Topic: Bitstamp :( warnings and rejoinders. (Read 4970 times)

Bitstamp Holding my Wire Transfer because they need source of Crypto
I've wired $16000 on the 26th of September, and bitstamp is not crediting my account till this day because they need proof that i am the owner of bitcoin i had sent to them as well. The proof of bitcoin is hard to provide because i bought it through a friend and just gave him cash. We didn't work with receipts and he doesn't own an OTC business or so.



I provided an official purchase agreement where he (my friend , the seller) and I both signed and sent it to Bitstamp, but still no answer.



I am very worried and stressed because that was all my money and now I am just being left in the dark, regardless of calling them every single day to ask. Their answer remains: wait until we reply..

Even though I'm being buttfucked by Bitstamp at the moment I managed a cathartic laugh at that. Lol.



EXACTLY. [*If I had a few million dollars] I could do the same, just ID and proof of address. And indeed, crucially, if they at any point even attempt to fuck me, a stockbroker has a physical address that you can go to where you can seek answers accompanied by law enforcement if need be, plus a very serious regulator, often FDIC or equivalent coverage for deposits. The fact that no one knows where Bitstamp is hiding, with all your most sensitive personal information, is hypocritical, cowardly and downright disturbing.

My hunch is that they know if they revealed their location, they would probably not be safe. I don't think any bunch of people would, who freeze tens/hundreds of millions of dollars of assets belonging to other people. If they were operating legally, and customers weren't being robbed, I don't think there would be any need to hide behind empty mailboxes as registered addresses. Bitstamp is clearly avoiding the shitstorm that would come their way if their true location was found. They also have the funds to move so even if one location was found then it would be like a game of cat and mouse.


EDIT: It seems a few of these are being made public every week:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/cxhh7c/usd_deposit_hold_at_bitstamp_and_withdrawal_fees/

As they become more strict, Bitstamp is in danger of its customers turning against them if they do this to enough people. Soon it will develop a reputation for holding funds hostage and when that becomes common knowledge, no one will want to risk any kind of deposit there.

I think it's more Bitstamp than their banks. Their entire business depends on banks so they will be absolutely desperate to prove that they're well behaved little boys.

If a bank grunts at them they can point to the two thousand pages of questions and documents from each customer plus the photographs of their urethras and colons that they forced them into taking.

I'll guess this is all preemptive on their part.

I don't care if it's crypto and therefore scary, if I can run a few million dollars through a stock trading company with nothing other than 1 piece of ID and 1 proof of address, plus they will have an office I can burn down if they attempt to fuck me, then no way will a bunch of creeps in hiding get any more than that out of me.

Recently? They have been asking these sort of questions for almost six years now, if there's no full paper trail or clear blockchain evidence where your funds come from Bitstamp may hold your money hostage. A lot of people don't really use their coins much or use them mostly for speculation so they might not be facing these kind of problems.

@1Referee: This stuff all over the internet from countless people is not a "conspiracy theory", it is exactly what is happening.

For years before all this happened I had an opinion quite like you, that Bitstamp was supportive of people in Crypto, no problems depositing or withdrawing, although these were small amounts. Continue using it if you like but I feel it's wrong if I don't at least warn people.

By this time the average user won't suspect anything. So if his account grows naturally with prices, he doesn't know that when it reaches X amount his funds on Bitstamp will be frozen entirely.

They ask crazy questions which 99% of people can't answer with full paper trail because that's the nature of crypto. There is a point where it becomes unreasonable, they know it and they're using it as a "legal" excuse to hold people's money hostage.

The most ironic thing about Bitstamp is that they ask for more transparency than financial firms ask for from billionaires in the traditional financial system, but they won't even tell you where their actual office is located. The UK and Luxembourg addresses are mailboxes for business registration purposes only, it's not actually where they operate. They won't give a simple address, but we are expected to give up more information than any government authority keeps on us?

It would also help greatly if Bitstamp actually responded to customers' responses to the KYC/AML questions. Most of the time what they do is copy/paste the KYC/AML questionnaire, freeze the account, then ignore the customer. Even if the customer CAN answer the questions completely, how can the funds be unfrozen if nobody is there to respond. Like I said before either Bitstamp and/or its employees is actively stealing funds from people, or they do not have the staff or infrastructure to handle running KYC checks. What is so unique to Bitstamp? Kraken can do it. The rest can do it within reasonable time. You're lucky if you even get a response from these hidden KYC agents nowadays. It's the most disgusting practise to hold customers' funds hostage and simply wait for them to go away. That's basically what they are doing at the moment.

