Consumer complaint received 2024-10-11
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Virtual currency
Issue: Money was not available when promised — 
Company: Coinbase, Inc. (CA)

Unfortunately this is already the second complaint that I am having to file against Coinbase. While this is the second complaint, the same problems have have recurring more than a dozen times, without being corrected by Coinbase, and without any accountability from Coinbase. These problems are all about financial improprieties with customer funds being perpetrated by Coinbase. I do not take joy or the spare time to file complaints against Coinbase, but Coinbase really needs to make a decision whether it wants to operate as a reputable financial institution in the United States or as a shady operation that keeps financially abusing its customers. Specifically what has given rise to this current complaint against Coinbase is as follows. On XX/XX/XXXX, I deposited XXXX into my Coinbase account using a routine XXXX  transfer from my linked XXXX XXXX XXXX account. For this deposit, the explicit agreement with Coinbase is that the deposit in USD becomes " immediately available for buying and trading cryptocurrency '' and " available to withdraw or send after 5 days ''. Following this, I converted my XXXX into XXXX XXXX straight after having made the deposit, and from the following day being XX/XX/XXXX proceeded to make trades of XXXX to XXXX XXXX  On XX/XX/XXXX, being XXXX full days after my deposit, I correctly received an email update from Coinbase ( see screenshot 1 ) that my funds were now also duly " available to withdraw and send ''. However, when I logged in to Coinbase, this was in fact not the case and the funds actually continued to be locked and unable to be sent or withdrawn. I waited for an extra XXXX hours, but the funds still remained locked, so then I contacted Coinbase support online. Having to do so is generally an engagement that is unprofessional and extremely frustrating due to long hold times and mostly incompetent frontline support agents. Thus for what should have been a clear and straightforward fault, which Coinbase ought to have corrected on the spot and with an apology, instead became a wasted 2 hours of my time where the support agent offered no apology, no remedy, and frankly nothing but an incoherent mix of standard pasted Coinbase support agent phrases and a complete lack of understanding on the part of the agent. Not enough that Coinbase and its platform clearly failed the agreement that my funds would be automatically unlocked after 5 days, but it then also added insult and further injury by wilfully and completely wasting XXXX hours of my time without any remedy, follow-up, or outcome. it is now another 5 days later, XX/XX/XXXX, and still even today my fund balance remains locked and not available to send or withdraw ( see screenshot XXXX ). Again, this kind problem, both in terms of the initial core failure and the subsequent failure of support and rectification, is sadly not just an isolated issue, but is recurring continuously. In effect, Coinbase is taking advantage of retail customers, just because it seems to think it can, and because Coinbase knows that for instance holding many customer funds improperly locked for longer than agreed will cumulatively increase profits for Coinbase. This kind of tactic may be lucrative and thus understandable, but it is nonetheless improper, and totally unbefitting for a reputable financial institution. Yet Coinbase keep on with its improprieties as though it was licensed to take advantage of customers without any accountability for its problems. Personally I am fed up with this and I refuse to keep being victimised by Coinbase conduct, hence I am starting to defend myself here. Again, if Coinbase wants to operate as a financial institution in the XXXX, it needs to start acting as a financial institution rather than as a shady platform specialized in profiteering from customers without any accountability.