[colept]

Is there a viable alternative to Coinbase? Their support is absurdly awful. Two months and they sent two auto-replies to a simple ticket that couldn't be answered by the knowledge base. They don't care about your money - so long as it's already in their vault.

[sowbug]

Before you declare an exception to Hanlon's Razor, hear my story.

Long ago, Coinbase filled a buy order I placed. Then they filled it again. They credited the BTC twice but debited the USD only once. Like a good citizen of the Earth I filed a ticket letting them know their error. I got the same treatment you did. I even emailed Brian personally and via a private list I know he's on.

Years later I still have that BTC.

I think your "so long as it's already in their vault" dig is too strong. They haven't scaled as well as they should, that's all.

[colept]

Do a search for "Coinbase transaction fees."

You'll see theres no major announcement that in April 2017 Coinbase changed it's policy and stopped paying for up to 25 transaction fees on the blockchain. Now I have no problem with this practice in itself - it was a great feature - but my problem lies in that I didn't find out until my API payments started failing.

Here's where they actually announced it: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-spring-cleaning-4f27710ff...

In the middle of a blog post that's far out of sight. For a policy change of that effect I cannot believe how they conducted it.

Then there's the multitude of API problems over the years. I would send payments and the response indicated success, but I would login and see the payments were never sent from my account.

The volume of payments I send through Coinbase is far too high for two months to go by and still not know why their API just fails from time to time. They collect enough fees from instant buys and transactions that I would expect reliability and due diligence. Especially when the security of my business depends on it.

[thanksgiving]

Slightly off topic but I think transaction fees should be as close to zero. No, I am not talking about lightning. If we need to start fresh and design a new system that allows it, I am all for ditching Bitcoin altogether as well. It will have served a purpose in that we have learned a lot.

To me, low transaction fees is more important than even anonymity or decentralization. My understanding of the problem is that we need to somehow encourage everyone to run a full node. We've decided a transaction fee that goes to "miners" is a good way to do that.

Well, my problem is that now miners want higher transaction fees. We have inherently opposite goals and as such I cannot be allied with miners at all.

[kobeya]

Then make something else. Bitcoin is not designed to be a low/zero transaction fee system. It makes clear architectural choices in support of decentralization at the expense of scalability. Don't destroy bitcoin because you wanted something else.

[gst]

Here's another story:

Long ago I tried to withdraw my BTC, but after clicking the withdrawal button the browser tab was stuck waiting for the HTTP response. So after a while I opened a second tab and tried to withdraw again. Both withdrawals went through and I ended up with a negative BTC balance on Coinbase. I sent one of the transactions back so that my balance ends up at zero again.

[runeks]

Oh dear... this sounds like another Mt. Gox waiting to happen. In what world will this not be exploited sooner or later?

[consz]

I'm (pretty) sure this is a result of them using MongoDB. A friend of mine also accomplished a double sell (BTC -> USD, -1x credit on the BTC but +2x on the USD), he ended up keeping it and never hearing from Coinbase.

[blazamos]

VP Ops at Coinbase

We are trying to scale our support team as quickly as possible. Wish I had a better answer for you. https://blog.coinbase.com/improving-customer-support-139d99e...

If you still need help with your issue, send me an email (in my profile).

[wastedbrains]

biggest thing you need to do to improve support is stop sending mailings from a no-reply email address. Replying should create a support ticket automatically if the email it came from is associated with an account. Further verification could be required depending on the request.

[tehwebguy]

> stop sending mailings from a no-reply email address

This should be a general rule for the whole internet.

[twohlix_]

I think sending from a no-reply with a reply-to defined works though.

[97s]

Thank you for saying this. I feel like this is a major problem with a lot of services. If they care that little to send me an email from a no-reply then how do they expect to keep customers who want to reply to the same person. There is absolutely nothing more frustrating then having 5 different people work on a similar ticket and repeat yourself over and over.

[will_brown]

I saw your 3 month remote support contract position, I'm a lawyer in Miami working on my own tech projects, and would be interested in this type of temporary remote work with Coinbase while I hopefully get ramen profitable.

if appropriate forward my LinkedIn to the right person: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willbrownesq/

[simonebrunozzi]

If you are a lawyer, you should line up tens of unhappy Coinbase customers and start a class action.

[untog]

That doesn't sound like something you do while you're concentrating on bootstrapping your own project.

[lightedman]

That's generally not an allowed behavior by lawyers in the first place. First they must be approached by someone else who has been wronged, or the lawyer themselves must approach another firm. Otherwise, he is still free to represent himself and only himself.

[reefoctopus]

There is an application and short quiz here: https://www.coinbase.com/careers/6848?locale=en-US

[tombot]

A lot of the issues I've encountered (which were simple card verification errors due to addresses change) could have been easily solved with better Error messages, FAQs and staff training. Instead tickets go into a black hole, you wait 6 hours and get a boilerplate response.

[tmat]

your team is to dumb to be in charge of other peoples money.. Bought cannabis seeds(in a legal state) with coins I bought at coinbase(sent to another wallet, then purchased..) 3 years later I get an email saying my account has been closed due to purchases I've made... LOL coinbase can go to hell.

