Ah coinbase what can I say? Not sure if anyone reading this has utilized coinbase, but my personal experience was a nightmare.
There I was all these years watching bitcoin with fascination. Keep in mind I said watching, not participating. Anyway, I decided to dip my toe in about two and a half months ago. Now I didn't decide on my own to start to get in on the crypto currency phenomenon, I had a lot of help from several alternative media personalities. I would like to give them credit, not only for opening my eyes to crypto's, but also for helping me decipher the pure insanity that has been ongoing since 2008 and possibly even the entire 21st century. Those personalities are Sean from SGT Report http://sgtreport.com/, Bix Weir from Road to Roota http://www.roadtoroota.com/, and of course Cliff High from Half Past Human https://www.halfpasthuman.com/.
In order for me to actually take the plunge, I had to witness a couple of predictions that Cliff High had made relating to Bitcoin. I don't remember exactly what the podcast said, but to paraphrase: Bitcoin will move up to around $1,200 and then it will retract to around the mid $800 level and then again aggressively move higher to around the $1,800 level. Guess what Bitcoin did?
Exactly what Cliff said, well almost, it moved to the lower $800 level in January.
I noticed my online bank account was linking to coinbase as an external account. So I got off my ass on crypto's and thought hey, maybe this stuff is actually legitimate. I created an account in March 2017 with coinbase.
I joined around the 2nd week and it took just a couple days to verify my bank account and link it to coinbase. Not bad, for verifying information. Now being of the conservative mindset, I wanted to take things slow and try the time tested method of dollar cost averaging. For those of you who don't understand dollar cost averaging, it is basically continuously investing the same amount over a period of time. It usually takes years to double your money. Using dollar cost averaging you get the highs and lows, but for the most part it should consist of a continuous upswing over time (don't remind me of 1987, 2000 or 2008).
OK don't laugh at the symbolism...
So I began my dollar cost averaging pursuit into the crypto currencies. Since I felt the crypto's were moving much faster than the dow (both pictured above) I decided a weekly dollar cost average was the best strategy. I am not a rich man so I thought $100 a week was a good way to try the strategy. The first two trades went perfect, however there was a week between purchasing, and then actually getting the bitcoin credited to my account. No big deal it still got there with the price I had paid a week earlier. Then I did my third purchase, and this time coinbase double tapped my account for $101.49.
When I saw this, I attempted to get in touch with the coinbase management or help team. I wrote an e-mail telling them that they charged me twice for a single purchase. I got the computer generated B.S. in response. It was an interesting e-mail that just seemed to link right back to their customer service portal where I had originally initiated the contact from.
Here is what it said: "Thank you for emailing us. This email address is currently receiving a high volume of support requests. For faster service, please submit a support request using this link:
Caution-https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/emails/new Selecting the
appropriate category for your inquiry will ensure that your case is routed as
efficiently as possible."
Yes that is where I started my inquiry! So much for efficiency.
So I waited a several days and didn't receive anything further from them. I then called my bank and had them cancel ONE of the TWO charges that were levied against my account. My bank took the necessary action to get my money back. I then continued with my dollar cost averaging pursuit on bitcoin. I placed two more orders over the next couple weeks, the first time it was fine, the second time they did it AGAIN. Yep, TWO charges for ONE transaction. I didn't bother submitting anything to coinbase and called my bank to take the appropriate action. Then I started up again with my plan and this time added in an additional pursuit with etherium. My next transaction went fine, and a week later I received both my bitcoin and etherium.
I did an additional purchase of both crypto's and before the payment could be completed, coinbase had froze my bank account from conducting transactions. So there I was, bitcoin just over 1K etherium still in the 40s, and two transactions in limbo. I then received two e-mails from coinbase informing me that they were reversing the bitcoin transaction. Keep in mind they had received their money for both of these transactions with the additional payments they had levied against my account.
I sent them a new inquiry explaining exactly what they were doing. And yes, the same BS computer generated response is what I got. I continued to write them until I actually got one of their employees to correspond with me. I wasn't requesting my money back, but I was requesting that they return the bitcoin they had reversed. Well that didn't work, instead of returning my bitcoin, they refunded my two double charges.
Within a week they had taken back the bitcoin that I had paid for, they had completely banned my account from performing any additional transactions, and they had cancelled my bitcoin and etherium transactions that were in limbo. But out of the goodness of their heart they let me keep my bitcoin and etherium that they hadn't taken back.
Yep here is the response I received:
Hello,
A manual review has determined that you are not eligible to use the Coinbase platform to purchase digital currency. We’re sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause.
We regret that we are not able to supply you with any additional information.
Please note that we have not blocked access to any balance currently in your Coinbase account. While we can no longer process buy orders via our banking relationship, you may withdraw these funds at any time.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Regards,
The Coinbase Team
Thanks coinbase! Anyway I continue with my dollar cost averaging adventure, this time with another platform. For those of you out there curious about blockchain, I would caution you to have a process for buying these things. They are very volatile, and there is no get rich scheme out there that works. Well unless you own a bank.
I've been having a lot of trouble with their servers lately. I don't think they're capable of handling those days when the market is trading at an extremely high volume. Their servers went down and their app stopped working. What is the other platform you're using?
I am now using an exchange called Gemini. But I also store whatever I purchase in a wallet. My wallet choice is Trezor and it seems pretty secure. Well if anything is secure these days...
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