1. You can't chargeback a completed ACH withdrawal. (It is possible to revert an ACH transaction, but that generally happens only if the original transaction was unauthorized, which is not the case here. ACH/debit transactions do not have the same level of consumer protections as credit card transactions. That's why Coinbase doesn't accept credit cards.)

2. The BBB is a corporate shill.

3. Rotsa ruck.

4. Will cost more than the amount lost, and legal fees are rarely recoverable.

2. Shill or not, I've gotten results via them on multiple occasions.

4. I don't believe this. You're basically telling me if I pay for a car from a dealership, and they fail to deliver, that I or a lawyer can't sic law enforcement on them.

> You're basically telling me if I pay for a car from a dealership, and they fail to deliver, that I or a lawyer can't sic law enforcement on them.

No, you are over-extrapolating what I said. Cars and BTC are not comparable.

Buying a car is a business model that everyone understands. There are governmental regulations in place to track every vehicle, so claims about cars being delivered or not are easy to verify or refute. So if a dealership fails to deliver a car that you paid for you most likely won't even have to sue them, they'll just give you a refund, because if you did sue them there are well-established processes for determining the facts of the case, and clear rules about a dealership's obligations to deliver.

BTC is a completely different situation. There are no government regulations, no rules, no precedents. To prevail, you will have to prove in court that coinbase failed to deliver. You will have to prove this to a jury of people who barely understand how to use an iPad. How do you do this? Consider the possibility that the OP is not telling the truth, but wants to generate bad PR for coinbase in support of some ulterior motive. How could the OP prove that he's telling the truth? It's not so easy, even when you're addressing an audience that actually understands how BTC works.

Also, have you actually read the coinbase TOS? (I haven't.) Do they say that BTC purchased will be available by a certain deadline? I'd be really surprised. If no deadline is specified, none is implied. So all coinbase has to do to get the lawsuit dismissed is cough up 10BTC. If push came to shove, that is the best outcome you could hope for, and you'd still be out your legal fees.

the blockchain is public evidence, and should be admissible in court.

Sure, but exactly how are you going to use the blockchain to prove to a non-technical jury that your BTC were not delivered?

If it's ever used in court, it'll be construed as a hacker or terrorist tool by some barely literate computer forensic "expert".

Unfortunately you give the system too little credit. In Aug 2013 a Federal judge recognized bitcoin as akin to a currency (stores value, can be used for exchange of goods). It also opened the doors to allow SEC to pursue these cases[0].

Granted it was for a ponzi scheme.

[0] http://rt.com/usa/bitcoin-sec-shavers-texas-231/

In all fairness, Coinbase doesn't accept credit cards because that same consumer protection can be abused into defrauding them. Which, seems reasonable :)

CB could accept credit cards without too much risk if they chose to by e.g. putting a 60-day hold on all BTC bought with credit cards. My guess is they don't take credit cards because they have their hands full dealing with their business as it stands, and adding the extra business logic to accept credit cards would just be too big of a PITA.

Another possibility is that the credit card companies won't allow them to do it.

I'm not disputing that these options are probably more effective the OP in terms of getting his situation made right (although I'm not sure what the BBB / FTC could do), but the point of "whining" on an internet forum is to give others a heads up about things like this happening. It's remarkable how quickly companies tend to move when their customer issues are aired out in public, and others are talking about them.

I'm closing my Coinbase account today and advising others I know to do the same or stay away.

I don't disagree that one should warn others of shady businesses… but it shouldn't be the first thing you do to try to get your money back!

The BBB has been shown to be a pay-for-grade scam. See http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-m...

Coinbase may have a track record of terrible support, but they also have a track record of doing the right thing (eventually), so I would think "whining on some Internet forum" (which happens to be one their CEO and employees browse, that's run by one of their investors) would in fact be a very efficient way of resolving the problem. Somebody else did the same thing yesterday and got a prompt response from Coinbase about rectifying the situation, so there's even precedent for this being a useful tool with them.

Coinbase was fair and resolved my transaction for 10 bitcoins this morning, by giving them to be at the current market price; however there are 2 bitcoins still completely missing from my account.