[UPDATE: Visa is at fault] Coinbase Charging Accounts Multiple Times

[FireClawGames]

UPDATE: Visa is at fault! Check the edit for information.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/15/17017374/coinbase-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-ether-unauthorized-charges

Quote

In a typical anecdote posted on Reddit, one user said they purchased Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin for a total of $300 on February 9th. A few days later, the transactions repeated five times for a total of $1,500, even though the user had not made any more purchases. That was enough to clear out this user’s bank account, they said, resulting in fees.

“My bank account went from very comfortable to negatives balance, not to mention extra $5 charges, and overdraft fees,” the user wrote. “As a result my rent check bounced, and my bank went further into negative for a NSF charge for $25. My landlord is not a nice person and is on my CASE and I have nothing to offer him. I am FREAKING OUT.”

Quote

This morning, February 15th, another Coinbase employee wrote on Reddit that “the unexpected charges are originating outside of our control, and are related to charges from previous purchases.” The charges are in the process of being refunded, the employee wrote, although he did not say whether resulting overdraft charges would also be refunded. “We are running joint investigations with all parties involved, and will provide updates as we receive them,” he wrote.

Quote

This isn’t the first time Coinbase has double-charged its customers. The company had a similar issue in May 2016.

Coinbase being one of the most popular ways of buying cryptocurrencies it makes crytpo look bad and puts a huge stain on their reputation. Hopefully anyone that had bought coins with Coinbase after learning about crypto in their Mining Adventure series and on the WAN Show didn't get affected by this issue. Personally I know a lot of people who've used Coinbase and I think that most people who are just getting into it would use Coinbase given how much people recommend using their service. If it happens a third time I'm sure they'll be seeing people looking for alternatives even more than they are now.

 

It's a fantastic that they're refunding people, however I feel like the damage done will cause many to want more than a refund for their troubles.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-15/coinbase-says-customers-who-got-wrongly-charged-will-get-refunds

Quote

The glitch arose as some financial companies changed how they classify card purchases made on crypto exchanges, the company said. Weeks ago, buyers of digital coins began complaining that they were getting hit with “cash advance” fees on their cards -- the result of an arcane code that financial firms assigned to the transactions, essentially treating them as akin to buying a traditional currency.

I feel like there should've been some sort of fail safe to make sure this sort of thing wouldn't happen. It reminds me of how Luke had been talking about how they weren't going to handle credit card transactions themselves (although I don't know how accurate that is now) and would use services like Stripe or PayPal to handle them instead.

EDIT:

Coinbase had originally stated that it was Visa's fault, then Visa claimed they weren't at fault, and then this joint statement came out on Coinbase's blog:

 

https://blog.coinbase.com/joint-statement-from-visa-and-worldpay-for-coinbase-customers-9a6f2ff5f3b3

Quote

Over the last two days, some customers who used a credit or debit card at Coinbase may have seen duplicate transactions posted to their cardholder accounts.

 

This issue was not caused by Coinbase.

 

Worldpay and Coinbase have been working with Visa and Visa issuing banks to ensure that the duplicate transactions have been reversed and appropriate credits have been posted to cardholder accounts. All reversal transactions have now been issued, and should appear on customers’ credit card and debit card accounts within the next few days. We believe the majority of these reversals have already posted to accounts. If you continue to have problems with your credit or debit card account after this reversal period, including issues relating to card fees or charges, we encourage you to contact your card issuing bank.

 

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused customers.

So apparently Coinbase was not at fault for this which is great news! Hopefully Visa and their issuing banks don't make this sort of mistake again in the future.

Edited February 18, 2018 by FireClawGames
Added recent developments, added link to joint statement, added quote for convenience, removed unnecessary links, and updated title to reflect changes.

[Delicieuxz]

Yup. They've done this to me multiple times. I've messaged Coinbase support about it multiple times, too, and supplied screenshots proving it - going back a while. Coinbase support has never responded back, and has not refunded me the times it charged me twice. Coinbase may well be stealing from its users, and only admitting to and dealing with the situation when the public awareness reaches a tipping point.

[Canada EH]

Informative

 

Thats too bad

[themctipers]

ill sell anyone with paypal one whole tipers coin

it's as valuable as fiat money OR crypto, with its value being 1 tipers coin = 1 tipers coin

 

sure, you can trade a tipers coin for some dogecoin, but why would you!

