Coinbase Seems To Be Back

Since August I have had problems with Coinbase and have been dragging my feet getting set up with another exchange since the process looked so complicated and drawn out.

But, thankfully, I think Coinbase is back online to me. In fact it seems faster than before.

I did say say I would never use them again since their Customer Service is abysmal but I'm taking the path of least resistance.

I read a post, this morning by @glenalbrethsen and started to leave a comment there. But, since I seem to keep rewriting bits and pieces of my Coinbase story in replies I thought I'd put it all together and make my own post.

^{Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash}

My story began at the beginning of August when I sent Coinbase £100, with the same bank details and in the same way as I've done, successfully, in the past. However, this time the deposit went missing.

They had said previously that from August there would be a temporary period when Fast Bank Payments would no longer be usable from the UK but that it wouldn't affect the Pro accounts. Since I traded through the Pro accounts I thought it wouldn't be a problem so I sent the money anyway.

What I've since discovered through numerous attempts to get back in is that my accounts seem to be linked in plain old Coinbase and that I'm only trading on the Pro part.

Anyhow . . .

Long story short I had a very frustrating 3 weeks trying to get my funds added to my account which included 2 emails from 2 different people sending me the "Having investigated the issue, I am working with a specialist to address it properly." email.

They wanted a load of information about the transfer which I couldn't give them because it hadn't actually gone through so we went back and forth on that a lot.

Meanwhile I was desparate to buy a little Steem while the prices were so low and kept thinking I needed to find another exchange but just couldn't face the hassle.

Three weeks and 15+ emails later I received one from them to say they'd tracked down the funds and they were now in my account. Except they weren't. When I went to my account they had the 6 day hold on them as though I'd only just started the transaction.

So, finally at the end of my tether with it all, I emailed back saying if they didn't put the funds, cleared, into my accout immediately I was going to report them to the Financial Ombudsmen.

Surprise, surprise the funds were in my account within 2 hours!

(The story was actually way more convoluted and unbelievably incompetent than this but I don't want to bore you with even more detail. Suffice to say it was an extremely frustrating time).

Part of the frsutration was that I couldn't get them to answer my question as to whether or not I could continue to use the Bank details I always had or whether there would be a problem if I tried again. So I made no more trades.

Then, a few days ago I received another email saying that Fast Bank Transfers were now available in the UK again.

Never having received a reply as to whether the old method would now work again I decided not to risk it and sent another email asking the same question as previously.

This time I got a reply saying, "yes, it is all working fine again but be sure to use the new bank account details". Hmmm. What new back account? Mine? Theirs?

Off I go again. Another day. Another question. Another email.

This time they came back with the answer they were talking about their new bank account.

Great . . . except I can't find their bank details anywhere on either site.

Off I go again. Another day. Another question. Another email.

Now I get specific instructions where to find it. Except they don't work.

Off I go again. Another day. Another question. Another email.

Finally, I get an apology saying they had give me instructions for the app not for the website. Grrrrrr! But, unusually for them, they did have the foresight to add the new bank details to the email meaning I didn't need to go back to them, yet again, and ask for those.

Fast forward a few hours and I was able to send some GBP via Fast Bank Transfer and they arrived in Coinbase within minutes. Then I was able to transfer that to Coinbase Pro instantly. Yep, you read that right . . . instantly!!!! Which is an improvement on the old system either.

Except I didn't end up making a trade because, when I went to Blocktrades to do so . . .

. . . but that's a story for another day! 😂

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