Topic: kucoin withdraw block nightmare. STAY AWAY FROM KUCOIN (Read 238 times)

Thanks alot for the detailed update regarding your and others experience.

Very worrying normal users have to go through  stuff like this  to withdraw their own money, even most gambling websites dont ask this much when you win money from them.

Crypto is supposed to be for the users privacy but things like this defeat the entire purpose

Solved. Updated my first post.

"Not Your Key, Not Your Coin" has unfortunately played against you here, no one should trust a centralized system for any reason, and I can't imagine myself leaving 50,000 USDT in a single exchange, I don't think I can ever get that mind. My experience with FX brokers has taught me a big lesson in this regard. I rather distribute them in 5 exchanges if the business dealing must pass through exchanges, or else, I prefer to either have my money in my USD bank account or non-custodial crypto wallets where I know that it's indeed my asset.

As it is now, it's stressful, but you should not panic, I believe you will get your money back as long as it's from a legitimate source, it might only take time. Just continue to mount pressure on them and let them know your plan for a legal pursuit if they did not yield, but let this be the last resort plan.

Give them all the necessary documents and scenes required and let's see how it goes. They are using styles like this to scare people, while the faint in heart or those who got their money through illegitimate sources get scared and disappear. Big accounts are often their targets, regardless, they will cough the money out when you are legit, disturbing and determined.

Many users will surely drop but I don't think the number will scare them at all.

This is what frustrate me, these businesses will play by your rules unless they were able to grow bigger, once they become bigger they will kick you out and apply their own rules. I have not followed their development but I am sure they are big enough to afford to lose a portion of their user-base.

The drop will not make any difference for them.

I've been using Kucoin since 2019 I have no problem and they don't ask for KYC they only ask if you reach a certain threshold I suddenly get a notification that I cannot trade anymore unless I undergo KYC since I'm not actively trading I open my option not to trade on Kucoin and only use my local exchange but now that I'm receiving a lot of complaints about Kucoin verification and something like this I now have a second thought of using Kucoin.

I also unsubscribe from their newsletter I find it very annoying to receive messages that request me to finish my KYC if OP does not have positive updates many users will eventually leave Kucoin for possible repercussions in the future.

This is worrying. I used Kucoin many time, like million times like OP but not in the recent time. If they are not doing it randomly then I fear they are going to ask for my KYC too. Is there any other platform to sell the Kucoin tokens?

Regulation finally caught up to them eh? I don't think they're trying to scam you or anything. It's just that the regulators probably gave them strict guidelines to follow on how to report transactions from current and previous users. Maybe a huge penalty or lawsuit is coming their way if they don't comply. I'm guessing those users who are in the same situation as you have high withdrawal amounts too.

True, them choosing word "insist" is kinda weird and does sound somewhat tricky. Or maybe their English just sucks.

By the way, have you tried contacting them through reddit? I see that they have their own subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/kucoin/) and that they are active there so maybe you could try to osuh some pressure on them that way and have them check your ticket. Its a long shot as most likely you will get eyt another bullshit answer to be "be patient etc" but its imho worth a try.

Just FYI, you're only allowed to bump your own thread once every 24 hours, so don't keep bumping it like I saw you were doing earlier.  You don't want to get banned temporarily.

I bet you that even though you've withdrawn $50k and higher amounts before, that's the reason why they're suddenly putting the screws to you.  That's a lot of money, and Kucoin looks like they're covering their ass by wanting to know what your source of funds are and all that.  You said you've never done anything shady with crypto (and I have no reason to doubt you), but they don't know that at all and since they're complying with regulators, it's become their job to be suspicious when large sums of money are involved.  I would imagine even $10k would cause them to start paying attention to one of their customers if that customer was consistently depositing/withdrawing that amount.

Still hoping for a good outcome for you--and Kucoin is legit as an exchange, so I suspect things will turn out in your favor (though I absolutely understand your anxiety).

What often noticed from exchange is that whenever you are trying to make withdrawal from them and you eventually made a mistake with either your login details, this could be password or 2fa and tried severally to enter the password you have just stirs up a suspicious activities. Based on your write up you said of trying several times so don't doubt it was because of that action that leads to many suspicion and hence request for many details to know if it was from you or someone else, although I don't blame them for such activities because they are actually doing their works and I know this is to make sure they reduced and prevent money laundering.

Terrible, I really thought that they're one of the best but knowing that there's this someone which is you experiencing this, I've lost faith on them. That reply seems just like computer generated and you'll just receive the same response if ever you do an attempt again.

Yeah, exactly that there seems to be a ready response if ever you'd say that you're wanting to proceed knowing that they're delaying yours. But even with that, you get no response but let's see if they'll do within the next 24 hours.

This is an unfortunate experience, I believe you since you are willing to go to extremes just to prove that your funds are clean and you have nothing to hide, I have seen this post in the other section of this forum, and since it was moved here can you edit your first post and follow the right format or you can add this information.


Update us for any development in your case now that you submitted all the documents that they asked you for, after your experience, I will not push through with my plan to do KYC and use the exchange again I stopped using them after they asked for compulsory KYC several months ago, I've been using them for several years.

thank you, I will update. I cannot even concentrate on my day to day right now so I am always watching this bs.

I even have full KYC, I use Kucoin since 5 years.
They basically say nothing and tell me to wait, only 3 hours ago they wrote that:

"Thank you for reaching out to KuCoin customer support.
Due to the large volume of contacts lately, it will take a little bit longer for our Customer Service Representatives to reply to your email.
Please confirm whether you insist to proceed the withdrawal."

Question seemed weird and somewhat tricky to me and I asked what does he mean by "insist", what happens if I insist, will I wait for indefinite time? what happens if I don't, do you release the funds to my account? if yes, what happens if I initiate withdrawal again?

No answer.

Before this problematic withdrawal, I withdrawn even higher amount a week before without problems, and in older times, I have withdraws of even more, zero problems.
I never do futures or margin, I don't even understand them properly.
Deposit was from another very well known global exchange, and it was not the first. I just subscribed to some earn product on kucoin with the deposit, when product matured, I wanted to withdraw it back to the other exchange, that is it. I did similar things many times. ı don't even spot trade properly on kucoin, I mostly use earn products when I see opportunity
I do not gamble, this is not gamble money or "mixing service" whatever that is.

I found people online in similar situation and started a telegram group, some are waiting since two months.
I'm very surprised that this isn't a known issue about Kucoin, but that's the situation.
They can really block your withdrawals out of the blue and not answer what is going on.
And the person that is waiting for 2 months says they do not even update your "ticket" on their own and you have to nag them all the time and even then nothing concrete happens.
I cannot definitively say that this is a scam for now but there is the situation for you to decide, and my psychology is a mess.
I do not even know how long this will go on.
My advice is that if you have funds there get them out ASAP

This is  certainly a very upsetting thing to hear,  and one  everyone needs  to lookout for,

@OP i hope you get your acccount unfrozen, could you please keep updating whenever  you have any  updates?

I have few friends who use kucoin,  i will ask if someone else is having these kindof  issues  as well.

After reading the amount OP said, I'm just hoping that they're not going to do what they shouldn't do and will just allow him to withdraw that money.

What they did said to you when you approached them again? This is like it's hard to think that when I thought it's one of the remaining exchanges that don't require KYC and is one of the good ones but this is just so sad that the progress you're having with that money is causing them a lot of delay to release it.

Do you usually trade or withdraw 50k USDT or was the normal account activity much less than that and suddenly you withdrew 50k USDT? How did you achieve this amount? If it was from trading futures and margin, the withdrawal process will most likely be slowed down to ensure that you did not deceive the system.
Was the deposit related to gambling or from a mixing service?
These are the most prominent reasons why they suddenly close the account.

They are indeed extreme, and Kucoin is unfortunately following the steps of Coinbase and Binance, trying to appease the regulators in order to expand.


Its tehnically not a scam (yet), but they can block your funds indefinitely and there's nothing really that you can do since they are hiding in jurisdiction where client are not protected at all, hence the reason for choosing Seychelles and similar countries.


