Coinbase, the largest US-based cryptocurrency Exchange , is under controversy after a report was published in a media outlet that collected thousands of customer complaints. According to CNBC, interviews with the customers unveiled that account takeovers were the most reported issues due to alleged low-quality customer service from the firm.
But, one of the worrisome reports came from a woman who claimed to had suffered a hacking attack, resulting in the loss of $168,000 worth in cryptos. After receiving a series of alerts of an intrusion into her account, including password change notifications, she saw how her holdings disappeared. “I looked into Coinbase, and it seemed like it was one that everybody used and trusted. I signed onto the crypto. And I said, ‘It’s gone,’” the woman told CNBC. Additionally, she accused the company of a lack of customer support assistance regarding the hack.
Former employees of Coinbase stated that the US-listed crypto exchange’s customer support dynamics had changed over the time, as the firm decided to opt for email support, which they say takes longer to answer and solve complaints.
“The decision to do that was disastrous because the time that it took to respond back to emails took a lot longer than it would for a live chat. So, we went back to the email box, taking five days to complete a problem that could have been solved in a few minutes,” a former employee commented about the decision of taking down live chat support.
Coinbase Response
However, early this year, Coinbase noticed the growing complaints about the delays in responses. “We recognize this is frustrating. This is not the experience we want for you, our customers,” Casper Sorensen, Vice President of Coinbase’s customer experience, said in a blog post at that time.
As of press time, the US-based crypto exchange has declined to arrange on-camera interviews with the media outlet, although they issued the following comment via email: “Over the years, we’ve consistently updated our customer support offerings to help us scale. In early 2020, we moved to email as our primary channel of support. Many of our customer inquiries require our agents to conduct a significant amount of research to resolve the issue. And, to avoid long wait times, communicating asynchronously via email was the preferred method. However, we recognize that customers want real-time support, and that’s why we’re rolling out phone support for ATOs this month and live messaging for all customers later this year.”
