Topic: BitInstant extremely poor design, lots of confusion, poor service (Read 5480 times)

The issue was resolved quickly.

Not a problem at all, just PM me your Order ID

I've tried using bitinstant too over the last couple of days - without much success. I agree with the OP, I was confused about the same things. First my test transfer from mtgox to bitstamp of 25 usd went through without problems. Then I tried some more money and kept getting an error message. Tried it again today with some money and it worked. Tried it a second time and even though bitinstant says the the transfer was okay, I don't have my money in bitstamp and moreover got this error in their confirmation email:

> APIResponse: {"error": {"amount": ["You have only $10.59 available. Check your account balance for details."]}}

Apparently bitinstant never had the funds available in bitstamp to even credit my account!
Now my mtgox code is gone, no cash in bitstamp. Very frustrating stuff.

I used to vote Republican  until they passed that vile Safe Ports Act w/ the (republican pushed) UIGEA 'hidden' inside

i think both parties are at fault for the Patriot Act (senate was 99-1?)... not sure about the house, except I know Ron Paul voted against it, without even having to check 

You are awesome, thank you for doing so and giving us your trust back


The issue was our fault, and ZVS was rightfully frustrated. Whatever was said was said, but its all good now.

Lets all move on and look at the real enemy, the state! 

I was referring to the chain of emails you posted earlier. You specifically wanted him to email you from a BitInstant.com address. He emailed you from a different email address (one that was in your original email). I didn't say a thing about the message board PMs.

The resistance to supplying information, I said, relates to most issues I see people having with BitInstant here on the forums. That goes along with not always accepting the support they're given. I didn't say that both applied to your case. I did see the second scenario applied to your case though: from what you've posted, Charlie emailed you twice from one email address before you requested (through the forum) that he email you from a BitInstant.com email address. I personally don't see why the email address he used should matter in terms of getting the issue resolved quickly (especially since it was an email address that you had included in your initial email on the 24th). I'm sure you have your reasons for it.

I will admit that I don't, of course, know all the details of your transaction: that's between you and the company. And I apologize if I made a harsh judgment on the situation based on information only seen here. But I'm only going off details from of your public complaint against BitInstant. If it was a matter you wanted to keep completely private, you didn't have to make a case before the BitCoin community about it.

As a side note, I don't think my "asskissing" threw you off as much as you believe. Your post was pretty hefty regardless.

They have 'anything' on their website guaranteeing that it takes an hour after you place an order.  I'm pretty sure that's what 'Guaranteed' means.  If guaranteed doesn't mean that it's guaranteed, then it shouldn't be guaranteed.  Make sense?  Do I need to elaborate?  Post some screenshots?

Your quotes?  That is supposed to be relevant..... how?   I placed an order.  After I placed an order, I received a guarantee.  If the funds weren't going to be ready in that typical hour, then I shouldn't have received a guarantee after placing my order.

My resistance to supply information?  Good lord, what the hell are you talking about?  I supplied all the information necessary.  I think.  Right?  If I didn't, wouldn't support mail me and ask me for some more information?  

I wanted Charlie to email me?  I wanted to get a refund.  Mailing someone on these forums is not an email.  Whether or not I was "upset" is irrelevant, unless you're suggesting that it would be so difficult for him to log on to a BitInstant account that it would result in hours of delay, rather than messaging me on these forums.  Is that what you're suggesting?

He mailed me on these boards several times.  It has nothing to do with the emails.   Please, stop talking out of your ass.

And here I was going to make some speech about how we'd finally reached an agreement I was happy with and that it's nice that the head of the company took the time to email me... then I have to read this drek.   So, then, in short:  I was refunded my original purchase amount and compensated for an exchange price difference, which was generous of them to do as it wouldn't have even been something I'd request in BBB mediation.   I would advise other people that have delayed transactions not to worry about it, but I would say to be diligent about mailing support (especially if you want a refund, rather than to complete the transaction).

I was going to post some more, but the 21after2 asskissing threw me off way too much.  (and I would call you out on some of your false assumptions, except for the fact that a third party is involved and we have already come to an understanding)

... and I did update the BBB with a glowing review of how the problem was handled.    Guess that's the last edit.

In defense of BitInstant, they don't have an obligation or anything on their website guaranteeing that it only takes an hour:



The hour deadline is an average estimate, and if they offer to refund your fees if it takes longer and you're unhappy with the delay.

From what I've seen on the support thread and in complaint threads on the forum, it seems like people with the longer delays tend to have them because of their resistance to supply information relating to the order or to accept the support that's given to them. You wanted Charlie to email you, which he did, and you're upset about the email address he sent it from? The reply address he used was one of the three you sent you message to in your original email. Doesn't look to me like he was the one delaying things at all.

Glad to see Yankee is out here resolving issues. Keep improving...

Agreed, I sent you an two emails last night from my [email protected] address, please reply there so we can resolve this!

Charlie

I sent a PM requesting all further communication occur directly from a Bitinstant email address.  

I sent this email:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:21:15 -0600

got a response here:

To: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:52:09 -0800
From: [email protected]

sent this email in reply:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:13:02 -0600

several hours later, after not receiving a response, I then sent another email:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]      (trying to cover as many bases as possible, here)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 03:27:14 -0600

This morning, I got a response from you:

To: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 06:38:09 -0800
From: [email protected]

Indicating that you had sent me an email 15 hours ago and were still awaiting my reply.  My reply to that message is here:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:57:10 -0600

I wanted to avoid discussing it on here, but I felt a response was needed in regard to the insinuation that I was the one causing delays by ignoring your recompense offer.

From now on I won't talk about the issue here.  Again, I'd like all further correspondence to be conducted via an entity recognizeable as BitInstant rather than these forums.

One last thing to some other folks on this thread,  I spoke to the BBB mediator and she said that it usually takes a couple of complaints for a company to get listed on the BBB Website (assuming that the first few complaints are resolved in a positive manner).  I was told I was the first person to file a BBB complaint against BitInstant. 

I have received the refund! Thanks for your help!

I'm looking forward to see the new site! 

Hey, you sent me a PM saying you'd rather speak thru email. I sent you two emails last night waiting for reply.

I've sent everything thru the BitInstant support email address.  I've still yet to receive a refund, approx. 28 hrs later.  I shot off an email to the NY BBB and plan on ringing them when they finally open.  10 EST til 4 EST?  The Tyler branch is open 8 hours..

That, and the we've been having growing pains lately especially with this rally. We literlally just brought on another support member to help with the new issues.

BitInstant has never scammed or robbed anyone.


Hey, we do always return fees. If yours was not, Im sorry. Please PM me your Order ID and Ill promptly do it.


Im checking my PM's now for your info


Just for the record chungenhung, we took all your suggestions and redesigned our whole site.

I want to personally thank you for helping us our with your ideas. The new site should be live within a few weeks 

Your next transfer is on the house my man.

1. They happen to be working now?
2. It has been a LONG time since my first post.

I sent 2 emails to support and didn't receive a response until 11:30am central, on a transaction that was 'guaranteed' to be completed in one hour.  You'd think they'd have someone around 24/7, throwing around guarantees like that

I tried calling the BBB to expedite (at around 3:20pm central) but they close at 4 EST, lol.

I am waiting on a refund now, for several hours.

as long as that is done, it isn't bad to be listed on BBB anyway, and there would be 1 out of 1 resolved complaints

(i've gone thru the BBB four times and only had one complaint stick.   you have to make sure to keep track of everything, record phone conversations, all emails, etc.  they are 99% for business, that is where nearly all their donations come from anyway)

(ed one last time:  it would be easy just to change this wording.  make it our guaranteed delivery time or your transaction fee back or somesuch.. dont tell me expected delivery time is in 4 minutes and guaranteed is in one hour then ignore 2 support emails for 7 hours).  i suppose in some cases it could be the fault of the exchange, but in my case it wasn't

I just tried "live chat" on BitInstant and received a live operator in about 15 seconds.  Can't speak for other cases, but...

I spend at least a good hour trying to figure it out.
The "live chat" have no one on it.
The "support" have no one responding. The earliest response was 2 days after I submitted it, and they only responded b/c I started this thread.

It's obvious to those who take an extra minute to see how the site works.  It sounds to me like you were hasty and you wanted your BTC right away, so you gambled your money and made a transaction even though you were still confused.  Why would you use a site you weren't 100% sure about how it operates, anyway?  Especially with Bitcoin?  But instead of taking that extra minute to figure it out, or even instead of contacting support for clarification, you acted out of confusion and then decided that BitInstant should take the blame for it. 

It's not fair to call BitInstant a "poor service" when it works.  It's not fair to call it "confusing" when the whole site has step-by-step instructions, an FAQ, and a live support chat to help remedy that confusion.  Anything can be confusing, but it's not fair to call it such when you didn't take any of the available steps to try to fix your confusion.  Instead, you acted out of confusion as if it were a sound financial decision, then you freaked out because you didn't know what you were doing and you blamed BitInstant for it.