Ouch, not a negligent amount of money at all. Fingers crossed that you manage to pass their bullshit verification process and get your money out.

I reached out to Kucoin from every channel possible and I am trying to make the issue known in social media, other than that I really do not know what can I do. Can I press charges in my home country? Or do I need to go to where the company is located in? Some say it is in Seychelles and some say it is in China. This is so messed up but I will go for that option too if this issue continues like this. My money stuck there is 50k USDT so I will do anything I can. If anyone can guide me on how should I approach the legal side of the issue, I would be glad.

For the skepticals, I want to state again: I have absolutely NOTHING shady going on, I am just a normal crypto investor and I already sent the documents they asked. Nothing weird is going on on my side.

I'm on your side about this stuff but the problem with this though is that not everyone's got the choice to stay away from these CEX, people are really risking their money on these based on trusting the CEX. I hope that we don't see another Mt. Gox incident because that's one hell of a scary thing to happen again and now with more people in crypto space, it's more tempting to do it for those CEX. If I was in OP's situation, I would probably be panicking and posting in the forum would probably be the least of my priorities but it seems that that's not the case for OP which is nice.

They didn't scammed you but asked you for more verification which is normally happening in exchanges nowadays. For your reference, they have an announcement thread that you can find here: [ANN] [EXCHANGE] KuCoin Exchange. I'm not just sure if the representative there is entertaining concerns like this since it's a different division or department from that exchange. Although the rep there can relay this problem of yours. But if it's already sent and you've complied to what they're asking, all you need to do is wait for them to clear all of those compliance you've made.

I guess this is part of what just the other exchanges need to do to their customers after being spot on by the regulators. Many of them are following up an additional KYC.

This is one of the reason why I did not continue to verify my Kucoin account I always receive notification on my email to get my account verified even offering bonuses and less withdrawal fees, if you're already a verified members for 5 years there should be a level of trust in your account, based on the questionnaire they assumed that your funds comes from illegal sources.
I hate to be receiving this kind of questionnaire it made you panic and think that they could confiscate your money if you failed the questionnaire, I hope you'll find a way to get this over and dump Kucoin.

My account is already KYC'ed&verified since 5 years. Also new KYC procedure is not this I believe. This is something else.
Here is a part of the document they wanted me to fill. There are more pages like this.

https://imgur.com/DHFpmEt

I don't remember when I last used Kucoin but the last nail on the coffin for me was when they imposed full KYC on their users. I even had to delete their app from my devices.
When using such exchanges. This is bound to happen. What is annoying that there won't be issues when you are making a deposit but as soon as you try to make a withdrawal, then they start asking you all kinds of questions and documents as though they are targeting at keeping your funds for good.

WTF?  I knew Kucoin was going full KYC, but those questions seem way above and beyond what they'd ever need to know (unless a government agency has provided them with what amounts to a script, i.e., questions they have to ask certain customers--and seemingly arbitrarily).  It's too late now, but you should've dumped any exchange that announced they're going to start requiring your dox.

Yeah, but don't those questions OP is saying Kucoin is asking him seem extremely excessive to you?  OP didn't say how much money is involved here, but I wonder what triggered Kucoin to suspend the withdrawal and then ask for all that info.  I'd expect this from an exchange like Coinbase, but not Kucoin.  Jesus.

Unfortunately, I heard many similar stories lately and even from the biggest exchanges like Binance so I am not surprised at all what's happened to you. These are the risks when dealing with centralized exchanges as its very hard to get your money if/when they decide to screw you over.

I know some people that eventually managed to get their withdrawals unblocked and some that are waiting for months (not Kucoin though, other CEX) so better be prepared as this could take some time. I just hope that you didn't have serious amount of money there.

What happened(this is my initial post from 10 October):
I am a Kucoin user with verified account since like 5 years or more if I remember correctly. I used it with no problem until today something really disturbing happened. I tried to withdraw my funds to another exchange (like i did million times before and with greater numbers) and my transaction put on "pending approval" status. While I was trying to understand wtf is going on, I received a mail from Kucoin which is telling me that my withdraw functionality is on hold and asking for many many documents and a long questionnaire which includes questions like why am I withdrawing the funds and what is the source of money, where do I live, my job, job documents etc.(yes they really asked those) They also asked for certain photographs and video recordings of me that I needed to say some legal stuff and hold some papers in my hand etc. I send to them. For the last 3 hours, I was dealing with this. I just threw up due to stress and have no idea what is going on. I am an average crypto user who don't and can't do anything shady or whatever. I asked them about what is going on on multiple channels but they give that robotic answers and tell that they will return in few business days. From my research I found many other people are also in the same situation. The company is in Seychelles I think and my fear is that they are coming up with bullshit excuses to take away people's money since nobody will actually go there and take on a legal battle or anything. If anyone has a similar experience I would be grateful if they can shed some light on what is going on and if they got their money back. I literally feel physically sick right now.

Result(12 October): Solved. Not a scam(I think, but I suspect they might be dodging insolvency by winning time on withdrawals. I am not sure). My withdrawal is approved today and I finally got my funds out of Kucoin.
HOWEVER, I still stand by my original topic header: STAY AWAY FROM KUCOIN. I will never use it again and definitely delete my account. I'll explain why below. It'll be a mixture of facts, my experience, other peoples' experiences (we formed a telegram group with some people in a similar situation) and my interprations of what I learned while I research abouth this issue, you guys can make your own deductions.

1) You will not experience this while you are logging into kucoin, while you are depositing to kucoin, while trading on kucoin or doing anything else on kucoin. You will experience this ONLY WHEN YOU INITIATE A WITHDRAW. So you will have no prior knowledge, this will only happen when your funds are already stuck inside the exchange. (yet kucoin still advertises like you can do X amount of withdrawals without kyc, Y amount of withdrawals with kyc etc. and this process is nothing like kyc, it is way beyond kyc as I will explain)

2) You will be completely in the dark about wtf is going on. You will only see that your withdrawals are blocked (you can't cancel the withdraw either, it is just locked) and you will receive an e-mail that asks you information(check the third part). And along the whole process, they will not answer ANY of your questions. Your chat messages and questions will not be answered and you will be straight up ghosted with your funds stuck inside the exchange. One person from the group says he is on his 60+ day of this issue, still stuck on kucoin with 5 figures in US dollars and he said that he provided everything they asked for and he is still waiting. since his original ticket is not being answered, he opens up a new ticket every day but that ticket also gets a copy-paste answer telling him to wait and nothing else.

3) Say goodbye to your privacy. From my experience and the experience of others whom I speak, if this happens to you, you will receive an e-mail from kucoin which asks you to provide extremely intrusive stuff about yourself, about your wealth, reason for your certain financial decisions, your occupation, your rental agreement, your bills, your bank statements, your income, video recording of yourself saying legal stuff , photo of yourself while holding your ID  in one hand and a six digit code in the other hand which they will provide. One person from the telegram group states that they asked him to do a VIDEO OF LOGGING INTO ANOTHER EXCHANGE which he sent the funds from. And you have to provide it. They literally completely ghost you and straight up don't answer any question you ask. They just expect documents.

4) There is no timeline, I found out many people who are going through this and the timelines range from 2 days to 3 months(still unresolved). I am very lucky with 2 days I guess.

5) Suspicious communication from customer service. In the telegram group two people found out that they are accused with exact same wording: "We have received a report form someone who believes that you're involved in certain frauds with sufficient evidence. The case is still under investigation". I saw those screenshots but I'll refrain from sharing, that did not happened to me. On my case the suspicious communication message was a question from customer service that if I am "insisting" on my withdrawal or not. I explained this on another entry of this post too. I asked what does it mean, of course they did not answer.

6) While I research, I found out some people claiming that this is happening to them for the second time. This is the main reason I am deleting my kucoin account forever and advice everyone to stay away. Because it means that this nightmare can happen anytime and everytime again and again.

7) Health. No sleep for two days straight, took pills to calm down. Always on computer. I am a mess right now. I don't want to see the website of that exchange ever again.