Topic: Localbitcoins is intentionally trying to lowkey steal from its customers (me) (Read 301 times)

This is an exit scam and I feel badly for anyone else who has money on this site. Within 6 months theyll be gone with all of our coins mark my words.

Ah. Damn. It really does suck then - I didn't get any emails regarding the verifications or anything, and then one day I logged in and I had exceeded the volume and had to send in more information for tier 2. It wasn't that bad, I gave them my passport months ago since I'm an active trader there but their verification system has issues for sure.

You could just get a credit card or a real life loan - it seems like the better option and you won't need to pay spreads in selling the crypto-currency, and credit card interest rates are nothing if you pay back by the month.

Anyway. Good luck. I hope you get this sorted.

4 days noreply and I've suffered consequences as a result and will be suffering more. Thanks so much you shady fucks.

KYC doesn't ensure customers' safety, though.  If a legitimate customer jumps through all the necessary hoops and provides all the documents to validate the account, but then someone malicious hacks in and steals the funds, there are no details on record for that malicious party (aside from possibly an account number if they stole fiat currency).  KYC doesn't help you track down thieves and phishers.  They simply subvert the system.  It's highly unlikely any crypto funds would ever be recovered.  It makes no difference whether you have the legitimate customer's details or not.

All KYC does is create a treasure trove of personal details for criminals to steal and potentially use to break into other accounts elsewhere.  If anything, KYC is a leading cause of security breaches.  The only reason they try to convince you it's for your benefit is because they want to monitor your financial transactions without you realising what the real intent is.

You can not blame them for taking the extreme measures to ensure customers safety, if anyone got his/her money stolen as a result of weak security the blame will be on them, then you would prefer to be irritated and get pissed off as long as your funds are safe,
However,  I think they needs to pay more attention to their customer service in order to keep the customers confident about the platform.

I have been using local bitcoin for a very long time. I don't really want to use it anymore but I pretty much have to and I will tell you why...
They basically take KYC much too far to the point of ridiculousness and irritation. All this KYC stuff does much more harm then good. It just pisses off the 99.99% of users that aren't criminals.
KYC ruins our experience just because of a few scammers and thieves. No sorry, but when they take things that far it becomes counter productive.
Did you know they have a limit of only 1000eu per year!! Not per month. First level KYC is showing your drivers license and it only gives you 10000eu per year. I wish they would get it into their thick skulls taht people who launder money don't screw about with pennies they alunder massive amounts way over 10k. Small amounts should not need KYC. A free account should be 1k per month and KYC 10k per month.
I started using localetheruim but the prices are not so good for selling there. You lose about %7 which is quite a bit. Now they doing stuff like what is happening to you. When will it end? 

i learned that I couldnt withdraw my coins while trying to send them to paxful actually. Not only is it a better service from what ive seen but I had several buyers ready who were giving a 12k valuation.

Is anyone in here with enough empathy for my situation to help me with a BTC or fiat loan against my coins that are locked up for the next few day to two weeks (going off threads on reddit complaining of how long it takes).

It's not a lot of BTC so.not a large loan needed but it was a lot to me at this time because all of my resources except those coins are tied up in a small personal business im in the midle of launching (moving company. I ran someone else's for a long time and am going to do the same job I've been doing but for 4 times the money).

Anyway I know it's unlikely but I was selling those coins for food and to live so...can't blame me for trying to live and eat.

Agreed! I've never really had issues with the platform (eg, forced vacations, it's mostly been with the support staff. Doesn't seem fair or viable even to have your customers wait 3-4 days for a response, and then wait another couple days for another one.

They have definetly not been very competitive in the market recently, especially considering they where the best option for OTC trades for such a long time.

Might be time to move over to paxful...

honestly I think its just a matter of them not being competitive in the market and the niche they used to fill back in 2012/2013/14 era of facilitating face to face transactions is just not really needed so much these days as it has become so much easier than back then to purchase and sell bitcoins. You can sell them directly to cash app or on plenty of exchanges you cash deposit them into poker sites and withdraw cash you can use them in way more ways and for way more things now so actually converting to fiat isn't as necessary even at the basic level. Paxful seems to be a better service in the same vein as far as a dedicated site for facilitating online payment for bitcoins person 2 person so even in this one role they've fallen behind in my opinion.

This is all my opinion having been around and watched things come and go in the bitcoin world/community. It used to be the wild west and even acquiring bitcoin used to be a challenge for people outside of the community but that is just no longer the case. If they didnt have my coins there is zero percent chance I would even consider going through these verification processes to use their service because it's just not necessary enough and doesn't provide enough unique value to warrant that kind of time and effort. Like I've said a few times here and elsewhere in my other threads I believe they know this and that's why they're using shady tactics to get clients to make the time investment to comply with their verification processes in hopes that peoole will then sunk cost fallacy themselves into using the service/sit simply to make the effort and time they invested complying in order to get their coins back feel more worth it. This isn't logical but it's and commonly exploited psychological tic in how humans think and while I don't see anything wrong with companies using psychology to their advantage I do see something wrong with how LBC is going about it.

I just want them to return my coins to my wallet that I sent them from and then they can delete my account for all I care. I am doing and will continue to do whatever I can to avoid having to go through this tiered prcoeds just to get my coins back because honestly after this experience there is zero chance I ever login to LBC again after this is resolved.

It's certainly disheartening to witness LocalBitcoin's fall from greatness.  Back in 2013, it's unlikely I would have got seriously involved in Bitcoin if they had operated then the way they do now.  I'm also a little surprised about the lack of contenders looking to fill this gap in the market.  I would have thought it would be fairly lucrative to launch a service similar to how LocalBitcoins used to be, without all the KYC.  Is it likely that such services are having issues with the fiat transfer side of things where banks start blocking transfers to and from the escrow accounts if there's no KYC in place?

