Topic: FRAUD WARNING: Bitstamp is holding my money hostage and ignoring me for 14 days (Read 2304 times)

Im actually scared on such issues when it comes exchanges especially putting a large amount of money. Indeed i have trade small amount in bitstamp but suddenly dont have any back up to recover my account..  I don't know if there's a mistakes in my information , but i actually remember my emaill and password in it..but it didn't let me in to manage my account again.. Maybe a reason because its been almost year and there's a lot of update happened and i miss it all to secure my account?  If thats the reason. im not interested anymore infact it's just a small amount.. So move on.. Lol

FRAUD WARNING: Bitstamp is holding my money hostage and ignoring .Crime Company
Dear, Bitstamp return my money Thieves
sorry but this answer does not suit me i want my money withdrawn from you. You don't make enough effort to return my money to you, that's all. You are hiding the perpetrator and you are an accomplice in this scam.

Attention !!! Attention !!! Attention !!! Attention !!!
Avoid working with Bitstamp, they are thieves, swindlers
Be careful with Bitstamp this is a company that robs credit cards and I would be very careful with what data you provide because your cash accounts will be reset without your consent. If you receive an SMS or email saying that Bitstamp has made an unsuccessful attempt to take a sum of money, make no mistake, it will not stop until it withdraws your last cent. My advice is to call the bank immediately and block this card. Stay away from Bitstamp, this is a company that patronizes thieves, swindlers and hackers.

Nah. That's complete and utter rubbish. Bitstamp has always been Slovenian and they've dicked around with maintaining a postbox and brass nameplate in various EU jurisdictions over the years.

I have an account at Bitstamp, and when I want to deposit, it displays GORENJSKA BANKA, which is a Slovenian bank. It might be that they use more banks within the Euro zone, but this at least shows that it isn't Bulgarian.

And another thing, Bitstamp isn't located at Bulgaria. It was a Slovenian exchange at first, but due to legal reasons, they are currently based in Luxembourg, where they were also granted their license.

That license allows Bitstamp to function as money transmitter, which is something a lot of the current exchanges can't say. They almost all are illegal money transmitters, which at some point may cost them badly.

I don't think that is true is it?

their bank is not there i am sure it estonia or somewhere like that.

Bitstamp is located in Bulgaria and I think they bank there too.

Bulgarian banks blocked all exchanges. See

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7i6eiq/banks_in_bulgaria_blocked_accounts_of_all/

I expect Bitstamp is scrambling to find another european bank to deal with them.

Is there any update about this now?
Because I really want to know, if there is any.
I have been hearing this kind of review about Bittrex but not with Bitstamp.Though both  exchange are good.
I feel  it could be that Bitstamp found something with your account, which is why they hold your Bitcoin.

Now I feel there is no exchange to be trusted again. The moment you feel you can trust any of them, you hear an update that makes you have a change of heart.
Please, let's  all try and learn how to avoid leaving our coins in an exchange sites to avoid stories like this.

They sent me an email and closed my account three years ago, which I did not notice. Recently, I noticed that I left bitcoins in that account and forgot them for years. I cannot login to my account anymore. I sent emails to their support email address but got nothing replies until now. Do anybody know what can I do about this?

Seconded, which the things you do said was true which this is one of the most good exchangers I do like. Fast support and Fast service back in the past but now seems they are fading and do already have some issues specially on deposits. Confirmation is too long and haven't been received any words from them which is very unusual to happen which is entirely different when it was before.

Anyone with direct contact information for bitstamp management team or ceo??

they are not prepared for this increase in usage.

totally under staffed and pathetic.

I am awaiting a wire for over 1 week

They need to increase their performance because right now it is totally crap.

I have used them for years but will 100% be looking elsewhere if they don't get things moving.

That is strange, Bitstamp is legit and one of the most trustworthy exchangers. It's not their habit to keep users without support and not solving the issues. The thing is that they are obliged with very strong AML laws and rules imposed by regulators so they have to obey certain procedures when it comes to any transactions they have some doubt or suspicion. I'm sure they will get in touch and you don't give up, just try to establish contact with every possible channel.

Can you share the procedure to get the funds back?

You got lucky that they returned your deposit! they are not returning my deposit! They terminated my account and sent me back my account funds but they didnt return back my large deposit! Anybody can help with this? the support doesnt answer anymore, i tried everything...

