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Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase randomly locks users out of their accounts for months at a time causing them to lose funds, and even erased accounts in their entirety, a new class action lawsuit claims.
The nationwide class action lawsuit was filed in California on June 4 by lead Plaintiffs Michael Leone, Joseph Treseder, Travis Reece, David Beavers, Fazal Us Saboor Ali, and Keisha Pinkey. The group of Coinbase users allege the company locked them out of their accounts for no reason, stopping them from trading, investing or selling their funds, and even deleted accounts completely.
Coinbase users can store their cryptocurrencies in a digital “wallet,” as well as buy, sell, spend, and trade cryptocurrency. According to the claim, the company proclaims that it is “building the cryptoeconomy – a more fair, accessible, efficient, and transparent financial system enabled by crypto.” It also says that it is a regulated and fully compliant entity, registered with the United States Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as a Money Services Business.
However, the groups of cryptocurrency traders say that in reality the company prevents its users from accessing their accounts and funds for arbitrary reasons and arbitrary amounts of time, stopping them from investing, spending, saving, earning, and using, or even withdrawing their funds. The lack of access resulted in the group’s accounts losing value, the class action lawsuit alleges.
Leone, who had $15,000 in his account, was locked out of his account in January for no reason, and despite sending more than 100 emails he has never received a response from the company, the claim states. Treseder, who had $30,000 in his account, was locked out arbitrarily in January and has failed to regain access to his account despite numerous attempts. Reece deposited previously-owned cryptocurrency into his Coinbase account, and after making the deposit he logged into his account to find it had disappeared, according to the class action lawsuit. He is yet to access his funds.
Beavers says that he was locked out of his account after contesting a “mistaken” $100 fee. According to the claim, he has been locked out of his account for several months despite attempts to contact Coinbase and regain access. Ali has been locked out of his account since January for no reason, despite filing numerous complaints to Coinbase, the claim states. And Pinkey says that she has been locked out of her account, which had $6,000, since February and has not been able to regain access.
Those who were eventually able to access accounts found that the value of their cryptocurrency had dropped significantly in the interim and some had no ability to sell or use the cryptocurrency held in their Coinbase accounts, the class action lawsuit alleges.
“In some circumstances, Putative Class Members’ accounts were erased in their entirety,” the claim states.
“Further, Defendant failed to provide Putative Class Members any explanation for where their cryptocurrency went or any remedy to retrieve it, causing significant losses.”
The claim says that Coinbase’s actions have resulted in irreparable harm to the traders.
The traders want to represent anyone in the United States who was locked out of their Coinbase account. They are suing for negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, conversion and violation of consumer laws. They seek certification of the Class, damages, disgorgement, injunctive relief, interest, legal fees, and a jury trial.
This isn’t the first class action lawsuit to hit the world of cryptocurrency. In January, Ripple was hit with a class action lawsuit alleging the illegal sale of cryptocurrency. The case was one of a number that came after the Securities and Exchange Commission lodged a legal action against the payment processing company.
Do you have a Coinbase account? Have you ever been locked out of that account for no reason? Tell us about your experience in the comments section!
The traders are represented by Kevin Mahoney, Katherine J. Odenbreit, and Nicole G. Blanco of Mahoney Law Group, APC.
The Coinbase Account Access Class Action Lawsuit is Leone, et al., v Coinbase, Inc. et al., Case No. 3:21-cv-04286 in the U.S. District Court Northern District of California.
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369 thoughts onCoinbase Randomly Locks Users Out of Accounts for Months, Deletes Funds, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges
I was locked out of my account in June 2021, I lost all funds i had in my account, on top of that, they used my bank account to buy an additional $5000 in crypto. i sent namouras emails to Coinbase with no response from them for 90 days. When I was finally able to access my account, I found out that coinbase now wants to charge me an additional $5000 for the lost funds. As oif today, 4-7-2023, I still haven’t got back any of money.
Coinbase wallet has locked me out and I have 1845.00 in my account and they tell me my money is just gone period.
I transferred from my Coinbase wallet to my Coinbase online account, or more like tried to, tokens/value never arrived but disappeared off into cyberspace.
My Gyen wallet had over $24,000 in it at the time. Coinbase froze my account for a month while the coin plummeted. Coinbase froze the Gyen coin and all the wallets because there was a glitch that sent a lot of users 100x the Gyen then what they actually bought. After a month of my Gyen wallet frozen, my $24,000 turned to $6,000 after the coin was inflated and then crashed because of the glitch. Coinbase after a month went into my acct and changed the amount of Gyen I was supposed to have without my consent. Coinbase never gave me a response and just said the funds lost were my fault and not there’s and that they don’t need to re-imburse me the funds lost while acct was locked and could not sell. I have pictures of everything. This all happened in November of 2021. And there are a lot more users just like me who this happened to.
I am going threw the same problem, they have me stuck in a circle/cycle where I get my account blocked for no reason what so ever. Then I have to call which is a whole task in its self the phone support is rude has no chain of command and will hang up for no reason ask same things repetitively trying to piss you off to hang up yourself and then if you can do all that they send you a link to submit photo ID docs and a selfie and the 72 hours later you get 24 hours to log in and update 2-step atho update and then you have to wait 24 hours to trade and then 48 hours to send. But when. You finally get to send they want photos of the ID again and selfie so when these ones are subbmited there rejected and then you’re blocked out of your account again to do the cycle over and over again. I just want to close it and they won’t let me. They hold my money hostage and screw me on the ability to trade me assets at higher rates then what I paid which is the over all reason to even be dealing with them at all and they love to claims every word is a cuss word and you’re unprofessional I’m losing my mind over it. These people have our information. No doubt it probably being sold.
Locked out of my account and 99.9% of account withdrawn to whoever, not me. Coinbase also attempted to withdraw $1000 out of my bank account without my consent. Twenty k or more was lost of btc and other cryptos. Coinbase will not give me access until they receive $1000 fee. I’ve read comments on Facebook where account users paid fee and did not gain access to their account. All this transpired June of 2021. Ive reached out to SEC and FTC but never received any help via government agencies. Never thought reporting theft of funds to local police as suggested by other victims. Just waiting for possible class action to reclaim my funds. I will not maintain an account with Coinbase if this happens. I don’t believe this is a third party working independently to hack accounts to retrieve users funds. Jmho.
I was not locked out of my account, rather, I sent $334 BTC from my Coinbase account to my email address in accordance with Coinbase’s practice. The BTC never arrived and Coinbase support will not tell me what wallet it was sent to. They say that I can find it by looking at the hash but won’t help me find the hash, instead they tell me how to configure my computer and phone to work with Coinbase. Both of my devices are configured properly already.
My counbase account was also closed without reason I reached out to coinbase and all I was told is they think I violated there terms they never once had said foe fact I had done so here in America I thought we had a right to face our accusers and I’m facing coinbase what is it I done please let me know if you have a real reason ill shut up amd walk away but you don’t have any reason I have only moved crypto from one wallet to another from coinbase so they have no reason other then to take advantage all I know is if you steal 5.00 from a million people it’s 5,000,000 bucks and what’s the little guy going to so amd now they pay people to learn about crypto where does coinbase get these funds to just give away what out of there own pockets I highly doubt it as coinbase is one of the largest exchanges then it should be handled as a bank would be they shouldn’t be allowed to just do with my account as they see fit as there own laws or rules it’s not right as everyone has the right to be treated EQUALLY so if my account was closed for no reason just a made up reason then everyone’s in the same exact reason should also be closed it’s not right because I’m disabled and they can’t make any money off of me then a little they close my account I paid another of fees using coinbase and trusting them to be fair with me and my account but they took there fees over and over and over then close my account without reason I want my money’s back the. Because I wasn’t protected and my account wasn’t safe from. Them self coinbase ripped me off taking my moneys for services to just close my account without reason. Remember a check is not possible without a customer so everyone should move there crypto and close there coinbase account then there would be no coinbase
I was actually talking about doing a class action on coinbase for a similar situation. I had over 90,000,000 Shiba inu in the coinbase wallet app. I bought it throughout the last year off the exchange and transferred to the wallet app and on Feb 6 at 11:59am 2023 I noticed a deposit was made to my wallet when I looked to see what it was and why, I get a notification all of a sudden saying all my shib was successfully sent to another wallet. My heart sunk at this moment. I immediately followed it on Eth scan and contacted coinbase and informed them and to see if the could stop or block it or anything. And they basically told my they’re not doing anything and it must of been my fault. At this point I was pissed it felt like someone broke in my house stole my wallet so I followed them back to there house and called the cops and told them about and being told well maybe it shoulda been in your pocket. I followed him everyday until he swapped threw tornado cash. I contacted coinbase twice and the first time seemed fishy like she new something. The second time I called this guy says he’ll check it out but the end result was them saying that t theirs nothing they can do. And this is the second time I’ve had problems with coinbase. My coinbase card was hacked as well and they tried extracting funds from it multiple times until they hit an available balance I had. But please whatever I need to do and enter in on this lawsuit let me kno. Affidavit, notice of claim , anything. I will do all I can to see it that coinbase own the burden we all suffered due to their incompetence in
I suddenly was not able to log into my coinbase account that has 90-100k worth of crypto. My email and/or password didn’t give me access after years of no issues.. I tried to change my password but was unable. The account is locked. I can see my money is there in the CoinTracker.io. I have chatted multiple times with Coinbase support. They locked my account. They are giving me literally no solutions at all. No advise. Nothing. Conversations that should take 2 minutes go on for an hour due to 5-10 min in wait time between sentences. The always end up w no resolution. They always end up with not even attempting a resolution. It’s all a scam. Isn’t there any legal recourse? They are literally stealing money.
My account is locked with an amount of 2400$ with no reason ,I have send several complaints but they never got back to me to help me solve my problem ..and I work hard for my coins and please help me if possible to get my account or my funds back