Monday, January 25, 2021

No CX response and couldn't log in or transact during the rally. Why stay?

I have been a Coinbase customer since 2015. It is where I have purchased the vast majority of my cryptocurrency portfolio. Since then, I have only opened up one (1!) customer support ticket (case #03251368) and I still have not heard back. That was on November 27, 2020. That's 60 days ago at the time of this post. That's pretty concerning considering they started in 2012. I'm not sure if they prioritize "VIP" customers based on lifetime value, spend frequency, time with the company, or some other metric, but I was bummed to be neglected despite years of being a reliable customer. My account has never been frozen or had any issues before either. When should I expect a response?

Even with the recent blog post from Coinbase about improving customer service, I've been nervous about the service itself as well. During the height of both major bitcoin rallies, I was either unable to log in to my account or make any transactions altogether. While I can understand what happened in 2017, I was shocked when it happened again this year. Did Coinbase not prepare for the event in which they would need to quickly scale up resources? Do they have a plan now for when it inevitably happens again?

I was and still am for the most part a Coinbase fan. But even with the great security of the vault feature, I've transferred my funds elsewhere for safekeeping. Being unable to log in or do anything in relation to my assets during the rally nor even receive a response to my single customer service inquiry which I followed up on over a month ago is frankly unacceptable.

Sadly, it appears the old adage is true. Not your keys, not your coins. I will likely still use Coinbase for purchasing since their general exchange rates are slightly better than ones from competitors, but I cannot trust an exchange the operates this way for storing my cryptocurrency. With competitors like Cash App from Square and PayPal entering the space, there are plenty of great options too that will hopefully force Coinbase to improve.


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