Coinbase has come under criticism for its poor customer support in the wake of stories of consumers’ accounts being hacked and cash being stolen.
According to a recent investigation by CNBC, the business has received thousands of complaints from consumers around the country.
According to the publication, it interviewed many Coinbase users who said hackers had emptied their accounts, a situation made worse by the exchange’s failure to react to help requests.
Tanja Vidovic, a Coinbase customer, said she lost nearly all of her $168,000 in bitcoin assets in April after getting a series of password change security notifications. Vidovic stated his attempts to reach Coinbase by phone were unsuccessful.
Another client informed the publication that after entering into the Coinbase app in March, their account had lost over $35,000 in various crypto holdings.
The victim was ultimately emailed by Coinbase’s Regulatory Response Team, who said that blockchain transactions are irreversible and that Coinbase’s insurance policy does not cover theft from individual accounts.
Other Coinbase users have expressed their dissatisfaction on social media. For instance, Kaleo, a famous analyst, informed his 360,000 followers that the firm demonstrated an “absolutely embarrassing display of care for customers.”
The tweet immediately drew a flood of comments from other Coinbase users who had had similar support issues or had been hacked.
When Coinbase went public in April, CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC, perhaps sarcastically, “People no longer need to be scared of it [crypto] like in the early days.”
Since 2016, Coinbase users have submitted over 11,000 complaints with the US Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the bulk of which concern customer service.