Consumer complaint received 2023-06-13
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Virtual currency
Issue: Money was not available when promised — 
Company: Coinbase, Inc. (NJ)

Hello, On XX/XX/XXXX, when I enter my Coinbase account to trade as a result of a rising market, I saw a notification stating that " Your account was recently flagged for a manual review. Until the review is completed, you wont be able to buy or sell crypto. Theres nothing to be alarmed about and if you have any funds on Coinbase, they are safe. Given the large volume of requests, please be patient as we conduct this review ''. I immediately contacted Coinbase customer support and they said that the compliance team requested certain documents from me as part of the KYC regulations and I needed to contact the compliance team directly through email. Indeed, the compliance team asked for documents such as payslips, sources of my funds, bank statements, etc. several times but all of these emails were in my junk folder. There was no other attempt to communicate with me except through those emails. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I provided all of the requester documents and answered all of the questions they sent me. These included questions about the sources of my funds, payslips, recent bank statement, employment verification documents, rent agreements, etc. However, the compliance team took forever to reach back despite my repeated attempts to reach out through Coinbase customer support and directly to them. The second email I got from the compliance team was on XX/XX/XXXX, a month after I provided all of the necessary documents and answered their questions. This time, they started asking me about my XXXX origins. I responded to their questions and sent additional IDs ( I was registered with my passport and SSN but they also asked for state-issued ID ). 

This time after hours of work, I was able to get a case ID for my situation from the Coinbase online support system. However, this also didn't contribute to the resolution of my case. After a 30-day wait, on XX/XX/XXXX, the compliance team sent me additional questions about my XXXX origins again. Despite my repeated attempts to contact them, it took 30 days for them to review two questions and they asked for additional questions. I responded to them as well. However, as we enter XX/XX/XXXX, my account is still restricted. 

At this time, I contacted Coinbase support again and asked for SLA terms on my contract for customer screening, however, they said they are unable to provide them. This made me question the legal basis of my account 's restriction. I have informed them several times about the liquidity risks I was experiencing due to volatile market conditions and my inability to access my assets. Indeed, in this time period, the value of my assets decreased by thousands of dollars as I was unable to buy or sell crypto currencies for XXXX months. Furthermore, I strongly suspect that I was exposed to discriminatory treatment due to my XXXX origins. I have XXXX XXXX so I visit XXXX regularly. Despite the fact that I provided all of the necessary documents and the compliance team had access to my rent contract, SSN, passport, photo, state-issued ID, bank statement, payslip, and institutional ID from XXXX University XXXX and answered all of their questions. They have started to ask me about my future travel plans to XXXX and my permanent address ( they have XXXX different documents where they can see this ). I have experienced financial losses as the value of my assets dropped significantly during this period and also mental distress as most of my savings were invested in crypto currency in Coinbase. They have provided no legal reason for this manual review except for procedure and processing time. I have asked for SLA terms on my contract two times and they refused to provide these to me as well.