Beware -- Coinpayments.net stealing customers' funds

[sulima]

More and more people, perhaps from this forum as well, use cryptocurrencies and CoinPayments.net is one of the most popular payment gateways. There's unfortunately a problem, they're stealing customers' funds.

 

My BTC payment for the CoinPayments.net transaction ID CPFJ5O1YUNMNYJ67UINULJRR1G wasn't confirmed on time, despite enough fee selected in the Electrum wallet. I've received an email from CoinPayments.net with their PGP signature confirming that I had a refund of 0.00244000 BTC available to me. I requested a refund though the link to the address < removed by moderation > but only 0.00204000 BTC arrived to the address.

CoinPayments.net has effectively stolen my 0.0004 BTC. I raised the problem with the support and they replied to me that their TOS allowed them to kept the arbitrary amount. It was an obvious lie. I've just checked their current User Agreement available on their website. Section 6.2 reads as follows:

 

Quote

Refunds of virtual currency and other funds may be returned to you minus our costs, the unsubsidized coin/miner network transaction fee and any other third party charges.

There's no word on any fixed arbitrary charge. They can deduct only their actual costs. Their actual cost in case of my refund was only 0.00000785 BTC (ID: ceadc60544308af586cd318e6e4c987e95953ba1292a5d903bb41c36e6daed6c). This means that they've breached provisions of their own User Agreement and effectively stolen my 0.00039215 BTC.

Instead of refunding my money, they closed the ticket, banned me from their support platform and stolen my funds.

 

Avoid CoinPayments.net and never trust them.

I can upload evidence if anyone wants to see more details.

Edited October 28, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[tikker]

They kept 0.0004 BTC, which is exactly their withdrawal/transaction fee for BTC. Since you mention Electrum I figure they refunded you to an external wallet, in which case to me it doesn't sound like they've stolen anything, but that you simply missed a point in their list of fees.

 

This isn't regular banking, so a refund because your transfer "wasn't on time" will also cost money and won't get you back the original amount.

[Kid.Lazer]

Did you just post your unique Crypto wallet address on a public forum?

[sulima]

15 minutes ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

> see User Agreement 3.1

 

and this https://www.coinpayments.net/help-fees

 

Disclaimer: I am in no way supporting their claims, I have just found some information that matches your case.

It doesn't match actually. It wasn't a withdraw, it was a refund of an expired payment.

Also, 0.0004 BTC is their subsidized fee for withdrawals -- in other words, you pay 0.0004 BTC flat fee for withdrawal regardless if the network fee is higher or lower. Section 6.2 of the User Agreement confirms that for refunds the unsubsidized fee applies:

Quote

Refunds of virtual currency and other funds may be returned to you minus our costs, the unsubsidized coin/miner network transaction fee and any other third party charges.

So for refunds, they should deduct the actual network fee, and not 0.0004 BTC.

14 minutes ago, tikker said:

They kept 0.0004 BTC, which is exactly their withdrawal fee for BTC. Since you mention Electrum I figure they refunded you to an external wallet, in which case to me it doesn't sound like they've stolen anything, but that you simply missed a point in their list of fees.

It wasn't a withdrawal. Section 6.2 confirms that for refunds they should deduct only the actual costs and not any kind of flat fee.

[Bad5ector]

4 minutes ago, Kid.Lazer said:

Did you just post your unique Crypto wallet address on a public forum?

Why does that matter? Unless you have a the .dat file and the password (if there is one), the address can only be used to deposit or view on a blockchain viewer. Or am I missing some obscure privacy thing?

[sulima]

Just now, Bad5ector said:

Why does that matter? Unless you have a the .dat file and the password (if there is one), the address can only be used to deposit or view on a blockchain viewer. Or am I missing some obscure privacy thing?

You're correct and I didn't publish any information that isn't publicly available (except Coinpayments.net transaction ID which is useless to third-parties). Bitcoin addresses and all transactions are public.

[tikker]

15 minutes ago, Kid.Lazer said:

Did you just post your unique Crypto wallet address on a public forum?

Nobody can do anything with just your wallet address except see what's there.

14 minutes ago, sulima said:

It wasn't a withdrawal. Sections 6.2 confirms that for refunds they should deduct only the actual costs and not any kind of flat fee.

I think what you need to figure out here is what for them "our costs" and the "third party charges" are. EULAs are intentionally vauge so that these kind of statements can mean anything.

 

Did you meet all the criteria they mention? Was it still "under their control" as they say? It can perfectly be that they had to pay transaction fees somewhere else to get it back to you.

[sulima]

25 minutes ago, tikker said:

Nobody can do anything with just your wallet address except see what's there.

I think what you need to figure out here is what for them "our costs" and the "third party charges" are. EULAs are intentionally vauge so that these kind of statements can mean anything.

 

Did you meet all the criteria they mention? Was it still "under their control" as they say? It can perfectly be that they had to pay transaction fees somewhere else to get it back to you.

Yes, it was entire under their control and there was no third-party costs or fees involved except for the network fee of 0.00000785 BTC.

 

Their support even confirmed my position in an email today:

Quote

"Refunds of virtual currency and other funds may be returned to you minus our costs, the unsubsidized coin/miner network transaction fee and any other third party charges."      Then on our fee's page you can see where the subsidized fee is defined.

So, in effect they confirmed that I should've been charged the "unsubsidized fee" and that 0.0004 BTC is the "subsidized fee". When I pointed this out, they banned me from their support.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Folding@home, Boinc, and Coin Mining

 

Wallet address removed as its not required on discussion here. Its also against our rules on advertising and begging.

[sulima]

2 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Folding@home, Boinc, and Coin Mining

 

Wallet address removed as its not required on discussion here. Its also against our rules on advertising and begging.

Thank you for moving the topic into the most appropriate category.

 

As we can see, CoinPayments.net is genuinely stealing customers' funds. If you have any other payment method available, better avoid CoinPayments every time. They're stealing funds and their support is appalling.

[artuc]

Many CEX's charge higher flat fees on transfers than the actual gas/transaction fee.

 

1. They get a higher fee doing this

2. The cost is fixed and known

3. Less complexity than dealing with fluctuating fees

 

They are probably screwing you on the fee, but their processes are likely automated for the flat amount. Also just because the transaction on chain had that fee doesn't mean they didn't incur other costs. For example they may actually use another exchange or defi platform behind the scenes that may pass on other charges and so on.