue. '' It asked me to complete a purchase for {$570.00}. It listed a series of buys that were indeed paid for according records from both their website and my financial institutions. They listed a series of Bitcoin amounts, some of which never posted to my account or were initiated by me. Because they had not contacted me about this in any way, I moved on for a brief time. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I decided to reinitiate contact with Coinbase to attempt to resolve the matter. The initial message submitted as a support ticket with Case ID : XXXX is seen below. 

( REDACTED ) XX/XX/XXXX XXXX I would like more information about the affected purchases on my account. I have not used this service in a long time and I need to confirm dates as well as payment methods. 

If I can verify the issues, I would be glad to make payment in full to restore my account. 

Thank you, ( REDACTED ) I did not receive a response in over a month, so on XX/XX/XXXX I added an additional comment confirming that the error was with Coinbase and asking that my Bitcoin funds be made available to withdraw from my account. Correspondence below. 

( REDACTED ) XX/XX/XXXX XXXX I made this request over 1 month ago to absolutely no response from Coinbase XXXX I am considering this confirmation that the negative balance is an error on your end. Because of this, I am requesting that the funds available in my XXXX wallet be released and available to withdraw. 

Thanks, ( REDACTED ) I received an automated response explaining that they are busy, and they closed the case ( I will include the full transcript of combined caseXXXX in an attachment ). I immediately reopened the case and explained that it was still indeed an issue. I have sent numerous messages to them through support, XXXX, XXXX, and email. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a response ( XXXX a canned response seen in many other complaints ) indicating it has been escalated and will take 4-5 days to resolve. This was over four months ago. All actions require support and I have received none in 260+ days of attempting to resolve this. The USD value of the amount of cryptocurrency they are holding In my account fluctuates, but it is near {$1500.00} as I write this.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation