Topic: Coinbase cancel "high risk" buy - now seeking agent in Los Angeles (Read 4195 times)

You have to manage your risk and they have to manage theirs.

Keep in mind that it is yet another online wallet.  inputs.io went caput this week, there is nothing perfect.

I'm usually in LA and also there is an online exchange based in LA: CoinMKT.com so there are plenty of places to buy bitcoins if you need them.

100% truth made many instant purchase from coinbase.. Price went from $180 to $260 and all of a sudden I'm not instant(no visa) and my transaction is high risk.. Refused to honor agreed upon price.

Here is another one.  My bitcoin was suppose to clear today but instead got an email from coinbase saying order canceled due to high risk.  10 BTC at $208 was a steal but I guess coinbase doesn't like their end of the deal.



I'm done with coinbase.


-tb-

I'm less impressed so far.  Customer service is what makes a business in the financial services arena.

Bitcoin Brokers seem to be always having coins available and provide great service with same-day coins whenever I need them in a hurry.  They have become a reliable source with concierge customer service.  Coinbase could learn a LOT from those guys. 
Heck if Coinbase is such a player, they should probably buy Bitcoin Brokers outright and put them in charge of customer relations for both systems, that would be a win-win.

lol

Fair enough.  Hope your issues are resolved swiftly, Coinbase is a pretty big player now in this arena.  I do know the longer you sit in their database and the more you message them, the more your account status goes up...or at least that's been my experience...had one issue with them that had me pissed for a week, but then it was resolved admirably and I've had no issues since, with my account fully vested and able to issue instant buys.  Sells still take a week or so to get paid out, but that seems to be the name of the game unless you live near a BTC ATM or a local seller.

Is "faster" less than 1 week for coins to be delivered?  So far its been:

Buy coins... wait a week, transaction not processed.
Submit support request,
Get no feedback from support
Post to forum and get advice to try again
Buy coins... wait a week, transaction not processed.
Submit support request
Get a promise to process the two previous transactions and be white listed (yay!)
First transaction gets promised (a couple weeks late)
Second transaction .... still waiting
Submit a third buy transaction, pending, money withdrawn from account, with a commitment to deliver coins in a week (this is the same as the first two which were then reversed, but one was re-reversed).

So far its been completely unpredictable and not something I can rely on for business purposes.  I really wish it were, even with the limits it could be very useful for keeping more of the cash on hand in bitcoin.
I would love to be able to be helpful to them to get their act together, but there isn't much interaction...


Bitpay on the other hand...  VP arranged a meet, bought me drinks, talked through all the issues, and seems to be top shelf.
Everything takes time, and I appreciate that, life is long.  But we aren't at the "I told you so" stage yet.  Still looking forward to that.

My friend got whitelisted because of a bad transaction which gave him immediate buy and sell privileges that made me quite jealous while I was waiting for my account to mature because my other transactions went through successfully.  Whitelisting is their version of Sorry we F-ed up, here buy and sell faster and easier from here on, yada, yada, etc.

Send another support message...they are in San Fran and have offices...which also means they can be sued if shit goes south...you will be fine.

It still isn't resolved.  I did get some good lip service though.  One of three buy transactions processed, all the sells went through.

I look forward to joining the group of happy customers, one of these days, and supposedly I am "whitelisted" but not sure of the effect of that yet.

They process high volumes...it may take some time...but see, they seem pretty legit.  Resolved my issues also.


I am happy to report I told you so on this one...nice to see Coinbase standing by their core foundations.  They
have done right by me and my friends with both buying and selling.

Now if only we could get them offering Litecoins for USD.

Coinbase support is on the case, it may be resolved perfectly after all.

Coinbase don't seem to have crossed the line into fraud.  
I did not determine they were lieing about anything.
Further, Coinbase seems to have a solid business model.  
But...The high degree of trust they require in providing sufficient KYC data that Coinbase bears risk for data retention issues.  
Release of information like that, even if accidental, has very stiff fines almost everywhere.
And... It generates some uneasiness in the market they serve.

Once again the only person(s) committing fraud here is coinbase.

On Aug 21, 2013 you purchased 4.00 BTC via bank transfer for $448.63.

Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel this order because it appears to be high risk. We do not send out any bitcoins on high risk transactions, and you will receive a refund to your bank account in 3-4 business days.

Please understand that we do this to keep the community safe and avoid fraudulent transactions. Apologies if you are one of the good users who gets caught up in this preventitive measure - we don't get it right 100% of the time, but we need to be cautious when it comes to preventing fraud.

You may have more luck trying again in a few weeks. Best of luck and thank you for trying Coinbase.

Kind regards,
The Coinbase Team
=====================
No surprise with the price move again in their favor.

localbitcoins is your friend.

Well they sent my btc through after I posted my support ticket id on their Twitter . So that seems to work.

So far the fastest and easiest for clearing bitcoin purchases (and with awesome customer support) is Bitcoin-Brokers.  It is like localbitcoins with concierge customer service.  I like to test out as many as I can get around to rather than just use only one, but so far if I am in a hurry and need reliability, it will always be bitcoin-brokers.

Waiting to purchase anymore until they reply to tickets...since others have had them randomly debit their account and process the " cancelled " transaction weeks after it was cancelled, seems like another slow ass customer support team like every other bitcoin company.