 

starting at $10/coin.. divisible upto a whole number

[Ginger_]

11 minutes ago, themctipers said:

ill sell anyone with paypal one whole tipers coin

it's as valuable as fiat money OR crypto, with its value being 1 tipers coin = 1 tipers coin

 

sure, you can trade a tipers coin for some dogecoin, but why would you!

 

starting at $10/coin.. divisible upto a whole number

Whats my limit?

[themctipers]

1 minute ago, Ginger137 said:

Whats my limit?

none,

i can write down how much tipers coin^TM  you have and I can make more out of thin air

 

but buying 1 tipers coin is going to cost $10 USD

[dead300times]

Will Coinbase turn into Mt. Gox 2.0?Coinbase has been nothing but trouble for me.They have yet to allow me to buy anything more than what a friend put in my account when i opened it and that means i missed out on a bunch of gains.I was gonna buy $1000 worth of Ripple @ .25 a few months back and it went to over $3.00.I wanted to sell my Bitcoin  @ $19,100 and buy back in at the low which was about $13,000,and also @ $16,800 and buy back @ $10,500 but since buys were disabled and even though i tried to contact them several times they didnt get back to me for weeks and their response didnt help whatsoever.For anyone wondering,yes,i went through their verification process and got verified %100.Now i have to go through Gemini to buy Bitcoin,but i still have about 1 on coinbase.Gemini however requires a wire transfer which with my bank can not be done online,so i have to go down to my bank and hope that there is a rep there that is authorized to even do a wire transfer. /wrists,please shoot me now 

 

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Interesting, I wonder if GDAX, the exchange powering Coinbase, is affected by this bug.

[Ginger_]

29 minutes ago, themctipers said:

none,

i can write down how much tipers coin^TM  you have and I can make more out of thin air

 

but buying 1 tipers coin is going to cost $10 USD

I'll take them all. ALL.

 

4 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

Interesting, I wonder if GDAX, the exchange powering Coinbase, is affected by this bug.

Thats what I've been wondering, I do most of my trades through them to cut out as many fees as possible.

[Mooshi]

I actually hope more things like this happens to force government involvement to make the mass population realize how stupid fake coins are and bans them outright making value drop to zero where it belongs.

[Blademaster91]

27 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

I actually hope more things like this happens to force government involvement to make the mass population realize how stupid fake coins are and bans them outright making value drop to zero where it belongs.

It sucks for the people that depend on it to pay stuff like rent (even though they shouldn't be) but I agree because these coin exchange exploits are happening too often. Too bad

[DrMacintosh]

Can’t have any issues with fake currency if you don’t deal with fake currency 

[Blademaster91]

Treating fake unregulated currency like real currency,poor miners.

[DutchTexan]

 

I'm calling bullshit.

 

If the user bought 3 different currencies with a total of $300, then he is probably just mad he lost money and has a very slim chance at ever getting a ROI.

 

Secondly, Coinbase fees are no where near that high. Buying $200 worth of bitcoin right now costs $2.99, $5.87 for $400 and so forth. Was he using paypall as a middle man? Then the fee's can be much higher because of paypall, not coinbase.

 

Thirdly, if I spent $1000 on bitcoin through coinbase via my bank account, then the fees are already subtracted from that amount. AKA there is no way I will be able to spend more than $1000, because coinbase would take that $1000 order as $985.32 toward bitcoin with $14.68 fees. 

 

Honestly, this sounds like a stupid kid that made a poor investment/lost money, didn't know what he was getting into, or just pissed off his $300 over 3 currencies didn't make him rich. Even if they did SOMEHOW charge him an additional 5 times for all 3 of separate transaction fees... then there's no way that amounted to over $100, let alone $1,500

 

Yeah. I'm calling bullshit.

 

 

2 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

Yup. They've done this to me multiple times. I've messaged Coinbase support about it multiple times, too, and supplied screenshots proving it - going back a while. Coinbase support has never responded back, and has not refunded me the times it charged me twice. Coinbase may well be stealing from its users, and only admitting to and dealing with the situation when the public awareness reaches a tipping point.

Show the screenshots then.

 

Coinbase might not be perfect and there are several legitimate things to complain about, but it's still the best in the business. Coinbase/GDAX is cut above every single other exchange, hands down. 