@tvbcof: I think the Korean firm is too recent to yet change things. It's still operating the same, at the moment anyway.

If we believe Bitstamp and it's because of demands placed on them by banks in the fiat system, then it may be for intelligence purposes, but more than likely, in my opinion, the traditional banking system has now seen Bitcoin/Crypto as a threat and will not easily deal with it, effectively choking off its oxygen supply. Even Coinbase now has been shitcanned by Barclays bank. The "best behaved". They know that if Bitcoin seriously takes off, huge parts of their business will remain redundant. But that's another topic.

Bitstamp will not be shut down. Don't listen to wildwest conspiracy theories. It's obvious that the people here exchanging walls of text have a motive to continuously hammer on Bitstamp.

Most of the people I know use Bitstamp since 2013/2014 and they haven't faced a single problem depositing/withdrawing fiat. The thing you can blame Bitstamp for is that they recently have started asking all sorts of silly questions, which is likely coming from one of their banking partners to make sure their bank accounts aren't being used while at the same time breaking existing laws the bank itself is subject to.

Man! If Bitstamp shut down it would be a major upset in the bitcoin world. I remember back when I first heard of bitcoin it Bitstamp was the only place where you could get it easily.
Coinbase wasnt even in the same discussion or the scene back then.
And as far as the Korean money angle is considered, I don't think funneling that money to and from between US-Korea would be much of a trouble.
It is being done for decades in other sectors already.

And yes, it seems as if US with its insane crypto policies is trying to not only be the leading voice in the sector, it is perhaps trying to be the only voice.
That kind of centralization is bad for Bitcoin and its users.

I thought Bitstamp was bought by a well funded Korean firm.  The problems my friend had initially when I started this thread seem to have stemmed from processor switching around that time.  Eventually these were resolved and friend got their wire.  Later when friend's volume exceeded $50k friend got hit with the 'give us impossible data' scam.  And again, it was possible for friend to remove funds in BTC with no problem unlike in your case.

Anyway, maybe I am wrong about the Korean firm.  Worth checking it out, though, since if it is the case it would seem to me to be the natural place to start.  Whether it would be easier or more difficult to make an entities operations difficult in Korea using legal means I do not know.

One thing I have observed is that there seems to be a dedicated and fairly successful effort to get all crypto/fiat exchange operations to be based in the U.S..  The main strategy seems to be to make any external exchanges noncompetitive via various kinds of harassment.  Interfering with their ability to transact in fiat-land primarily.  'Well behaved' exchanges like Coinbase are allowed to operate smoothly.  If I had been consulting on how to deal with the 'crypto problem', this would be one strategy I would recommend (or a phase of the strategy) so it's not surprising to me to see it.

I suspect that ultimately Bitstamp will end up as a property of Western intel (which itself is an appendage of the central banking cartel.)  The Korean money may have been just one stepping stone to make that happen, and they may have already 'flipped' this property.  Who knows?  If so, shutting Bitstamp down would be in the cards.  Might as well collect a ton of actionable intel in the process.

@figmentofmyass: I'm required to account for every single satoshi from the very first shitcoin that I bought long ago from exchanges which are no longer in existence or from people I bought from in cash in person and so on. All the corn is clean and it's never been involved in any actions other than legitimately exchanging cryptos as anyone else would, but I am suspecting it's the issue of the "fiat on" which they are concerned about. For example, proving that any tiny amount of money I put into Crypto years ago was not the result of criminal activity and now grew to a significant amount. I can and have easily proved to them that the tiny amount of fiat I speculated on Crypto was obtained legally, that's not hard, and any reputable bank I bank with would accept this. Bitstamp is just paranoid as hell. This is unironic cos the founders should know about BTC bull markets, they got in waaay before I did, Merlak just cashed out his 30% and flaunts his high life on instagram constantly, but now that same company he founded is asking users to account for every single satoshi since the beginning of time when they know records are just not available. Even though I am suspicious of these dirty Slovenian lurkers, I have had to hand over whatever I can get, but it's impossible to obtain what does not exist, and I refuse to be dragged to their criminal level, I refuse to invent documents which do not exist, as that is illegal.

My account has been locked for nearly 3 months now, my funds hostage for the same time. The first request message is the only message I got. I responded to every one of their questions as best I could, but no response since then, still locked. At this point I think what the f!ck else am I supposed to give. And I think that's the point. I've got bank accounts in highly regulated EU countries. Of course they did standard KYC and AML checks on me and as much as we complain about the fiat system, I've had no problems with traditional banks. I say let the banks worry about whether their account holders are criminals or not. At least (touch wood) I can trust a bank with my personal information even if they request a bit more than usual (which pretty much never happens). Some other posters, I'm not sure if on here, reddit or other review platforms, have said that if Bitstamp for whatever reason doesn't want to business with a user before, that's fine, just return the funds to the user and close the account. If they're so concerned about risk to them, just check people before they make these big deposits and refuse them at that point. In my experience, they waited until I had a significant amount to hold hostage, that would be worthwhile to them, and executed their standard hostage taking procedure. I can't reasonably see it as anything else at the moment.   


@gentlemand: I appreciate your more collected perspective. I do agree that there are steps to be taken prior to all out legal action.

The language barrier I was referring to was I suppose they might prefer to be contacted in their own language(s), but English is indeed acceptable.

Indeed. "Pricks" is one of the more moderate terms I would use to describe them, but it is one of the words I have muttered to myself in disbelief at their actions. So yeah, few other words encapsulate their behavior so succinctly.

With regard to "flat out theft", as @figmentofmyass states, there are many cases of people waiting literally months for their funds. While it is true that we don't know whether these cases were resolved or not, the fact that it has extended into months of very large 5 and even 6 figure EUR equivalents being held hostage is in itself very worrying. Add to that, most of the few cases that have resolutions posted by the OP have had to make, again as @figmentofmyass states
My opinion is that, if a customer lies down and takes the theft silent, Bitstamp will gladly take advantage of that user having given up due to the formidable task of first and foremost getting ANY response from their compliance team whatsoever after they have taken the customer's large deposit hostage, so that even if you DO somehow have everything they originally requested, the department in charge of reviewing that information provided simply never replies and the account stays frozen. That seems to be the default. In the miraculous event the KYC department does actually respond, they almost always seem to ask yet more, increasingly impossible to satisfy, questions and demands for documentation they know 99.9% of people won't be able to produce. And so the cycle just continues until, I suppose, the customer gives up. Bitstamp has performed a robbery using KYC laws on steroids as their defense. Pretty messed up but we both agree they are pricks. This takes it to a criminal level.

That's where the second type of customer comes in, Cyper of this forum being on of them. They took approximately $100k hostage. The difference between Cyper and other customers is that he literally wouldn't leave them alone. He did a lot of research and caused a lot of problems that in the end had those pricks in Eastern Europe shitting themselves. Normally you are ignored by Bitstamp apart from the "polite face" of the company, the customer support on the telephone, on reddit etc. who can't actually do anything to change the situation. Their job is to help newbies around the platform and to deny/deflect/stall when the KYC department freezes your 5 or 6 figure sum. Just that one reddit thread had over 400 replies. It's not a freak isolated incident. No one can get hold of the KYC people directly. Maybe they contract that part out to a third party, who knows. But Cyper somehow got the Head of Legal/Compliance to email him and talk to him for nearly an hour with profuse apologies.

Most customers, even if they don't exactly take it lying down, don't have Cyper's determination or knowledge, unfortunately.

Your statement before: is exactly how I feel. Their UK address is a mailbox. Their LUX address is a mailbox. You call them and it's basically someone called Grzo Grzkovic with a thick Slavic accent. And they wonder why people are hesitant to hand over pretty much all their information minus a DNA sample. I can't help but wonder whether the staff and management are that delusional. The cleanest of clean, model citizen with not even a single parking ticket in his life would be hesitant to hand over anything to them. Now more than ever where there is experience of countless people having their money held hostage without response.

It's a highly stressful experience, mentally and financially draining, to go through the national police, europol, regulators, lawyers, and anything else that is required to get someone from Bitstamp to crawl out of their anonymous hole in Slovenia to finally respond to a case. Even if it does get resolved in that person's favor, the question remains: why the heck should it be even *necessary* to involve law enforcement and regulators.

i've seen cases that were still unresolved months later, with bitstamp just swallowing 5-6 figures EUR equivalent into a black hole and ignoring customers on all fronts. in cases that were publicly resolved, people have reported needing to make extensive legal threats and/or contacting bitstamp's regulators/ombudsman/banks/europol etc to force them to respond.

i'm not convinced that everyone who stops posting gets their money back. i'd stop bothering at some point too. you said it yourself earlier ITT, and surely some victims have come to the same conclusion:

I've never heard of a flat out theft. The people who complain seem to go quiet or say they eventually got their money back. A lot of times when they return fiat there seem to be big arse fees out of nowhere but they blame intermediaries.

The UK registration has always been nothing other than a rented mailbox.

what exactly are they asking for---the entire blockchain history of each output you deposited? and what have they said will constitute adequate "proof"?


it's not understaffing or financial problems, agreed. i think they actually take the legal position that their actions are wholly justified. except when banks do this, they ostensibly contact the police and hold the funds in escrow. when bitstamp does it, they just quietly steal the customer's money and hide out in the balkans.

they may have changed their "registration" address to the UK but they are not based there in any capacity. that address is just the corporate formation lawyers that did bitstamp's UK registration. it's no better than a virtual office or forwarding address.

Before you start flying around and hiring lawyers have you tried emailing the entity who regulates them?

https://www.cssf.lu/en/contact/

Don't look like much of a language barrier to me.

I don't believe Bitstamp have any financial problems. They were sold recently to very well capitalised owners.

They are pricks though.

Thankyou, tvbcof, for your actionable suggestions.

It does scare me that Bitstamp may indeed be nearing its EOL and I'm right in the firing line. I'm torn between "waiting for customer service to respond as there is a large backlog" vs "TAKE ACTION NOW BEFORE EOL!"

Bitstamp is registered in the UK, Luxembourg and USA. It's only regulated in Luxembourg, which is very expensive, and would have a language barrier. UK seems more accessible but they are not regulated there, however they are registered as a UK company and all UK operations would be affected if some kind of judgment were made against them. They are also registered as a "data controller" in the UK and EU which means that (technically), they are legally bound to protect users' private data or they get shut down (in theory).

If what you're saying is true, regarding the selling of the data of presumably high net worth bitcoin holders, as potential targets to Eastern European criminals, that does indeed sound rather sinister, but it would not be implausible given what is happening at Bitstamp at the moment. Everything adds up, in particular, as you mentioned, the locking of Crypto withdrawals as well as fiat (which is understandable given how the electronic fiat system operates), and the constant buying time with boilerplate responses from superficial customer support staff who do absolutely nothing. Those who have the ability to press the buttons to enable Crypto withdrawals on accounts are either in severe shortage, or they are simply instructed not to enable withdrawals at all, rather, to target more accounts for shutdown.

Regarding the pooling of resources, there are plenty of people on reddit who posted under the same thread with their funds hostage, but gathering them and establishing a way forward to form a credible threat for real legal action against Bitstamp before it is too late, is a whole other matter.

"The management is a known entity who could be held culpable for real crimes." That made me think. Thank you. It's better to chase known figures rather than the elusive, invisible "KYC/AML agents" who don't respond to anything.

I will do my best with the few resources I have. If anyone else is reading this and being stolen or extorted by Bitstamp, please add to this thread or PM me.

As a new user I'm not sure if I am permitted to make new threads. If however EOL for Bitstamp is approaching, then it would be more than justified for an EOL Bitstamp Warning thread to be set up. At least others can try to get their funds out while they still can, or not put their funds there in the first place.

Way back in the day Bitstamp pulled a scam where they asked for standard KYC documents before releasing BTC.  That pissed a lot of people off who had sent BTC to them before their policy change.  They used the weak excuse that they made some mention on their Facefuck page, but a lot of Bitcoin users at the time were not the kind of people who would use that platform.  As an observer I considered it theft, but I was not a customer.

Eventually, years later, I did suggest to an associate that they try the platform.  Mostly because it was one of the only non-US service that had not been successfully shut down and it had not been 'hacked' resulting in a 'loss' of customer funds.  This is the standard way that services EOL.

It's possible that Bitstamp is nearing it's EOL and their inevitable 'got hacked, sorry' end-point.  If they are starting to appropriate BTC (vs. just not wiring USD which is actually an understandable problem) it is indicative that the end may be nigh.

Two things I could think of:

1)  Make their lives miserable 'on the cheap' by filing small claims in their jurisdiction to which they may be obligated to be responsive (if possible.)  Maybe a claim for each time you had deposited money with them.  If you can find someone in Luxembourg or wherever who would be willing to assist it would be helpful.  I started the process of harassing some crooked frogs in this manner but lost interest since they really had not actually stolen significant funds from me.  Being vocal on the various social media platforms (like this one) also feels good and is doing the world a service.

2) If others are starting to get ripped off in the same way, maybe pool some resources and make a credible threat for real lawful action.  The management is a known entity who could be held culpable for real crimes.

---

By the way, it is worth note that the highly detailed and personal information Bitstamp is asking for is probably highly valuable to real criminals who would like 'leads' for who, specifically, to target.  It is entirely possible that Bitstamp is increasing their bottom line by collecting and selling this information to criminals.

This would be an indication to me that Bitstamp may be planning to fold and the reason for their activities is to maximize the value of the information they hold.  It IS suspicious that they are asking for more than anyone else as it indicates that they are going above and beyond 'standard' AML over and above what seems to be industry standard.  This is one of the reasons why I suggested to my associate that they walk away from Bitstamp.

 

Cyper seems to have done a good bit of investigation here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.20884727

And in other posts in that thread.

He seems to have located them at that time, but it's a couple years later. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can legally locate these guys?

Also, does anyone know if Pantera Capital is still involved? According to UK Companies House records after the acquisition of Bitstamp the Pantera Capital guy resigned as Director and two new guys from the Belgian firm signed on as directors. Of course all their addresses listed are not their actual addresses, just mailboxes.

Is their bank still the Slovenian bank Gorenjska Banka? (Anyone know from recent deposits?)

Bitbay isn't as bad as some other exchanges, but BTC/PLN (Polish złoty) is the only currency pair there with a reasonable liquidity. They've been around since 2014 and I had no problems with them, but unfortunately they started asking their current customers to go through verification again by sending selfies, so they aren't heading in a good direction.

Yes, there are many of those kinds of threads about Bitstamp. I just never searched for them as I guess they were one of the most trusted exchanges in Europe at the time, and didn't give me any sh!t until now. I think the scam starts when you have any kind of significant amount in your bitstamp account, even if it would have obviously have been a very small amount if you were an early adopter or even bought just a few years ago.

The problem with the legal route is, as tvbcof rightly says, it's likely to be very costly and I would suspect Bitstamp would hang on to the corrupt legal system as long as they could as in "we retained customer X's deposit due to KYC/AML regulation concerns", which makes them look legit and the complainant as the possible criminal, when in fact Bitstamp is the one pulling the scam on innocent people. Yeah I know there are criminals in this world but really what % of the population? And I even made fiat deposits to Bitstamp itself a few years ago before the big bull market which would account for all of the current coins in my account. At this point, I don't even think it matters. I think they're selectively scamming people and this new "hey, we're regulated! we perform the best KYC/AML checks!" is the perfect excuse to hide what is large scale criminal activity. If I have reason to suspect large scale criminal activity, would it not make sense to get the Feds involved?

To be honest though, I don't want that drama in my life. I try to live a peaceful existence and keep myself to myself. Let's say any of these suspicions about Bitstamp are true - then I'm scared some giant Slovenian brute is gonna stab me in my sleep. Their lawyers would find some legal loopholes and get out of it anyway.

I would prefer to just get my money back and continue to warn people about Bitstamp, as any decent person would warn others about scams they know about. I just wish I had read this forum before putting my recent deposit into Bitstamp.

Thanks for the tip, but this seems like a solution for people with more time and patience than money.

The context I would be interested in hearing people's experience with would be real and legitimate exchanges with a good track record and the capability of doing reasonable volumes.  My associates have no need or interest in USD or EU and would prefer to avoid these monetary instruments just because of the hassle factor and to avoid needless monitoring by and interference from third-parties who have no business in the transactions.

