Author

Topic: [RESOLVED] Bitinstant arbitrarily doubles its fee, without warning (Read 2938 times)

hero member
Activity: 572
Merit: 506
PM'd you,

Thank you, I knew you are reliable guys.
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1000
Charlie 'Van Bitcoin' Shrem
Hey,

We did not do this on purpose, our system probably just had a glitch.

Post your destination account and Ill send the fee back

Sorry

Charlie
hero member
Activity: 572
Merit: 506
Update: the problem was resolved quickly, thanks to Yankee

Recently I was transfering 1580USD from MtGox to BTC-e.
As it often happens with Bitinstant, I had to make several attempts of transfering funds, it doesn't usually work from the first attempt. From time to time I was looking at my MtGox USD coupon to ensure that it is still not redeemed. After one of the attempts I noticed that my coupon is redeemed, but still no transfer order suceeded nor my funds arrived to BTC-e. Nonetheless, I made several more attempts. And at some moment the funds surprisingly finally appeared at my BTC-e account. Just in case, from time to time I check, that I'm getting right amount of funds, the fee deducted was as expected, etc... This time I was surprised that the fee was deducted twice.

I immeditely wrote the following e-mail message to their support:

****************************
Hello dear Rachel,

Today I made a transfer of USD from MtGox to Btc-e:

OrderID: 76bd2a8c-59c4-4e87-994b-2e5e45106f30
EventID: 89fd84fb-c46f-4fa2-84a7-a95cd113caed
DestAccount: xxxx
QuoteID: 2758c762-0def-4cbc-a0d4-faf13bbc2f33
User: SYSTEM
DestExchange: btce
eventtype: Order executed
EventSentAt: 1364918681.01
APIResponse: {u'transID': 13794667, u'result': u'success'}
FundsSent: $1556.458 USD
 
As you see, I should have received 1556.458 USD. But my account was credited only with 1533.2667758 USD. Again, fee was deducted twice. Please send the rest of money!
 
Thank you...


****************************

Rachel was very fast with the following reply:

****************************

...

You actually exceeded our $500 USD/transaction limit which is why the fee was doubled. In the future, please make sure to keep your transactions to under $500 USD so as to avoid any delays or additional fees.

---
Sincerely,
Rachel


****************************

To be honest, I was aware of 500USD transactions limit. But how such limitation must be implemented? Obviously their software must perform a check, and if transacting amount exceeds some limits, it should warn the user and offer to lower the sum. If their system allows a transaction, it must process it as any other transaction. Especially given that it explicitly states transaction fee (not doubled), amount of money to be sent to ones account, etc...

I immediately sent them the following message:

****************************

OK, I'll limit my orders by 500USD in future.

I still expect you you to credit my account with the rest of my money.

Thank you...


****************************

Still no reply from them, nor rest of money credited to my account (in about 2 days).

I don't beleive this is their official policy. My opinion it is highhandedness of an emploee, most likely Rachel.
I appreciate valuable service BitInstant provides to us. Although their programmers seem to be incompetent. And that stresses their support.

All issues I had with them in the past were resolved sooner or later. So I hope this time it will be resolved as well.
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