Consumer complaint received 2023-11-27
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: FL
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I have been getting harassed, emotionally and financially abused by Coinbase for months. I can not understand how this company is allowed to operate. Their practices are extremely deceiving and there is clear fraudulent activity going on. They keep coming up excuses as to why they are allowed to freeze my account and hold my money, stating they need to verify my ID, which has been verified with them for XXXX XXXX. No matter how many times I submit my ID docs, they review them for several days and then say again that I need to submit ID docs and that the verification team needs to review them. This has been a continuous cycle and excuse they have used to keep kicking the can down the road. Finally, after almost XXXX months of constant abuse, my information was verified and my account was unfrozen. That was XXXX weeks ago, and told myself I would never use Coinbase ever again. However, today I needed money urgently to cover some unexpected expenses and had no other option but to sell some of my crypto. This was the first time Ive used this account again after going through the weeks of harassment previously mentioned. However, after sending crypto to my Coinbase account and selling it, as soon as I tried to cash out, my account got frozen and suspended once again again. Its absolutely absurd. They finally, after weeks of hassle, unfroze my account just to let me add more money to it, and immediately froze it again once I did. This is emotional and financial abuse. I need this money to pay bills and to live. Its literally all I have left and they keep making up lies about me needing to verify my ID over and over just to get interest free loans from me for weeks at a time. The worst part is, no one is accountable and I can not speak to anyone or email anyone at the company. I have tried over and over again to get ahold of someone who works there that isnt the call center rep who reads off a script. It is literally impossibly to speak to anyone or do anything about this. They are abusing their power and taking advantage of customers. It is gross negligence and emotional abuse. This has cost me dozens of hours of my time as each time I try get some answers its XXXX XXXX  of my time for the same scripted response. I even had to pay for their premium subscription just so I could get customer support for this issue, which is just an overseas call center with reps reading off a script. This has cost me thousands of dollars in extra costs because of me being unable to pay for things because they are holding all of my money hostage for no apparent reason. This has caused me such pain its like I am being tortured by these people. I am certain that it is written in the code on their platform that as soon as I try pull money out of my account, it raises a flag and suspends my account because either they have a liquidity problem and they dont actually have the money ( even though I literally sent the money to them XXXX minuets before my account got frozen ) or they are just abusing their power and using my money as an interest free loan. I already submitted a complaint to the XXXX  and XXXX about XXXX month ago, but never hear back. Maybe you guys can do something about this.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief