Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Overbit’s Weekly Round Up.
In a breaking story on Wednesday, 25 August, CNBC reported that the media company interviewed Coinbase consumers around the country and that Coinbase was discovered to have hundreds of customer complaints.
Reports show that since 2016, Coinbase customers have submitted over 11,000 complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, most of which have been over customer service.
Many customers complain it’s difficult to reach employees and haven’t been compensated for their losses because Coinbase’s customer service is mainly via email.
Interviews with Coinbase consumers around the country, as well as an analysis of thousands of complaints, reveal a pattern of account takeovers, in which users’ funds mysteriously vanish from their accounts, followed by poor customer service from Coinbase, leaving them feeling betrayed and outraged.
In March, the Better Business Bureau decided that Coinbase has a “pattern of complaints from consumers who allege they are locked out of their accounts, even after providing required information or updates,” after reviewing the company’s complaints. According to the organisation’s website, it has received 1,128 complaints in the last three years.
According to CNBC, hackers have been discussing how to access accounts, including those of Coinbase customers, on the dark web, says Etay Maor, senior director of security strategy for cybersecurity firm Cato Networks. This may help to explain the so-called ‘pattern’ mentioned next.
Former Coinbase employees told CNBC that customer care methods have altered, arguably diminished, as the company has grown to its colossal size. In the early years, support staff communicated with consumers using live chat help. To automate its customer care, Coinbase created a repository of answers to frequently asked queries, and as we said, most support is done over email now. Even Coinbase admitted back in January that many new and existing clients are experiencing response time delays.
Support troubles are bound to be expected for any exchange given the sheer volume, especially for ever-growing venues like Coinbase. Nevertheless, this report is undoubtedly troubling for one of the industry’s biggest names. How Coinbase and its customers react in the coming weeks will surely be a story for the news, and we’ll do our best to keep you updated.
To round up this week’s Overbit Weekly Round Up, we recognise how NFTs continue to outperform.
Bitcoin briefly surpassed $50,000 for the first time since May after a flurry of positive news, including cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announcing a $500 million crypto purchase program and United Wholesale Mortgage, the second-largest mortgage lender in the United States, beginning to accept bitcoin as payment.
But at the time of writing, the cryptocurrency market has had a $125 billion downturn in the last 24 hours, shedding 6.21 per cent of its market value as of early morning. In a message to Forbes, Jehan Chu, founder and managing partner of Hong Kong-based crypto investment firm Kenetic Capital, stated, “Medium-term U.S. and China regulatory headwinds remain,” reflecting some general sentiment that, despite the market’s rise, some analysts remained cautious.
The flood of coins to cryptocurrency exchanges is adding to the pressure, implying that investors are planning to sell. According to William Clemente, chief insights analyst at Blockware Solutions, 22,803 BTC, or more than $1 billion, have been traded on exchanges since Friday.
But with all this hesitation in fungible markets, the non-fungible (NFT) market is booming with another record-breaking monthly sales volume at OpenSea.
As always, the market is nuanced and ever-changing, but Overbit.com is here to bring you the top stories of the week to guide you through this evolving market! Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you soon.