Hi Crper, please could let me  know if you fix the problem with Bitstamp? i have the same problem! Thanks

I believe they are doing the same to me.  Do you mind sharing the procedure you followed to get back your funds?

Natwest state they charge £7. Rather less than £276.21. The exchange rate loss only occurred (if it did occur) because they held my money hostage until they decided to terminate the account, then refunded it when the rates were not equivalent. That is theft, no matter how you look at it.

http://www.natwestinternational.com/nw/personal-banking/travel-and-international/g50/international-payments/receiving-international-payments/bank-to-bank-electronic-links.ashx

They have no control of your receiving bank's fees. It's quite possible that money was eaten up by various exchange rates. Some banks charge outrageous amounts.

I think Bitstamp have stolen at least £276.21 from me following the unexplained termination of my account immediately following a large deposit.

I've been systematically ignored by their discourteous, elusive and evasive support team leaving me furious and extremely vexed. 

I hope someone here can help me find answers.

Following years of using Bitstamp without problem, on the 15th August 2017 I made a deposit of £7703 GBP via international transfer to their bank account in Slovenia. The money left my bank account on the 16th August, but was never credited in Bitstamp (though, via account details I retrieved via a Subject Access Request, I can see it entered their bank account on 16th August.)

On 23rd August  2017 (they had held my money hostage for a week by this point, while I watched the price of Bitcoin rise by ~ $500) I received an Account Termination Notice from Bitstamp stating my account had been terminated. I contacted Bitstamp support via email, phone, Facebook and Twitter to ask what had caused my termination, and when I would receive my funds back.

I was completely ignored - with not a single reply to my many emails and messages.

Eventually, following advice I found on this forum, I submitted complaints to the Commission de surveillance du secteur financier in Luxembourg, plus a complaint to bitstamp copying in the CEO, plus a subject access request, and I finally received a response saying they couldn't tell me why my account was terminated, and that I would have my deposit refunded, and my account balance returned. As I could not log in to Bitstamp, I could not verify my outstanding balance.

After waiting another week, and seeing the price of Bitcoin rise further, I received 2 payments from them:

30th Aug - £348.21 – presumably this was my outstanding bitcoin balance, though I cannot verify
30th Aug - £7,426.79 –I think this is the refund of the deposit I made, except, it is £276.21 short of the £7703 I deposited.

I have contacted Bitstamp support to ask why has my deposit not been returned in full, and I have been ignored.

Bitstamp actively advertises itself as being fully regulated and being granted a license in the EU as a payment institution by the CSSF.

Unfortunately their customer support is completely inadequate for the types of customers they are serving and It seems there is no accountability for their actions.

I've checked the fee schedule https://www.bitstamp.net/fee_schedule/ and (in spite of the fact that charging any fee whatsoever for a deposit only to immediately terminate an account is utterly scandalous, outrageous larceny) I cannot see how any application of fees could sum the £276.21 shortfall.

There is a 0.05% deposit fee on international transfers that would total £3.8515, and if I have been charged all the 'NON-STANDARD PROCESSING' fees (which would be disgraceful), they would total $170 USD.  Nowhere near £276.21.

Could currency exchange rates somewhere along the line be to blame, due to the fact that they held my deposit hostage in a different currency while they were fucking around terminating my account? If this is the case, it's shameful.

I've still no idea why they terminated my account. I see, from the subject access requests, that my passport on their system had expired, perhaps that was it. Fuck knows.

I cannot believe my account was closed for no obvious reason, but I simply cannot accept that immediately prior to that, I gave them money, and they skimmed off the top before handing it back.

It's absolutely, utterly, dispicable. And they haven't even got the courtesy to acknowledge me.

Do not use this company.

I approve of solidity. I don't approve of their excessive approach. If I had significant sums there's no way I'd trust them with it in case it triggered their paranoia. Once you're verified that should be enough.

I've traded way more through conventional stock trading sites and they never wanted anything more than the usual ID and I never heard from their 'support' again.

These are examples of why it is important to anticipate and expect to be verified BEFORE trading any fiat and coins on exchanges. There is a very real risk that your money will be blocked for a long time if not even indefinitely while they investigate you. The thing that is most worrying is that they don't usually say what's going on or what's wrong.

They will simply give you the silent treatment during the course of the investigation. It's probably how such investigations are done and it's standard procedure for them to remain silent. Why? I read about one bank's KYC procedure where the staff are supposed to not inform the customer when something suspicious about the account is detected. It allows them to investigate while at the same time preventing the customer from destroying evidence or "perverting the course of justice".

