Most unreasonable and extremely private KYC ever. Be warned!
Like so many others here I need to share my terrible experience with Bitstamp’s KYC procedure. As usually with these kinds of posts, I feel the need to mention that I “never had a problem with Bitstamp” where I have been a member for about 11 years. I even went through the KYC procedure twice before, last time in 2019 with no issues.
Out of nowhere I got hit with another KYC request this year asking for highly personal information dating back to 2013, and of course they have frozen withdrawals and have stopped responding even after I sent in all of the requested information. If you are still using Bitstamp, be warned this may happen to you at any time and your funds will be frozen. I have provided everything they asked for and now they have stopped responding.
*Round 1: “In order to help us better understand the nature of your relationship with Bitstamp, we invite you to fill in the Additional info form here. Please submit any financial documentation which can confirm the origin of your sent funds, such as a salary pay slip, annual tax revenue”*
Easy enough, I’ve done this before. Attached is a screenshot of my bank account with some recent transactions
*Round 2: “We kindly ask that you provide us with some additional financial documentation confirming how the FIAT funds seen on the bank screenshot were initially acquired or accumulated”*
Fine, here is a list of incoming deposits into the account bank for the last 3 years
Round 3: “*We kindly ask that you provide us with documentation confirming the initial acquisition and transfer of your cryptocurrency funds. Please provide any relevant documents supporting your statements, for example, bank transfer confirmation receipts from your bank confirming fiat deposits to other exchanges, fiat deposit or crypto purchase email confirmations from other exchange platforms, screenshots from other trading platforms showing fiat deposit or crypto purchases, etc.”*
Most of these were acquired more than 10 years ago, on some platforms that don’t even exist anymore like BitInstant or CampBX.
Round 4: “*We noticed a deposit to your bank account from your family. and ask that you elaborate whether you have any gift/loan agreements or similar documents confirming the nature of the transfer of these funds and to kindly provide those. Additionally, when you initially started your activities at Bitstamp you deposited crypto funds onto Bitstamp that did not originate from Bitstamp. We kindly ask that you provide us with as much documentation confirming the origin of those funds as you are able to provide.”*
Ok this is starting to get ridiculous. Does anyone typically have formal documentation when they receive money from a family member? Beyond that, as explained, I don’t have documentation from 10 years ago. No bank will retain records for that long. Exchanges like BitInstant or CampBX are not even around now.
Round 5: “ *We ask whether you have access to any supporting documentation such as an e-mail address confirming crypto purchases/transfer on any of the other initial platforms you used. Additionally, we ask that you provide us with any of your initial crypto addresses you still have available. Also we are going to have to insist that you provide us with a signed and dated gift agreement between yourself and your family. We would also kindly ask that you provide us with a relevant identification document for the person who sent you the funds*”
I already looked, I do not have emails from that timeframe. This request is extremely unusual, but here is a signed agreement. Seriously, has anyone ever had to provide anything like this? Now you need not only my information, but everyone in my family, friends, coworkers?
Round 6: “*With that said, lastly we kindly ask whether you are able to provide us with some documentation regarding the origin of the crypto deposited to your Bitstamp account for these 3 transactions*”
I do not have any formal documentation for transactions from over 10 years ago. Maybe you can tell me?
Round 7: “*You’ve previously provided us with a screenshot from <other exchange>. If you still have access to your account on that platform we would kindly ask that you provide us with your deposit/withdrawal logs from it.*”
Apparently it never ends. You send in one thing, they request another. This is the last I heard from them, it’s been over a week.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
They want all of that from their users, but they won’t give you proof of reserves.
Seems unfair – right?
Hi, please send me a PM and I will get back to you regarding the issue you have experienced.
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I was a newbie and sent quite a large amount, passed the first kyc, then was deciding on cold wallets, finally picked one, when i was ready to transfer, noticed a kyc request…It was the most harrowing experience of my life…when i sent all the info and got unblocked, I got everything out, left $10 and now have everything in cold wallet w keys etched on my brain. Since I’m a HODLer, I will sit peacefully for the next 5-10 years.
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