Coinbase is under fire for terrible customer service following reports of users’ accounts being hacked and drained of funds.
According to a Tuesday investigation by CNBC, thousands of customers across the country have lodged complaints against the company.
The outlet stated that it had interviewed numerous Coinbase customers who claimed hackers had drained their accounts, with the issue exacerbated by the exchange not responding to support requests:
“Interviews with Coinbase customers around the country and a review of thousands of complaints reveal a pattern of account takeovers, where users see money suddenly vanish from their account, followed by poor customer service from Coinbase that made those users feel left hanging and angry.”
One Coinbase client, Tanja Vidovic, claimed to have lost nearly all of her $168,000 in cryptocurrency holdings after receiving a number of password change security alerts in April. Attempts to contact Coinbase by phone were fruitless, Vidovic said.
Another customer told the outlet that after logging in to the Coinbase app in March, almost $35,000 in various crypto assets had disappeared from their account. Coinbase’s Regulatory Response Team eventually emailed the victim stating that transactions on the blockchain are irreversible, adding that Coinbase’s insurance policy does not cover theft from individual accounts.
In March, The New York Times ran a piece on a helpless Coinbase customer who eventually sued the company after losing $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
Other Coinbase users have taken to social media to vent their frustrations. For example, popular analyst Kaleo told his 360,000 followers that the company had shown an “absolutely embarrassing display of care for customers.”
The tweet, which was posted less than a day ago, had already attracted a stream of responses from other Coinbase customers who had similar problems with support or had been hacked. Coinbase did actually respond to this complaint, but one individual pointed out that:
“You will only reply and assist people who have many followers so your reputation will not go down to hell! What about us？ 5 months with no help! Locked account!”
Another user on Twitter said, “I haven’t been able to get into my Coinbase account for almost 4 months now. The worst!”
In April, when the company went public, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong somewhat ironically told CNBC, “People no longer need to be scared of it [crypto] like in the early days.”
Coinbase users have filed more than 11,000 complaints against Coinbase with the United States Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since 2016, and the majority of them are related to customer service.