Assuming your coins or fiat are from clean sources, you shouldn't be worried about losing your money. Bitstamp is a regulated and properly licensed exchange. They will eventually resolve the matter. It just takes time.

I had the same issue,  it has been a week with little progress.

This pattern is quite like the time when MTGOX had liquidity problem, the deposit or withdraw can take more than a week, simply because they don't have liquidity in their account to process it, so they are waiting for new customer's money come in to pay the queued previous deposit/withdraw

Once this happens, no matter the excuse they gave, I will stop the deposit to this exchange for at least a month to watch more carefully. This is in general a problem for all the centralized exchanges, there are so many hidden details happening behind that users are not aware of

Would you please send me the contact, the same thing happened to me they terminated my account and have my money for more than a month and they are ignoring my emails.

I still have faith in Bitstamp. Despite the damage they caused you, I believe their being licensed and regulated makes them one of the few exchanges one can trade on with peace of mind. The apology from the HEAD of compliance was the right thing to do. That certainly is a positive (even if not remedial, given the damage and losses caused) step in re-establishing confidence.

The investigation shows they are quite proactive and vigilant in their efforts to protect and preserve their license.

There are risks associated with taking legal action and I think a prime example of that would be Bitstamp defending their position as appropriate action in line with a legitimate investigation. Winning the case would help you recover losses, if any, but given the uncertainty of the outcome and the costs of engaging a lawyer qualified to litigate this type of case, you should probably carefully consider the task and challenges ahead.

I think my Subject Access Request that I sent last night might have triggered a response from Bitstamp.
Their Head of Legal & Compliance, emailed me today and then I spent 40 minutes with him on the phone.
He was was quite apologetic and told me that there was an investigation, where my name matched the name of another person involved in illegal activities, but that has been cleared.
Still I explained that this kind of compliance is damaging to their business if customers are subjected to such kind of silent treatment.
It is really ironic how such businesses strive to look all professional and compliant, but manage to damage the trust of their customers in the process.

Even though the resolution was positive for me I still feel that Bitstamp need to change their practices and balance their customers' interests with their compliance methods. I am not convinced this will not happen again to other people.
Bitstamp should should strive to be a transparent company that is accountable for its actions.

I will be contacting a lawyer tomorrow to see if I have any grounds to claim damages.

Congratulations and thanks for the update. Looks like someone read your threats of legal action or someone at Pantera Capital must have given them an earful.

I still have a fully verified Bitstamp account from way back in 2013. Wondering if it's safe to use it or will I be asked to re-verify the account with my most current passport (the one I used in 2013 is now expired) and other documents.

I will probably try with small amounts, perhaps 500 euros worth of btc and test first if I can withdraw it to my bank account in Germany.

i'm really glad the situations were resolved. i had my doubts there for a minute. still, this experience indicates that bitstamp is getting very serious about regulatory compliance. i would be very careful about sending coins there, particularly coins that could be tainted.

even if i had a legit paper trail to show that funds are legitimate at all times, i wouldn't want to have funds tied up for days, weeks or months because of their AML compliance checks. the fact is that i can't necessarily show a good paper trail for a good deal of my funds (trading, gambling, giveaways, etc. all moved around from the same wallet), so those funds can't be deposited to stamp or GDAX...

hi guys, I have similar issues with Bitstamp- will read up here more closely, and post details if I can not get it resolved.

Looks like person who supposed to deal with such cases came into work ?

My deposit was credited and my withdrawals enabled.
I will explain everything a bit later, cause I have other thing to do now.

I suspect they have a team of AML staff going through withdrawal requests. And if that's a small team, then that might explain these delays (and silent treatments).

Re-enabling of withdrawals is a positive step forward. Always good to see a light at the end of a (very long and dark) tunnel. Don't store too much fiat and bitcoins in an exchange account. You might wake up one morning to find them blocked and frozen.

I got answer from support:


No clue what it was, and what was a reason for block account since it were unblocked without any questions. Proly some security trigger worked..

Still no update on this one? Have you been able to resolve the issue?

I have never had any problems talking to them and their support s been quite fast. Now you made me uncomfortable dealing with them.

I see. It's really odd that they would pick up on this small deposit instead of the big ones that i assume you've had in the past with them. BTW, why did they ask you KYC questions if you were already fully verified and able to deposit and withdraw using fiat? Doesn't make sense to me.

It seems like you got a response from someone that is at least somewhat related to the company who said that he'll refer you to some other random guy who just ignored you earlier, is this correct? And have they given you any sort of official response yet?

It's clearly rude to ignore your customer, let alone a pretty big customer too. I would not use Bitstamp solely for this reason, they don't respect you when an issue arises, and this issue is not even caused by you.

After the shutdown of BTC-e and bitmixer.io, this looks like some of the other exchanges are now being paranoid. You have to understand that they are protecting themselves from the slightest mistake they could make and have Uncle Sam come after them next.

You have to be patient. They are a licensed exchange and because of that you have to understand that they have to take a few extra steps to make sure that everything is legal. But yes they are slow.

Honestly I don't know. It all depends on how this ends and what kind of service I would need in the future.
But I fully intend to follow the legal route and go to court with these guys, who thankfully are registered in the UK.
I was the claimant in a year long trial, which ended recently with a very satisfactory result for me, so I am prepared to go down that route again. Unfortunately cannot share much information due to a non-disclosure agreement.

There will always be the bad aftertaste of their treatment, so unless I receive a personal over the phone or in person apology from the owners I will most probably not use them in the same way as before.



I initially deposited 33BTC to trade with, then deposited further 15BTC, which I bought with fiat at Kraken.
All the Bitcoins have been obtained legitimately by me and have not been involved in any illegal activities while owning them.

one person lodging this complaint, i could maybe write off. now two old hands are complaining of withdrawals blocked and complete radio silence from stamp. i hate to say it, but i think this is the case:


this is the most reasonable explanation for the silence. what i'm worried to find out ... aside from Kn_os with the withdrawal out and directly back in due to the august 1 fork, have you guys deposited bitcoins into your account before? or only fiat?

between the regulated exchanges like stamp and GDAX being super compliant, and blockchain analysis companies getting more and more sophisticated, i don't like the direction we are heading in.

I'm curious how you would approach the post-resolution phase of this case. If they do resolve this and give you access to your funds again, would you continue using your Bitstamp account? Or would that be the end of your relationship with them?

It's always a tricky thing when a business (or even personal) relationship is scarred by even one traumatic event. Issues solved and peace ensues but how about the aftermath of that event? Continuing to trade on their platform might seem palatable but won't you feel being watched or checked?

Dan Morehead of Pantera Capital was the first person involved with the company to respond to my emails today, but just said he has asked Bitstamp's COO Miha Grcar to investigate - the same guy that read 3 of my emails and ignored me.
So I am not quite enthusiastic. Will wait a few more days and contact lawers.
Found these guys: https://www.selachii.co.uk/bitcoin-law-firm-solicitor.html

I think the host is more liable for it and it should need a serious actions so that withdrawals will be back to normal transactions. Furthermore the hostage fiat can be fixed if everything will become stable and transactions will be fine and no any other circumstances will going to happen like this situation, because it might create confusions to the users who had their holdings specially money is really needed for personal expenses.

Oh, i have exactly the same problem. I have 2 years old fully verified account. I traded on bitstamp without any problem, last action i did i withdrawed all my btc before 1 august btc fork, then i didn't use exchange and 8 august i deposited btc back (exactly from same home wallet i withdrawed to) to continue trading when suddently i found that all my withdraw were dissabled.


I sent them a ticket asking to clarify what's wrong and what was a reason for my account to be blocked. Since there were no warning or no message or anything. I got two auto respond on my ticket like "we read your ticket and will answer you later" and nothing more. Waiting a week already.
They start randomly block accounts?

PS. I never deposited or withdrawed usd or eur to bitstamp, so it couldn't be a reason too..

Answers from bitstamp:

Just found that BITCOIN WITHDRAWALS ARE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT, which means all my fiat is held hostage too.

Another day without a reply or explanation what is happening.

Anyone has any suggestion on how to get any answers?

Situations such as this solidify the need for every bitcoiner, novice or not, to fully understand the risks of using these exchanges as a storage for both fiat and bitcoins, let alone as one's wallet. When you and you alone have full control of the private key, risks of loss or misappropriation are substantially reduced. These exchanges are, yes, regulated and some have been around for a while and are thus safe but one should only invest or inject sums in these exchanges which are within one's tolerable thresholds.

