I created a support ticket for this over 3 months ago and have been updating it for the past week with no result, so I’m posting here to warn people. Bitstamp’s website arbitrarily needs to “verify my mobile number” before they will allow me to enter my bank account information and withdraw my money. This verification involves them texting me a code. However, when I enter my number, they never send the code. They assure me they’re “working on it,” but meanwhile I can’t get my money.

1. This is stupid. Verifying my mobile number has absolutely nothing to do with my bank account information.
2. Bitstamp’s website doesn’t work, i.e. won’t send me the code. They are holding my money based on their own arbitrary requirement which they are then unable to fulfill.
3. I downloaded their app and it has the same problem.
4. In my account settings, it shows both my PC and phone as “verified,” but that’s not good enough to let me enter bank account information.
5. I have to enter a 2-factor code from an authenticator app to log into my account; that works fine. How is that sufficient to log me in but not to enter bank information? Same with the app; I can log in, invest, do whatever I want, but not enter bank information.
6. The bank account is under my name, which they have on file.
7. They have my email address on file, they could send the code there.
8. They have my mobile number on file too of course. They could call or text me manually if they truly must verify the phone number for whatever reason. If I go to Walmart and get a new phone, can I have my money?

Basically this company is too incompetent to give its clients their own money back (though not too incompetent to take it in the first place apparently). They can’t seem to solve the issue either. Beware!

\*Day 17 (plus 3.5 months) update: No resolution. They do respond to messages but they don’t fix the issue. They did acknowledge that it’s their fault, and offered to let me do a wire transfer, but did not offer to waive the $25 fee for that. This company is comically clueless. Both employees who offered to help on Reddit returned the same generic “we’re working on it, nothing I can do” message.

\*Day 27 (plus 3.5 months) update: It seems Bitstamp has gotten their issue altered to a different version of the same issue. Now they’re using the third party service Plaid to link bank accounts for ACH transfer. However, Plaid doesn’t work either. When I try to link one of my accounts, I get an error “Plaid is having trouble linking to this institution…we’re working on it…try another account.” When I try to link the other account in a different bank, I get all the way through the prompts, then a different error “Please use an alternative withdrawal option. We apologize for the inconvenience.” So in short, still not fixed. I am tempted to pay a fee for the wire transfer, but my contact information isn’t right on their site and I can’t change it without calling them, which I don’t feel like dealing with either. This site is so bad on so many levels.

\*Final edit (4 months): I finally had to pay $25 to get my money through a wire transfer because this company is not able to provide the free transfer service that they advertise. They stopped answering my customer service inquiries weeks ago. Never again.


1 Comment

  1. Bitstamp-Domen on 5. May 2022 at 13:00

    Hi. Could you PM me your ticket number so I can look into this?