I stopped using this site because one day I woke up and when I tried to login said my email and password were not correct, the end my account had been hacked, I desperately sent a ticket to the support who were quick to answer me, to to my surprise they asked me for my passport, proof of residence, asked me to write some things on the paper and take a picture holding the paper along with my face and computer screen. I did it all and my account was recovered. I was relieved, the next day my account was hacked again and I made the same procedure and my account was reactivated.

A month later my account was hacked again, I got tired and gave up of my account.

i haven't done any selling of bitcoin in a long time and when I did it was using LBC for face to face transactions (like I said on another site i made a thread on I have been a member of LBC for almost 7 years) so when I needed to quickly sell some for venmo or paypal I went with what I knew and had previously has good experiences with. But yea this is where I think they're dping it on purpose and bring shady because bow I have to either play their games (which I wouldn't have bothered with I'd have just gone somewhere else) or surrender my coins to them so either they get a customer to invest time into satisfying them which for many because of sunk cost fallacy will lead people who would have left to stick around and use the service or they get surrendered BTC. This is why I think they hide then lengths you're ron na have to go AND tell you youll be able to withdraw if you decide its not worth it. Without both of those things I'd never have deposited my coins.

Let it be clear in the beginning of this my account told me I just needed to verify my phone number basically to turn trading back on. I started my deposit and then began the process (as most would i think since it also says you can withdraw no problem so by the time you can trade your coins will be there) and it wasnt until I went into my settings and tried to add and verify my number that it told me that no, I can't even go through verifying my number because of this forced vacation shit. This is when I said oh nevremind and tried to withdraw my coins. And here we are. And i am really unhappy. The CM on reddit, who i private messaged, asked for my ticket number several hours ago and i haven't heard back from them but based on how they've responded to others (80%of the posts on the LBC subreddit are similar complaints) im not expexting much.

All I want is a transfer initiated of my coins back to the address they came from. This shouldn't be a problem at all. But it apparently is a huge deal and I think it's for the reasons i said. A deliberate effort to put me and others like me in a bad position where me must invest time into their site or surrender our coins.

I fully intend to use the proceeds from those coins if it takes me days or weeks to get them back to purchase ads everywhere I can linking to threads like this one and highlighting how poorly and unfairly this site is being run.

But they seem reluctant and quiet about the issue. If they really care about their reputation and considering this isn't the first time, they should have at least a control team that handles this kind of issue. Honestly, implementing KYC is becoming the escape goat of fraudster.

Though not really fan of LB, and just use to buy some satoshis before, hence not used on storing my coins in any exchange site.

This is something that LocalBitcoins has to seriously look at because this drives at the very center of the platform...and that is the deterioration of its services to its loyal customers. I understand that this can be an isolated incident but if the same problem can also be happening to others, then complaints will certainly piled up and many will be venting their frustration in different social media and that is something that LocalBitcoins must avoid at all cost. I am hoping that this problem can be solved as soon as possible.


I agree. This is a big failure on the customer service system and maybe of people manning this department. I am not actually passing judgement on LocalBitcoins just based on this incident but if this platform will not arrest a problem at its inception then something like this can grow and have a life of its own. I am sure though that people behind LocalBitcoins are not allowing the goodwill and reputation they worked for years to go to waste.

Yea the lack of customer service and reliance on tickets and being deferred to the ticket staff and just having no good way to get information anytime money is involved and even more when your site/service clearly isn't built to a high standard of accuracy...it's just a recipe for disatisfaction

I think the bigger problem is the part of customer service, if the customer service are more active and responsive to the varying issues users are encountering in the site it will make things easier, if they want to keep their reputation they better do something about customer service otherwise they could be given wrong impression to users.

If I posted in the wrong place my bad feel free to relocate it to its proper home. I just needed to vent and wanted to warn others.

Yeah, the site has definetly gone down in quality ever since KYC was forced, then the seemingly random removal of cash trades, and now their tier verification bullshit.

I had a similar issue where the ID I was posting wasn't being detected and it was being declined automatically, it had all the right things but was still being declined. Waited 2 weeks for support to get back to me after making numerous claims and they finally updated me, not good enough for a trading escrow site.

PS: should probably move this into service discussion.

that's exactly what bothers me so much. I really think this is purposeful to get people who might otherwise have just moved on than bother with all the hoops to be forced to go through them because your other option is to surrender your BTC to them so once you fall for the false information they present telling you that youll be able to take your BTC back if you decide its too much and make a new deposit then they win no matter what. Either you go through the hoops to get your BTC back and many likely end up using the site longer when they would have just left or you decide to surrender your funds. Either they retain customers they would have lost or if they lose them they get some BTC from them on the way out.

It's too perfect the way they feed you the information and how it benefits them to be an accident. In my opinion this is deliberate behavior designed to benefit them at the cost of their users and in spite of what the users in question may actually want. I dont think anyone paying attention should continue using their site/service because I've been around the BTC community since 2011 and in my experience this type of behavior always precedes the famous "we recovered 10% so here are pennies for your dollars" exit scam posts
 I believe without a doubt that the day is coming and im very irritated I have to choose between playing their game for however many days or weeks going forward and letting them keep my BTC freely. Sucks

well it is for us to decide whether to take advantage of the offer or not. It depends on our decision but right now, the idea of lowkey steal by localbitcoins I can see is, local apps that converts bitcoin to fiat currency and vise versa, there's a chance that they might deduct a small amount of bitcoin, more than the standard transfee. A small amount isn't noticeable, but if they will take away from more people, it is a big money to consider.