Consumer complaint received 2021-02-17
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Money was not available when promised

Complaint:
Our company, XXXX XXXX XXXX, is a client of Coinbase, Inc. ( Coinbase ) since XXXX XXXX. 

We used our account for our first transaction on XX/XX/XXXX : We sold XXXX XXXX at a price of XXXX / XXXX a total of USD XXXX after fees that were credited to our XXXX XXXX. 

As per Clause XXXX to the Coinbase Institutional Client Agreement : Client may withdraw funds from the XXXX XXXX  at any time by initiating a withdrawal. 

However, when we tried withdrawing the funds, we were requested to make a wire to Coinbase bank account in order to identify our bank account details and name. After we tried to argue with Coinbase, as there was no legal ground to this request, and under protest, we ended up making a wire so that we could withdraw our fiat balance. 

To our astonishment, although the wire to Coinbase was successful, Coinbase claimed that our company name wasn't shown on their side. We provided Coinbase clear proof that the wire was sent from our account, including bank statement, copy of XXXX XXXX and bank wire notice, but all in vain. Coinbase claimed that as they can not confirm our bank account in their system, they will not allow us to withdraw our funds. 

We were shocked when Coinbase asked us to make another wire in order to withdraw our funds, meaning to increase our exposure to their malfunctioning dodgy business. We obviously refused. 

After threatening Coinbase with legal actions, and raising our concerns that the company is holding funds illegally and that it may be scamming its clients, Coinbase agreed to release funds to us and did so only on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Coinbase showed poor customer service : after raising the matter with our Coinbase Telegram group ( 10 of Coinbase employees were in this group ), we were ignored by their representatives, our questions weren't answered ( no one even bothered to reply to us ) and the handling of our case was horrible. We have worked with numerous exchanges and XXXX services before and have never encountered a company that disparage their clients like Coinbase. 

Furthermore, by holding our funds, Coinbase was not acting in good faith, took unfair advantage of us as a client and we believe Coinbase was liable for conversion. 

In a strange coincidence, after releasing our funds, Coinbase notified us that our account was blocked due until we provided further information for compliance purposes. By doing so, Coinbase was trying to hide its negligence, and unlawful behaviour. 

It is worth noting that by looking at Coinbase XXXX we can see many complaints on similar issues, raising concerns on potential fraud, mismanagement of funds and generally troubling way of conducting business. Please note that posts from XXXX were deleted by Coinbase and we suggest you investigate this too. 

To conclude : we believe that Coinbase is practicing its business in negligence in the best case or even fraudulently in worse case, and believe the authorities should be looking into this company and consider taking actions against it..

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation