They may be trying to buy patience from customers. Coinbase used this strategy a while back with canned replies etc. The number of complaints was increasing.
I suppose to not create panic waves or something about. It could work in a very short time period, but doing it for a longer period can be a challenge to them lol
Topic: Bitstamp :( warnings and rejoinders. - page 3. (Read 4924 times)
Nice to see all of the old-timers!
Holding people's BTC hostage until they produced an identity theft kit and supplied it to Bitstamp as they did back in the day was a true dick move. Other entities who were compelled to migrate to more 'approved' KYC methods did not do this. I swore that I would avoid their service for that reason and to this day I have.
In Bitstamp's defense, I noted that it's now half a decade on and I have not see a huge number of claims of flat out theft. Seems like they have been trying successfully to operate a legitimate business and be contemplative in this challenging space. It also seems that when they did eventually get hacked they made their customers whole and ate the losses, though I would also note that it would be easy to engineer psy-op along these lines for marketing reasons. e.g., to 'build credibility'.
At the end of the day, there are simply not a lot of good options for cashing out of BTC when one needs fiat in the real world. Bitstamp was simply the 'least bad' option that I could see for my friend's situation, so that is what we tried first.
Here's a typical thread which describes my friends experience almost exactly:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitstamp/comments/9syucs/bitstamp_poor_service_and_money_never_arrived/
---
I'll throw out another thought in Bitstamp's defense: If Bitstamp was to be transparent with respect to their sub-contractors (payment processors) in order to have credibility with their own user-base, it could be a big no-no in bank-land and they would have trouble getting anyone in that space to do business with them again.
Seems that the 'standard' in the fiat banking industry is to be secretive, deceptive, and dishonest and rely on the fact that most plebs cannot muster the financial resources to defend their own interests. The banksters seem to be the primary forces behind installing governments in our so-called 'democracies' and the governments they install operate the courts systems. It's no wonder that the banks have the upper hand, and they don't hesitate to screw other entities when it serves their interest.
Again, I don't doubt at all that the 'processors' (e.g., banks) are screwing with and screwing Bitstamp and that that is motivating force behind the problems that my friend is experiencing at the moment. If I were a bankster I would try to arrange so that the only entities who could competitively operate were ones which were under U.S. jurisdiction. Could well be that Bitstamp finds themselves a target of such an effort.
An interesting game play here is that in order to angle for control over the crypto-currrency space, the tactic is to make fiat currency and the fiat banking systems not work for certain people. It will be interesting to see if the tactic ends up demonstrating even more that there is a need for crypto. I personally have always had Bitcoin work in a reliable and expedient manner. Dealing with fiat is ALWAYS a giant hassle and often doesn't work at all. And I'm not even a criminal or even a tax cheat!
These exchanges have this type of behavior that in my opinion is a bad and shameful behavior, they have this type of behavior because the governments of their countries do not make periodic inspections and do not require that these exchange are licensed, because of this these exchanges steal the coins of their customers and the exchange will not have consequences for the side of them. just see a very important point: how many exchange have physical office for customers to complain? here is the headquarters of bitstamp:
OFFICE
Bitstamp USA Inc.
99 Hudson Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013
United States
this is the headquarters of bitstamp
Quote from: https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/
OFFICE
Bitstamp USA Inc.
99 Hudson Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013
United States
this is the headquarters of bitstamp
I flatly refuse to use anywhere that freezes you and demands extra verification when you're already verified, let alone asks for details like tax shit that no other company on Earth would dare ask for. Why the fuck would I hand that over to a bunch of anonymous Slovenes?
Bitstamp have had problems with middle man banks in the past. I assume this is the same again. I can't imagine there'd be anything properly nefarious going on just after being bought out by a larger player.
They'll never see a penny from me again all the same.
Bitstamp have had problems with middle man banks in the past. I assume this is the same again. I can't imagine there'd be anything properly nefarious going on just after being bought out by a larger player.
They'll never see a penny from me again all the same.
It may not at all apply to Bitstamp, but to me these cases reek of insolvency.
I remember that Coinbase at some point went through very similar delays, where they came up with all sorts of excuses to justify why it took so long. Don't forget that there is way more crypto in circulation than actual fiat, especially after a bull run that stimulated people to cash out, which basically means that the fiat reserves of exchanges are on their lows, maybe even completely exhausted.
As you said yourself, there is no way to fact check whether or not they actually process withdrawals as long as the money isn't in, so we can only speculate as to what might be going on in the background. Not much to do other than to wait for Bitstamp to have that deposit come through (whenever that may be).
I remember that Coinbase at some point went through very similar delays, where they came up with all sorts of excuses to justify why it took so long. Don't forget that there is way more crypto in circulation than actual fiat, especially after a bull run that stimulated people to cash out, which basically means that the fiat reserves of exchanges are on their lows, maybe even completely exhausted.
As you said yourself, there is no way to fact check whether or not they actually process withdrawals as long as the money isn't in, so we can only speculate as to what might be going on in the background. Not much to do other than to wait for Bitstamp to have that deposit come through (whenever that may be).
In times past Bitcointalk used to be the go-to for finding the skivvy on scammy, flaky, or otherwise unusual behavior of established services. Now I find a fair number of references to the below described issues on Reddit (which I won't patronize) and other places, but nothing here. Oh well.
I suggested to a friend to give Bitstamp a try about a month ago. Friend has been trying unsuccessfully to get a test wire and a 5-fig USD wire to a SE Asian country for nearly a month now. I know the situation well. The friend is 100% clean as are the BTC. The initial KYC stuff went well and quickly.
Friend has gotten various indications via ticket responses of when the wires would come through, and they have not. When the dates came and passed there were no follow-ups on the tickets.
As some other users have experienced, when a wire is expected there is instead a request for yet more information like birthdays and tax numbers and such. But still no money.
It looks like what Bitstamp does when they get a withdraw request is to sit on it for a while then hand it off to an unnamed processor. When they hand it off they indicate that the request 'finished' via e-mail and on their UI, but that doesn't mean that a wire has even been attempted. At that point the customer (and Bitstamp themselves?) have lost reference to the money. Requests for tracking information go unanswered and/or unfulfilled, but that could mean that there has been no wire attempt and thus there is no tracing information exists.
In my own experience I got the same kinds of behavior from Mt. Gox before they went tits-up. I made one small-ish wire request (which is to this day not complete) and took the rest of my money out via BTC before they collapsed. My friend has done this today upon my suggestion. Friend left the 5-fig wire transfer in place since it seems doubtful that Bitstamp could cancel it even if they wanted to. The single redeeming feature of government sponsored fiat money is that it is subject to claims via a government operated court system should push come to shove.
Seems that Bitstamp has recently sold to some Korean gaming/investment firm. The excuse that Bitstamp gives to some is that they are having troubles with their new payment processor which I don't particularly doubt, but the boilerplate 'can you PM me your ticket number so I can look into it' thing which the reps use on Reddit seems phony and suspect to me. I mean why not just be responsive and honest on the ticket itself? Looks to me like it's 'for show' to indicate to the world that they care.
If anyone has been getting wires, it would be interesting to try to reverse-engineer who the payment processor might be. Especially if Bitstamp themselves goes dark a-la Mt Gox.
A suggestion I have for Bitstamp would be clear about how their hand-off process for withdraw requests works and name-names about who has the money at the present time when a query has been made. Many people cannot afford to have tens of thousands of USD in limbo for weeks and months since a lot of them (such as my friend) have obligations for the money and were basing their operations around information about timings as presented by Bitstamp. Few people expect a wire transfer to take anywhere near a month.
I suggested to a friend to give Bitstamp a try about a month ago. Friend has been trying unsuccessfully to get a test wire and a 5-fig USD wire to a SE Asian country for nearly a month now. I know the situation well. The friend is 100% clean as are the BTC. The initial KYC stuff went well and quickly.
Friend has gotten various indications via ticket responses of when the wires would come through, and they have not. When the dates came and passed there were no follow-ups on the tickets.
As some other users have experienced, when a wire is expected there is instead a request for yet more information like birthdays and tax numbers and such. But still no money.
It looks like what Bitstamp does when they get a withdraw request is to sit on it for a while then hand it off to an unnamed processor. When they hand it off they indicate that the request 'finished' via e-mail and on their UI, but that doesn't mean that a wire has even been attempted. At that point the customer (and Bitstamp themselves?) have lost reference to the money. Requests for tracking information go unanswered and/or unfulfilled, but that could mean that there has been no wire attempt and thus there is no tracing information exists.
In my own experience I got the same kinds of behavior from Mt. Gox before they went tits-up. I made one small-ish wire request (which is to this day not complete) and took the rest of my money out via BTC before they collapsed. My friend has done this today upon my suggestion. Friend left the 5-fig wire transfer in place since it seems doubtful that Bitstamp could cancel it even if they wanted to. The single redeeming feature of government sponsored fiat money is that it is subject to claims via a government operated court system should push come to shove.
Seems that Bitstamp has recently sold to some Korean gaming/investment firm. The excuse that Bitstamp gives to some is that they are having troubles with their new payment processor which I don't particularly doubt, but the boilerplate 'can you PM me your ticket number so I can look into it' thing which the reps use on Reddit seems phony and suspect to me. I mean why not just be responsive and honest on the ticket itself? Looks to me like it's 'for show' to indicate to the world that they care.
If anyone has been getting wires, it would be interesting to try to reverse-engineer who the payment processor might be. Especially if Bitstamp themselves goes dark a-la Mt Gox.
A suggestion I have for Bitstamp would be clear about how their hand-off process for withdraw requests works and name-names about who has the money at the present time when a query has been made. Many people cannot afford to have tens of thousands of USD in limbo for weeks and months since a lot of them (such as my friend) have obligations for the money and were basing their operations around information about timings as presented by Bitstamp. Few people expect a wire transfer to take anywhere near a month.
Jump to: