Description
UpdateA hosted web-based E-Wallet used for sending, receiving and storing bitcoins. This is not to be confused with the data structure in the blockchain which is also named coinbase.
The service aims to be the easiest way to get started with Bitcoin. Its service is modeled to provide an experience familiar to those who are comfortable using PayPal.
Reviews
Write a reviewHoward Sheerin - August 4, 2016
Coinbase will certainly allow you to purchase bitcoins with your hard earned cash. However, good luck trying to sell your bitcoins back into cash. On 07/31/2016 They refused to let me sell any of my bitcoins which literally cost me $10,000 (check the price chart for bitcoin and what happened after 07/31/2016). I sold my shares of GBTC with no problem at all. Why? Because the stock market is a true, free, and open market. Coinbase is a joke. I'm transferring all of my bitcoins out of this joke.
ACIM - July 29, 2016
Preface by saying, ultimately did receive BTC's purchased. However, do believe the vast majority of Coinbase's problems revolve around poor support. Combined with occasional bugs on user account interface?My experience with Coinbase was using ACH withdrawal. After providing an uncomfortable amount of information I began first purchase without issue. Then ran into what appears to have been a bug with the user front end, cannot be sure because CB Support never replied to Help Case submitted about it.
Essentially, I placed a Buy order and Confirmed but end up with delayed logging of transaction on portal. Not realizing that very poor Support was the norm, when I didn't hear from them in a day, I submitted another Buy thinking the first did not go through. Well, then I had two orders coming and didn't realize it.
Since no response ever comes from CB Support except "we're sorry for delay, please let us know if this is still important" (close paraphrase). The only recourse was to watch bank account. As you might imagine, there were more transactions then desired. Opened another ticket asking to please call me quickly or will have to stop the withdrawal. No timely call, no email, no ticket response. Then left voicemail on their merchant line. No response.
Net net - Poor support pushed the situation into a Stop at my bank. Completely unnecessary, if only support was staffed or capable of responding to tickets. Although I did receive the BTC, Coinbase Support locked my account from buys due to stop order that they effectively forced me into.
Not hating on Coinbase, I'm sure they are just people like any other trying to run a business. But the anxiety associated with being a helpless customer not in control of your transactions and without support, leads to these kinds of outcomes. For these reasons I have to give them a lower rating.
Best wishes to Coinbase, but please work on big improvements with Support.
Sambow - July 27, 2016
Coin-base is a POS company. There beware people do not use them would give zero stars if it was an option
no response on case - July 18, 2016
I entered a case Friday 9PM. It's now Monday 11:37 AM. I'm locked out of my account due to the fact my email changed. There's no apparent way to contact them except by opening a case and waiting on them to respond.
Daniel R. - July 10, 2016
After buying and selling dozens of bitcoins the past 1 year and 1 day after i just sold 3 bitcoins my daily account limit went from $4000 a day to $200 a day and even at that I am unable to buy that little as it says I have already used my daily maximum of $200 (which i haven't bought any at all in 3 days). In the past I have twice sent documents and ID proof.Go figure, very disappointing as today I missed being able to buy the big dip.
2nd complaint is that price offered by them is higher than all 4 major exchanges by about 1% and that's on top of the 1% extra they charge for buying and selling, and they say their BTC prices is an average of major exchanges (that is such a deception and true lie by Coinbase).
Very confused as how this company is making the news daily as if its the big best innovative Bitcoin company out there
JYDLCH - July 6, 2016
Up to this point the service (Coinbase) seems to have worked quite well.I got a notice from my bank that I was overdrawn...I checked my Coinbase account and all my purchases looked as they should. I logged on my checking account and there were the 2 original purchases and 2 additional pending purchases throwing my account into the overdraft position.
I sent an email request into Coinbase. I got an automated response and a Case number. I responded back with some additional info. I have not heard back yet and sent an additional email.
If this was some minor issue I would not be so concerned but for this amount of $ and the possible repercussions I am deeply concerned.
I can not find a phone number on their site on on the web. There is no instant chat. It might be worth the drive and show up at their door and see what they have to say.
I hope we do not have another MtGox situation here!
Gerard Dache - July 1, 2016
On June 14th I sent an email to Coinbase support stating that my account has been locked.• June 16th, Josh from Coinbase responded and told me that it was because my payment for a previous purchase was pending and it should clear in a day or two and at that point, my account abilities would be restored. That’s the last I ever heard from him or anyone at Coinbase.
• June 24th, I sent a follow up inquiry (no response)
• June 27th, I sent a follow up inquiry (no response)
• June 29th, I sent a follow up inquiry (no response)
• June 30th, I sent a follow up inquiry (no response)
I have tried to call information to get their number, they are not listed. I’ve contacted the Better Business Review and searched dozens of sites online to try to talk to a human. All they say is to send an email or go to their website. However, they are totally unresponsive. These people have the worst customer support of any business that I have ever seen! With no way to contact them and no way to get a response. It is very frustrating!
Michael C. - July 1, 2016
Your experiences may be different than mine but my experience has been Coinbase is great as long as I did not actually need Customer Service. At that point the pleasant experience came to a screeching halt.Customer service is VERY slow to respond and when they did respond they were addressing an issue I did not have?! Apparently their Customer Service personnel work in a vacuum and with minimal, if any, supervisory overview. "Eduardo" promised resolution (once I finally got a response) within "a day or two" That was last week.
I have a son overseas and btc is the fastest way of getting him money, usually every month. Now, since Coinbase dropped my purchasing power from $1000 a day to $200 a week, my family is in crisis and Coinbase seems oblivious.
I was going to integrate Coibase into my USAA account (I'm a retired military officer), instead, I'm contacting USAA encouraging them to move very carefully in their dealing with Coinbase as they do not have the same high level of customer service USAA does.
To be honest, I think it would be better, faster and less hassle to find someone on Craig's List, meet at McDonalds and buy btc that way.
Coinbase is a great idea, an apparently secure platform (even I can;t get btc from them!) and practical application of technology. However, like many tech companies, their systems falls apart when it comes to human interaction.
I would encourage anyone to hold off joining Coinbase until they iron the bugs out and develop, and implement, a better customer service training program.
If something were to miraculously happen resolving all this, I will post a follow-up.
Be careful and use a VPN!
Michael C
Philip D Evans - June 28, 2016
The main clue is in the numbers . This is a clear and well thought out platform written by people who understand markets . There isn't a single millimetre on the GDAX interface going to waste and it is smoother to use than other five year old exchanges . People are shifting 100 units on a regular basis . Yes there are a few glitches in a new and fast moving business but these are not 'street muggers' after your dollars . They are making thousands of dollars a minute by their own enterprise . If you are having problems don't panic . keep your emails and be patient . There are a handful of bad reviews on here but coin dealers are a breed who are out for themselves so most of them would not give the time to write a positive review . I am 100% independent guy and nothing to do with Coinbase . I have my BCT in various places but I prefer to day-trade on the GDAX
Harmon Killabrew - June 18, 2016
Don't do business with this company. I made the mistake of using their vault feature, and have been unable to get my Bitcoins out going on a week now. They seem utterly indifferent to the issue.
Gregg Ross - June 18, 2016
I did a little "study" after reading the reviews from my fellow users. As most of you are most likely aware, one can download software to host bitcoin vaults yourself and store them on USB keys/disks (I use mSIGNA, and Love it. It's so easy to use and allows you to physically secure your own BTC). So i created a separate vault from my normal vault, and proceeded to apply for a Coinbase account, planning to do a test transaction once I bought a fraction of a bitcoin.
The Coinbase UI, among a short list, is awesome! Everything is user friendly and easy to use, all the way down to a step-by-step guide for first-time users to buy their first Bitcoin. Jumping ahead, their customer service representatives are polite and as helpful as they have the ability to be over a phone conversation.
Once I registered with the website, I invested $100, which at the time only bought a little under a 5th of 1 BTC. This transaction was through a bank (Wells Fargo), and so I downloaded the app and prepared to wait for the order to follow through, checking in on the app for any progress on the order.
5 business days... nothing but a confirmation of a posted transaction on the bank's side saying $100 had been withdrawn from checking.
10 business days... nothing else
15 business days (three weeks)... and I'm t'd off. After work I call the support line that i found on google because their homepage didn't display it. After a phone conversation with a pleasant young woman, my order magically arrived.
--------------
So then I'm ready for my test, which I was about to bail on out of fear of (what turned out to be) the inevitable. I set up an invoice on my local bitcoin vault (which took 5 seconds, mSIGNA is great), and start a transaction with my Coinbase account. The btc is immediately debited from my account with an order confirmation to my email.
...My new vault still has no BTC in it...
Honestly, people, instead of finding an online wallet, just download a Bitcoin wallet to your computer and put your vault on a USB disk. It's much safer, and more stress free than entrusting your money to an online server which can't even handle internal transactions between two Coinbase accounts (my sympathy to William's review on 5-27). If you aren't tech savvy, then please continue your research for hosting companies with better reliability than Coinbase.