So now they have your funds and are holding them hostage for days or even weeks at end. If I were in your shoes and this amount of money were held in limbo with no reaction from them, after having bombarded them with emails and tweets, I would be extremely angry. I would probably email them day and night, minute after minute until they finally succumb and respond. That's a seriously large amount of money. No way would I simply wait and sit passively. If you have fiat sitting on your bitstamp account and with bitcoin now at nearly $3.8k and continuing to climb, your revenue opportunities (which translate to potential losses) are piling up.

I have a fully verified bitstamp account which I used back in 2013/14 when bitcoin was about $100ish each. I no longer use the account. The transaction history painfully reminds me of what I could have made today with those 100+ btc.

 

I absolutely agree that Bitstamp has the right to check that the money are not from fraudulent activities.
I have no problems with them checking that, but what excuse do they have to completely ignore me?
Doesn't it seem sensible to keep their customers informed?
Instead they actively ignore me for god knows what reasons, which just damages my trust and confidence in them.

Any sane person will agree that this is not how you do business.
 

Honestly, after reading through your entire thread, the only plausible reason for them to not reply to you is that they are waiting for answers as they most likely passed your information to the authorities for investigation.

I am using Bitstamp myself, and it was last month that I made a sizeable (almost €6000) fiat deposit, where I not long after that cashed it out through SEPA without any problems.

I strongly believe that if everything turns out to be all right with your deposit, they will release your funds, and you can continue with your regular trading sessions ~ patience is however required. Bitstamp isn't a thief.

I am now convinced this is not a lack of customer support resources, but I am straight up being ignored for unknown to me reasons.

I contacted Bitstamp on Facebook and after being asked and provided my customer ID I heard nothing back.

Last night I contacted the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg and copied Bitstamp CEO Nejc Kodrič and their customer support into the email:


I sent the email with Read Receipt and today got this:



So my emails are being read, but consciously being ignored.
Anyone care to suggest a plausible reason why they are doing that?

Actually the main reason I am furious is the fact they are ignoring me.
The blocked deposit is not a big issue, because it is for less than 10K eur.
But my trading volume for the last month is close to 400K usd and I got close to 100K in fiat, so you can appreciate how I feel when the company I am trusting with my money is not replying to my tickets.

I have been verified for a long time and only when I made this deposit they asked these questions. I wasn't even aware they do that.
So instead of having a healthy business relationship I am being ignored.

What is your story?

I don't use Bitstamp but some people I know who tried to use it their service was very fast to answer in a negative when you couldn't pass their KYC/AML requirements because of photographs being in low resolution or not clear enough according to their standards. I believe this deny in replying is because of the surge in Bitcoin price during these last days.

Currently most of bitcoins related exchanges have very poor support which is worst effort from them as peoples need some good and positive response from them they are ignoring and creating problems for them time to change this tactics and give quick support

I am having a similar issue with bitstamp myself, please keep this thread updated.

Bitstamp doesn't really have a reputation for having a terrible support system, when compared to an exchange like Yobit. So this is a little surprisingly to me especially when all the other exchanges have constantly been in trouble but i haven't seen much complaints regarding bitstamp.

I can tell why you're disgruntled, since the price of bitcoin has gone up subsatntially in the 9 days that you have deposited.

As far as i know they do not have any sort of communication outside of email, support tickets, or contacting admin via linkedin which you have all tried. All you can do is wait, and hope that a temporary dip in price can come. Unfortunately this is how it works, and they probably won't compensate for the losses. Why didn't you complete KYC before you deposited such a large amount? Or are they just asking you again and again?

Made a deposit of less than 10K euros and got the usual KYC list of excessive questions, which I promptly replied to.
Since then complete silence, which is now 9 days.
9 days with no reply.

Their customer support is completely inadequate for the types of customers you are serving.
They cannot run an extremely time sensitive trading business and not match it with the same level of support. It just doesn't make sense when dealing with large volumes of currency.
I feel that trying to complaint to Bitstamp will have the same result as screaming in the middle of a forest - I won't be heard and nothing will change.

At this point I am furious as they are holding my money hostage and completely ignoring me.

In these circumstances I feel forced to file an official complaint with the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg in line with their Out-of-court complaint resolution service.
Additionally based on the excessive and unreasonable level of questioning I feel inclined to also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office as you are registered as a DATA controller with them.

But I would rather talk with them and resolve this.
I emailed the CEO + sent him a message on Linkedin = nothing

Anyone has any suggestions?