My experience with BTC-E - Is their support really that bad?

I recently had an issue, where my E-Mail got hacked. Fortunately I have a separate E-Mail for each exchange, however the one that got broken into was the one associated with BTC-E. So in order to prevent any damages I told BTC-E to lock my account, until I could regain access to said E-Mail. 2 Factor was also enabled, so the funds are still on BTC-e. Remember to enable 2 Factor Authentication!

After 2 Days my access to the E-Mail was restored and I have started to contact the support to regain access:

• Ticket to lock the account has been answered within hours
• 1 day later I sent them a reply to that ticket, that I have regained access to my E-Mail and asked for the account to be unlocked. They have closed it without responding, this might be, because the category was "money hold" and not "account banned"
• 2 Hours later I have opened another ticket using the E-Mail that was previously compromised to open a Ticket called "account suspended" in their "Account banned" category.
• Another swift reply, within hours from the BTC-E support asking me to register on xBTC-e in order to verify my account, with the promise that the account will be verified their within a day
• Naturally I have completed the verification on xBTC-e and have provided my drivers license, a utility bill (the bill got rejected, because it was older than 3 months) and my bank statement. As I had proof of address and the ID I indeed got verified on xBTC-e within 24 hours as promised. They even let me know in the ticket.
• Another 3 days passed and my account has not been unblocked, so I have opened a ticket with xBTC-e asking for my BTC-e account to be unblocked.
• The next day I opened a new ticket, which got the default priority "Normal". I have asked for an unblock and explained that I was verified for 3 days on xBTC-e. This has gotten closed within an hour though, you will not get an e-mail if it does so make sure to keep an hawks eye on it and don't open tickets if you are right before going to sleep. Being attentive is important here. I have then replied to the new ticket, this opens the ticket again.

After a few hours I have then gotten a reply from the Staff with the picture saying SUPPORT, that my account has been successfully unblocked.

So, within 1 week I was able to unblock my account with BTC-e, just be proactive from the beginning and dont wait for something to happen. I think the unblock is done manually based on certain internal factors with them. Here are the things I have done that may help you recover your account:

• Verify with xBTC-e using multiple documents, not just 2. That way you may still get verified even if one document is not accepted
• Be polite, but proactive with the BTC-e Support and keep refreshing the ticket overview every few hours. If your Ticket gets the priority [ private ] its likely only one person can see it, so open a new ticket to have it seen by everyone on the support team after you have succeeded in one step (account verified, account not unblocked for X days)
• Write your tickets in simple english. Not as in pretending like talking to a dog or something, but avoid using complicated words. It will make communication easier for them and for you. If you know a bit of Russian, maybe this will work out better, perhaps use both languages.
• Aside from verifying with xBTC-e make sure to open a cash account and deposit 1 or 2 dollars to it. I have used the same cryptoaddress as for deposits to BTC-e on it. Havin a dollar worth on a Cash account will unlock your ability to chat on the xBTC-e live chat, mention your issue there if things are starting to stall. I believe having a cash account on xBTC-e with some crypto on it generally helps.

For me these things have helped, keep engaging and stay calm no matter how many Coins you have tied up. I have been using BTC-e for many years and I always believed that they are legit. So even if their support is somewhat chaotic, if you can adapt to that they will get around.