If your feeling generous, donations are gladly accepted. I honestly don't really care about that $100, but it would be great to have it back to go and test another online wallet site.
Alex Rohen - June 17, 2016
Pretty bad experience. Needed to reverify, the fact that net verify uses flash was almost enough for me to close my account right then and there, but eventually the flash app didn't work, and eventually when to an internal server error. Amazing how poorly done it was, and I didn't even need to buy any btc
Ryan - June 16, 2016
Horrible comapny, purcased several times in the past without issues but recently purchase a coin right before a big spike in price, and then a few days later they cancel my order becasue they need to "prioritize security over order delivery" Total joke, even now without any changes I can purchase again but at the higher price. Clearly they are ripping people off.
starrynite - June 16, 2016
coinbase sucks. uses ach transfer but only allows inital transfer/purchase of $100. Does not allow additional transfer/purchase until after first transaction complete. Impossible to do business under such circumstances. Coinbase has completely destroyed the intent & purpose of bitcoins. Intend to close account immediately.
Elliander Eldridge - June 11, 2016
initially my experience with Coinbase was simple and easy and they always had direct deposits within 3 days. However, lately on our business accounts things have been getting strange. And by that I mean for the past full year.Well, we submitted our federal tax ID number, and submitted all rewuired paperwork but then they lost it. We had to submit it allover again multiple times. Then it would see that the account is a bbusiness account and want more information which was the same information yet again. Our bank accounts randomly disappeared and we had to set it up again before we could buy and sell anything. Then it would forget submitted ID records for the primary on the account (since they don't allow it to be in the name of the business) and our buy limits were drastically reduced to a mere $25 despite having purchased and sold tens of thousands of dollars through them in the past. Now it takes a full week for any sell orders to be completed, but only on the business account and it's extremely annoying.
Atthis ooint we only use Bitcoin for lack of a fast alternative, but if things keep slowing down and if they keep forgetting data like this I will have to use an alternative.
Dalton - May 28, 2016
Disappointed beyond measure. Because of a mistake on THEIR part, I had to put a stop payment through my bank because they were double charging. Well, that apparently hit a nerve because since then they don't allow me to purchase anymore and cancelled every single one of my pending purchases.
William - May 27, 2016
Another coinbase user made a btc payment to my coinbase account. The bitcoins were debited from their account and not credited to mine. The fact that an internal payment could be messed up so badly isn't the worst part, it's the absolute absence of any support or reassurance.Coinbase have stated they are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it. What they will not do is re-assure me or give me any remote idea of a time frame when it will be fixed and now the agent no longer wishes to speak to me.
Without access to these funds I doubt my ability to pay rent in the next week. Coinbase seem that they couldn't care less, despite admitting liability.
I am typing this at my desk, where I have been unable to work all day for the worry I am feeling. I don't see the situation improving at all over the bank holiday weekend and I see on the forums that others have similar problems and also gripes with customer service not responding.
If only I had listened to other people's warnings I wouldn't have trusted Coinbase or be in the terrible position I am now.
Attila - May 25, 2016
( review update) I recently wrote a Review. I recived a response shortly after my posting, and coinbase did give a satisfactory reply to my concerns.
Jorgen - May 23, 2016
I have been using Coinbase for a year about and purchased quite a bit of bitcoin through them both via credit card and wiretransfer of Euro. Their site is a bit slow at times and also buggy on very few instances but in general I am very satisfied with them. I have received my Bitcoin very fast each time I made a purchase. I ave not yet tried to transfer funds out from the account so I can't comment on that. there fees are a bit steep and the customer service is ok at best but I would definitely recommend them. One thing I do not like is that sometimes when you order Bitcoin via credit card and the site bugs out you have to wait an hour or two before your limit is reset and you can re-try the purchase.
// Jorgen
Garrett Sullivan - May 21, 2016
I had no trouble setting up my account in February. I then bought 2 coins, maybe a bit slow. Initiated sale of 2 coins 20 days ago. No credit in my account. Support just sends out form emails. I am starting the process of a complaint with the SEC. I am considering small claims court. check this out:
IN NO EVENT SHALL COINBASE, ITS AFFILIATES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS, OR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, JOINT VENTURERS, EMPLOYEES OR REPRESENTATIVES, BE LIABLE FOR LOST PROFITS OR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE COINBASE SITE, THE COINBASE SERVICES, OR THIS AGREEMENT (HOWEVER ARISING, INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE).
It is in the user agreement.
They suck. The positive review above are very suspect. Too perfect...