Hi tvbcof,

Cheers for starting this thread. I wish I read it before I deposited.

My problem is that I deposited BTC, and BTC withdrawals, are disabled. How I wish I could just do an exchange, and take my coin elsewhere. But all types of withdrawals (fiat and crypto) are disabled.

I agree with you on both points that what Bitstamp is doing means they are guilty of theft, but that it would be prohibitively costly to pursue legally. AND that they have got fine print somewhere AND lawyers who can fabricate excuses to steal money regardless of how innocent the customer is - that is , they would tailor some sort of fit to make that customer look like a "potential money launderer" and that's good enough. It's pretty scary actually the power they have. I would be much less horrified if I didn't have a significant sum in my Bitstamp account being held hostage with no response.

It's strange how Bitstamp has done a complete change from its origins. Its founders were early adopters so you would expect them to understand and also be... "supportive" of the spirit of Bitcoin, freedom and all that stuff, opposing the way the fiat monetary system allows mass surveillance and so on...  but it seems they have gone the opposite way... They are even WORSE than banks. We talk about how banks freeze money, ask too many questions etc., but I've never in my life had any bank account frozen. No bank has asked for such a crazy amount of information as Bitstamp. Damn... my fiat bank providers are actually *reasonable* compared to Bitstamp!

Indeed. I do not plan to fabricate records which I don't have. But that seems to put me in the same position I started: I can't provide what they are asking (btw they already have my passport, bank statements and more, more than banks or any other exchange got), so in their eyes they are justified in keeping my money on KYC/AML "guilty until proven innocent" grounds. This sh!t is crazy, you can't make this up in some kind of dystopian horror film. Well that's how I feel inside anyway, it's gut wrenching...

I'm not even sure whether to go "hard" or "soft" with them, in the sense of reporting them to all relevant authorities as Cyper did in his thread, or just by adding another message essentially begging them and I will give them whatever they want. It's crazy because I've heard of other members in yet another thread about the Bitstamp KYC/AML hostage funds nightmare, that Bitstamp wanted every private conversation with anyone he had been involved with to do with Bitcoin dating back to when he transacted his first satoshi. How the heck is anyone supposed to provide that (no1) and no2, this is a crazy invasion of privacy. I think that guy also said, if Bitstamp asked for his mother to f*** , then he would have to give her. In my opinion this goes WAY beyond simple KYC/AML and actually does a 180 back into criminal territory, meaning Bitstamp is doing some kind of messed up hostage taking/extortion/blackmail operation straight out of some sh!thole in Eastern Europe.

I even told them on the phone "where you at bro I will come and see you in person so you can take my DNA and fecanalysis and whatever else you need, cos I'm only a short flight away, it's no problem" and they tell me "we can't disclose our location for security purposes"!

So they basically want everything from me including anal probe, but they don't give their customers any REAL address?

I'm not saying there will be a Mt Gox here, but something is not right. At absolute best, they are severely understaffed and my situation will be resolved one day. More realistically I think those dirty Slovenes are taking financial legislation and twisting it to extort/blackmail people on a mass scale. It was mentioned before that the financial regulator in Luxembourg (CSSF) would probably approve of excessive KYC/AML practises, but at the same time to use that very legislation that is "intended" to protect people, in order to illegally confiscate legal deposits from law abiding citizens on a grand scale, I dunno, maybe I should try that avenue. Maybe the CSSF in Luxembourg won't be too happy about one of their regulated payment institutions using their own guidelines as excuses to get away with what is illegal activity: theft, blackmail, extortion, whatever you call it.

You also mentioned this in your OP:


Exactly! Why do they monitor socal media like that and post the same nice stuff on reddit to the conveyor belt of people being f!ked by them, instead of just solving the problem so that the person had no need to cry for help on reddit?

EVERY single Bitstamp employee is not native in English, they're Slovenian. They've been well trained on the cookie cutter phrases to make themselves look good in public, while they ignore and steal in private. When anyone on reddit or trustpilot has had the same experience as me (money frozen and stolen from Bitstamp on "KYC/AML" grounds), you can read the exact same response, word for word. It's all bullsh!t. Nice words while they steal your life savings, I guess that's Bitstamp 2019. In case anyone else is reading, beware of these guys.