Coinbase is currently on an expansion course. But growth brings problems. For example with customer support. Customers describe this in a CNBC article as poor.
The US news portal CNBC has revealedthat there are thousands of complaints in the US Coinbase gives. CNBC Introduces several victims of account takeovers who lost their money after logging into their account. In search of help, these fraud victims turned to Coinbase and were disappointed with the company’s customer support.
CNBC introduces the Vidovic couple, among others. The two were lured by the rising prices of the crypto market – and lost a six-figure amount through a hack.
“The Vidovics’ account balance had risen to $ 168,596 on April 28, when the hacking attack took place, according to bank statements the Vidovics were using CNBC shared. That amount is essentially gone, with only $ 587.15 remaining on the next day. On August 20th, Coinbase contacted the Vidovic couple and said: “As this attack was not the result of a breach of Coinbase security or our systems, we cannot reimburse you for this loss”.
Saved at the wrong end?
Talks with former Coinbase employees were also held. They reported that the switch from live chats to mail support caused problems. With live chats, employees can take care of a customer’s problems in real time and devote themselves fully to them. E-mail support, on the other hand, extends over a longer period of time. Customers have to wait a long time for an answer to urgent and time-critical concerns.
Coinbase users accordingly complained about the inaccessibility of the support team. Opposite to CNBC Customers reported that they missed exactly this kind of quick and direct help with such a sensitive topic. Therefore, victims of hacks or SIM swapping attacks not only sought help from Coinbase, but also sought advice from external companies.
Coinbase is partially reintroducing telephone support
Coinbase rejected the guilt in some cases. As in the case of Ben: he logged into his account secured by two-factor authentication and then lost cryptocurrencies worth $ 35,000. Ben could only contact the support team via email and was dealt with with the message that his computer had been hacked and that Coinbase’s insurance did not cover theft of accounts. Regarding the slow customer support, the company itself points out that the number of users has risen sharply since 2020. The company is already working on better customer support.
On August 19, the company announced the reintroduction of telephone support for cases of account theft (account takeover, ATO).
So now there should be customer support by phone again. The company also tweeted that it was taking many steps to protect Coinbase customers from account takeovers or SIM exchanges.