Quick blog post of my experiences of using Coinbase this year. Signed up in early January as I needed somewhere to exchange some cryptocurrency, submitted my required ID and waited, and waited.
A month later I submit a support ticket, get a generic stock answer, explain how they’re busy and it’ll be reviewed when they can. Ticket closed, despite issue not resolved.
Fair enough, I wait another two months and submit another support ticket asking how long this will take and if there is anyway they can expedite this. Ticket closed a couple of weeks later with no resolution.
In early May the account was now out of review and I could actually use it! Only took four months. I transferred in some Bitcoin and swapped it for a few other coins. Did no withdrawals, didn’t purchase any other crypto, just used the initial dump of Bitcoin into the account to do some trades and earn some APR and get some Rewards.
Two months later - on the 17th of July. Get an e-mail account under review again.
What triggered it? Who knows. Hadn’t looked at the account for a couple of weeks prior to that when I did a trade. Anything suspicious? No, all sign-ins listed on my account are either from my home or work IP addresses - both of which are static, or from my mobile - which even then is usually on one of those IP addresses. Never connected using a VPN which could make it look a bit dodge. The password is unique to Coinbase, I’ve got application-based MFA on the account additionally which I’ve had on it since it was originally setup.
I raised at support ticket about a month ago now, that was closed with a generic answer and the account is still under review.
In summary:
- Early January - account opened but under review
- Early February - first support ticket no resolution
- Early April - second support ticket no resolution
- Early May - account unlocked.
- Mid July - account locked.
- Early August - support ticket no resolution.
- Early September - moaning on the internet about it instead.
Honestly, I’ve had the account for 8 months now and I’ve only been able to use it for just over 2 months of that.
Following the Coinbase Subreddit shows hundreds of people with the same issue, throughout the whole year, some of which apparently have over £300,000 in their accounts. I’m lucky in that most of my crypto isn’t stored in Coinbase, but its still a fair chunk of money I wouldn’t mind access to again.
Update: Account was finally verified or finished its review again on the 11th of November.