Consumer complaint received 2024-04-04
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: Coinbase, Inc. (RI)

On XX/XX/year>, {$17000.00} of my crypto assets were sold off from my Coinbase account and I did not authorize the transactions. {$8800.00} of USD from my funds were then sent via a bank ACH transaction to a fraudulent bank account with The XXXX XXXX which Coinbase allowed someone to add to my Coinbase account via XXXX, without my consent. 

After I found out my Coinbase account had been compromised I immediately locked my account and called Coinbase at ( XXXX ) XXXX just 10 minutes before getting on a 12-hour international flight. I pleaded for them to escalate my case to someone who could help but nobody was willing or able to do anything. 

12 hours later when I arrived at my first stopover in the U.S. I called again and spent more than an hour begging Coinbase support to escalate my case. Despite calling the same number ( XXXX ) XXXX, this person tried to tell me the first call was with a fake Coinbase support person, yet they were reading from my case file in Coinbase 's system, which said exactly what I told the first support person. Next, they mentioned that the security team had denied escalating my case because they didn't believe it merited further attention. How can a fraudulent transaction of {$8800.00} in USD, just get swept under the rug by a regulated business? 

Next, they said the only way I could see where the funds were sent to was to unlock my account, which I locked to prevent the rest of my funds which were now sitting in a so-called FDIC pass-through bank, from being stolen. I'm not sure how this process makes any sense and it's extremely dangerous for Coinbase to require its customers to do this. 

Coinbase collected {$270.00} in fees from these fraudulent transactions in my account plus possible hundreds in fees for an instant ACH push transaction. Even after filing a police report and filing with a number of other government agencies, Coinbase will still not provide any info about the fraudulent bank accounts where they directed their banking partners to send my funds, so I can't even report it to law enforcement. Now they they are saying they will only respond if they receive a subpoena as if they are a criminal enterprise. 

Their support made it very clear in their last email to me, case # : XXXX, where they said they have exhausted all their options and are unable to offer further assistance beyond what has been provided, ( which by the way, is nothing at all ). 

I used a strong, unique password, I did not give my login credentials out to anyone ( via phishing or some other scam ) and I used 2-factor security via an authenticator app, which is not secure in any way if somebody was able to access my account and make all these fraudulent transactions. 

I entrusted Coinbase to keep my assets safe and spend the money and resources to guard their platform and provide actual support that helps their customers, but this is EXACTLY the opposite of what they have provided. 

Coinbase is acting unethically and is failing to do its duty to keep its customer 's assets safe from unauthorized activities. There is no way to contact a person who can solve any issues ( especially in terms of serious cases where significant amounts of stolen currency are involved ). There is no way to speak with a manager or escalate a case and at times it requires waiting for days for a response, with only the ability to receive support emails which could be coming from someone besides Coinbase. 
They used to have no support whatsoever several years ago, and now they have a useless support department. Something needs to be done about the unscrupulous business practices of this company.