[pc86]

> to dumb

Okay

[tmat]

yes because the measure of someones intelligence is their grammar on the internet.

[runeks]

I’m not sure how Bitstamp works for people in the US, but as a European I’ve had good experience with it in the past. I used both Bitfinex and Bitstamp before Bitfinex got hacked, and have been using Bitstamp exclusively for the last couple of years without any issues. I use SEPA for EUR withdrawals, which arrive in my bank account the same day.

The only technical issue I’ve heard about with Bitstamp is the following, which I hope got fixed, but I never have orders in the book so it’s not relevant to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r4d6t/bitstamps_s... (synopsis: Bitstamp’s streaming order API revealing information about matched orders before they are matched).

To be fair, though, I’m pretty sure the limit order book was reinvented, from the ground up, for all Bitcoin exchanges established prior to 2012. It takes some time to get this right if you’re starting from scratch (the issue was reported in 2013).

[kornish]

Seconded. I've had money locked up in Coinbase, unable to sell or trade out of their platform, until I complete an identity verification. Problem is, their code seems to be buggy and even after correctly entering information, I'm told that no identity could be found.

No response from support, and from /r/coinbase and their user forums, seems many (many, many!) users have the same issue.

Not much point in using an exchange if you can't use it to...exchange.

[blazamos]

VP Ops at Coinbase.

Send me an email (in my profile) and we can have someone manually resolve.

[pc86]

Kornish's email is in his profile. Perhaps you should email him.

[mcherm]

> I've had money locked up in Coinbase, unable to sell or trade out of their platform, until I complete an identity verification. Problem is, their code seems to be buggy and even after correctly entering information, I'm told that no identity could be found.

I had a similar situation. It was frustrating. I opened a new support ticket referencing the previous issue and the fact that they had not corrected it despite a fairly lengthy period of time. In response to the second ticket, they immediately (within 4 days) corrected the problem.

Of course, this is only another anecdote. Real stats would be useful. An way to escalate issues that guaranteed actual review and contact by some human being would be even better.

[Pieman103021]

Similar experience, locked out of my account and was asked to reply to the ticket I submitted to keep it open before I even got a response. Of course I can't reply because I don't have access to the account associated with the email.

[mrb]

Gemini. I have been a customer of Coinbase for 4 years and Gemini for 6 months. Gemini's withdrawal to bank accounts are faster (same day). Support is more responsive. That said, both companies are licensed, 100% legit/trustworthy, and I like both honestly, but sightly prefer Gemini overall. Each company is a decent alternative to the other IMHO.

[nebabyte]

In what regard do you consider coinbase a "good alternative" to anything, let alone gemini?

The issues people have consistently reported with it for as long as I've known about it - bad lock-ins during fluctuations, difficulty resolving support requests and withdrawing - are all borderline showstoppers from where I sit; I don't think I'd ever use let alone recommend coinbase to anyone, no offense to its employees in this thread.

[mrb]

I stated merely my personal experience. I recognize others have different experiences... usually because of Coinbase's fraud detection false positives. Use Coinbase for a while, building a history of buying or selling, and it will help.

[nebabyte]

Still, in your personal experience, there would/could be examples of things it "does better" than gemini. I was wondering what those were.

[csorrell]

Gemini's identification process is a bit ridiculous imo. After sending them a copy of my drivers license to prove my identity, they emailed me back asking for copy of my most recent pay stub. Ah, no. That's farther than I'm willing to go. A quick google search leads me to stories about Gemini calling employers after receiving paystubs...

[thephyber]

Speed of Government << speed of business << speed of BitCoin forks

"viable alternative" seems pretty subjective.

CoinBase is a pretty damn big cryptocurrency exchange and it's based in the US and complies with US law. Mt Gox (an exchange that ceased operating a few years ago) was based in Japan and got pwned, causing the first large Bitcoin bubble burst. BTC-e just went down the same day Greek police arrested the alleged MtGox hacker, who reportedly had ties to BTC-e.

Choose your exchange carefully.

[barefoot]

I've had a similar experience with coinbase - likely the worst customer experience of my lifetime.

[sputknick]

In the process of switching to Gemini. Coinbase limits are too low. I've been waiting for two months for them to raise my limit to half of what Gemini will give me from the start.

[colept]

The only thing that keeps me from switching to Gemini is instant buy. I only buy the amount of Bitcoin I need to send payments immediately.

[evbots]

yes their support is really terrible. No longer a customer

[bostonvaulter2]

Yeah, a while ago I was trying to send some money to them but I wasn't able to validate my address because I had an apartment number but their form didn't include a space for an apartment number so I got a "non-matching address" error. I even contacted their support but they weren't helpful. I'm probably better off.

[wmf]

Maybe Gemini; it seems to be the "most legal".

[Taek]

Support on Gemini is also fantastic

[blubb-fish]

bitcoin.de - have no complaints

[Yhippa]

"move fast and break things"

[nebabyte]

When you've been sitting for months with the same broken infra, you're not exactly moving fast.