Continued testing of Coinbase:  Sumbitted a buy for 4 coins (their price $448.63)
PENDING Your BTC will arrive on Tuesday Aug 27, 2013 around 02:23PM PDT. August 21, 2013, at 01:23pm PDT
Will see if they fulfill and which way the price moved (likely down from there).

I wouldn't want to be their accountant/auditor.

OTOH, selling coins received through them has been swift and easy.

Thank you for this. 
I would like to think my experience is aberrational and not there is some problem they can correct, but so far I have nothing from them on the matter.
My preference would be to have many such services available to me that are trustworthy. 
People tend to communicate about problems more than when things just work, so I appreciate your chiming in.

Just thought I'd share my own experience: bought some (4) at 98, got them at 108.  Maybe I was just lucky; I have no idea.  Just my own side of it.

Same here... so far.

In the mean time, signing up with BitPay as well.
Met with their VP Sales yesterday.
Very nice to work with.

Tried contacting, 5 days no response^^

Any details on that interaction would be interesting.

Thanks for the advice, but I find this conversation useful so I hope you don't mind if we continue the discussion?  
This was my first purchase with them. (I usually have excess coins but wanted to test their purchasing process.)
My account with them is fairly new a month or so, with a few sells in it that had no problems.

I have contacted their support as listed.  Will see if anything comes of it.  I remain interested in the experience of others using the service.
I've also opened a second purchase to test further.  They are tiny buys, 4 and 5 coins.

.
This. The funny thing is dumbasses don't see it and keeps trying coinbase and magically their txn isn't canceled when BTC drops.

You can stop using coinbase if you don't like it - it's not the only way to purchase BTC, otherwise use it with the risk of getting your transaction cancelled.

(Edit: Sorry, my original post was rude)

My friend experienced a cancelled transaction on Coinbase, contacted tech support, and within a day or so had his BTC funded (I believe with like 0.1 extra for his troubles), so if you haven't yet contacted them, you absolutely should.

The risk may be them not making enough?
They have all my information.  I've been with the linked bank for 20+ years and have many accounts there.  I really don't know what else the risk might be.
I'm just testing the service, looking for reliable business partners.  The volume they can clear for me isn't large but I'd like to see that it reliable at least.

Also had my second order through them randomly cancelled for same "high risk" after purchasing 5 BTC at 97$ then BTC rose 103+ while I was waiting for BTC deposit.

How come then there has been not a single order "canceled due to high risk" when the price of bitcoin has gone DOWN since initiating the buy. The answer: there is none. Coinbase cancels purchases when they see fit and when prices of bitcoins rise rapidly, thus padding their pockets further because coinbase buys/sells the instant you buy/sell with them, preserving they make 1% margin. If they cancel a purchase after the price has risen from $100 to $106 then they can sell that bitcoin they already sold for a higher price to their coinbase users. THAT is why they cancel them. Please do feel free to show MULTIPLE examples of them canceling orders where the price has decreased drastically, and I will remove this post.

I am in Los Angeles, and I sympathize, as I am also working through issues with Coinbase's trust algorythm. 

I came across your post accidentally through a search looking for similar issues, so I may be too late to assist, but happy to do so if I am not.

=============
Why was my order "High Risk" and cancelled?
Last Updated: May 15, 2013 07:04PM PDT
Because of the inherent risks that accompany selling bitcoin (an irreversible payment system) with traditional payment methods (which are reversible), we use machine learning algorithms to determine the probability of a purchase being fraudulent. We do this for the protection of consumers and Coinbase alike.

These algorithms are still being tweaked and are not perfect. If you've been unfairly flagged, we genuinely apologize.  Our prediction abilities get better every single day, and false positives are an unfortunate but necessary part of the learning process. If you believe that you've had an order incorrectly cancelled, contact us at “[email protected]” and we can manually review the transaction.

This is exactly what LocalBitcoins was invented for.

It looks like there are two sellers in the LA area with high transaction counts and 100% positive feedback.

If they are willing to upload a photo ID. They could buy btc from me for Paypal.

"High Risk"? This isn't the first time when I hear this crap!

We are tired of lies!

Thanks for the goodwill guys.

To make this a no-trust proposition all round, I can ask my client to release the funds on 2 or 3 network confirmations rather than on my email.

I'm in San Diego if that helps.

http://bitcoinsd.com/

wish i could help!

I do freelance writing. I asked my client to pay me in Bitcoin. He agreed despite having no prior working knowledge of Bitcoin. I suggested Coinbase as payment method given his US location. After a week of waiting, Coinbase have declined to process his transaction due to "high risk." The amount is under $100 and my client has an account with a major US bank with a long history (years) of problem-free transactions.

The circumstances make this a particularly unwelcome turn of events now that deadlines are looming, yet Coinbase suggest to my client that he "try again in a few weeks." As I really want to be paid in Bitcoin and am unwilling to accept inferior payment methods such as PayPal or wire transfer, Coinbase have really dropped us in the soup.

Unless Coinbase can process the transaction before the end of the week or another solution presents itself...

It seems I must set up an in-person meeting to facilitate client-cash-for-Bitoin-to-my-wallet from a continent and hemisphere away.  

I believe it's doable, but I require the assistance of a fully trustworthy party in Los Angeles. They would have to physically meet with my client and facilitate the transaction at a set time such that I can email my client when I receive the funds and authorise him to release the cash.

I'm not entirely sure what reward to offer. A %-based fee would not justify the time and work required. I can offer a substantial discount on one of my products? Or freelance writing / graphic design services. Otherwise open to suggestions.