[Canada EH]

Linus Coin is what I wanna mine

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, FireClawGames said:

Coinbase being one of the most popular ways of buying cryptocurrencies it makes crytpo look bad and puts a huge stain on their reputation.

The financial world does not really work that way,  One institution being sloppy will at worst only slow adoption but it will not make crypto look bad, just themselves.  I say this because conventional digital currency encounters the same issues here and there.  Banks that deposit the money into wrong accounts, payout twice on withdraw etc.  Some even foreclose loans accidentally.  Consumers and advisors typically blame the institution not the technology.

 

EDIT: what will give Crypto a bad name is all the thefts and rise in ransomware directly related to it.  That shit provides an uncertainty that it is not secure.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

6 hours ago, DutchTexan said:

 

I'm calling bullshit.

Are you calling bullshit on Coinbase? Because according to OP, they admitted the issue.

 

[Mihle]

Well, the only option to deposit money to coinbase in my country is SEPA transfer do there is no way for them to charge me more than what I want to.

[themctipers]

22 hours ago, Ginger137 said:

I'll take them all. ALL.

 

Thats what I've been wondering, I do most of my trades through them to cut out as many fees as possible.

i have only a finite amount of tipers coin, so you better buy a lot of them !

i have a 6tb hdd, every byte adds a 9 to the end of the amount of tipers coin there can be.

 

you can do the trades through tipers

with a guaranteed minimum and maximum fee of 100% of whatever you transfer to me..

[FireClawGames]

21 hours ago, DutchTexan said:

fees

They weren't fees. The issue is say they buy $200 worth of some crypto and then a bug charged them that amount more than once due to a bug. Please read a little more before you rant.

[FireClawGames]

20 hours ago, mr moose said:

The financial world does not really work that way,  One institution being sloppy will at worst only slow adoption but it will not make crypto look bad

My thinking is that people will keep hearing about these issues with exchanges and sites like Coinbase and will just think that's a it's a problem with crypto as a whole, which given the regulation issues it kind of is in a way.

[FireClawGames]

21 hours ago, Canada EH said:

Linus Coin is what I wanna mine

I really want to learn how to run a pool and then create a pool for it whenever they announce it. I hope they choose an algorithm ASIC-resistant so their fans can mine it even though they really don't want us to.

[Canada EH]

5 minutes ago, FireClawGames said:

I really want to learn how to run a pool and then create a pool for it whenever they announce it. I hope they choose an algorithm ASIC-resistant so their fans can mine it even though they really don't want us to.

it will never happen!

[mr moose]

34 minutes ago, FireClawGames said:

My thinking is that people will keep hearing about these issues with exchanges and sites like Coinbase and will just think that's a it's a problem with crypto as a whole, which given the regulation issues it kind of is in a way.

 

Those sorts of people would likely never get involved with it anyway.   The push for mainstream acceptance comes from those heavily invested in it already and the financial sector/governments will accept or reject it in on it's own merits.  

 

EDIT: to clarify, the uselessness of one exchange will surely turn a few people off, but then there are many others like yourself that see past one exchange being the "be all and end all" of crypto.  Consider the majority of the financial world to be just as intelligent only with more experience.

[DutchTexan]

1 hour ago, FireClawGames said:

They weren't fees. The issue is say they buy $200 worth of some crypto and then a bug charged them that amount more than once due to a bug. Please read a little more before you rant.

Then I stand corrected and it is more serious than I thought.

 

1 hour ago, FireClawGames said:

My thinking is that people will keep hearing about these issues with exchanges and sites like Coinbase and will just think that's a it's a problem with crypto as a whole, which given the regulation issues it kind of is in a way.

This is a great point and actually more valid than I thought at first. This story is just unacceptable, especially for Coinbase. It could have widespread repercussions for US liquidity in crypto if it keeps happening.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

Those sorts of people would likely never get involved with it anyway.   The push for mainstream acceptance comes from those heavily invested in it already and the financial sector/governments will accept or reject it in on it's own merits.  

 

EDIT: to clarify, the uselessness of one exchange will surely turn a few people off, but then there are many others like yourself that see past one exchange being the "be all and end all" of crypto.  Consider the majority of the financial world to be just as intelligent only with more experience.

I'm not so sure. If their user base abandons ship, then that's pretty much gg for the American market. There aren't very many options to get USD to crypto or vice versa, thus negating the whole crypto sphere for the US...