Being one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges is not something to take for granted. Coinbase has experienced first-hand how difficult it is to maintain this mantle. While the company tends to make a lot of media headlines, not all of them are positive. With users now complaining about being charged multiple fees for buying Bitcoin with their Visa cards, things have taken another worrisome turn for the company.
More Issues for Coinbase Users
Visa and Mastercard are at war with the cryptocurrency industry. More specifically, both leading card issuers have made it very clear that they want no part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This means there will be no future Visa or Mastercard debit cards issued by crypto companies unless under very strict conditions. Additionally, banks are preventing customers from using payment cards to buy Bitcoin in a growing list of countries.
Surprisingly, this option is still available to individuals in the US and Canada. Given Coinbase’s popularity in both of those countries, it’s not entirely surprising to see people buy as much cryptocurrency with their credit or debit cards as possible while they still can. Unfortunately, this has caused a lot of issues for bank customers. A fair few reports are flooding in concerning individuals being charged two or more times for every purchase made using Coinbase.
According to the exchange provider, these charges are not their doing. Coinbase has put the blame for these additional fees on Visa, even though it remains unclear if that is warranted. Users have been double-charged for previous transactions as well, and some people reported over a dozen different charges appearing out of the blue. It is evident the latter reports should be taken with a grain of salt, as they seem rather outlandish. Even so, Coinbase acknowledges that some things aren’t adding up, yet they have no idea why this is happening right now.
For the time being, it is impossible to tell who is responsible for these mishaps. Users are eager to point the finger at Coinbase, given the company’s somewhat sketchy record when it comes to technical issues. Even though double-charging has happened before, it was never on this scale. Even so, that doesn’t mean Coinbase is responsible for these charges by default. After all, Visa’s position against cryptocurrency has been made rather clear.
Moreover, both Visa and Mastercard introduced additional fees for card transactions not that long ago. We reported on that issue almost a month ago, and at that time, it became clear Coinbase would suffer from those issues at some point. It seems this situation is getting even more out of hand, although it is very likely Visa is to blame for these developments. Whether or not this means we can expect even more of these problems to occur in the future remains to be determined.
For now, there is very little Coinbase users can do other than report erroneous transactions to their banks. It is then up to financial institutions to sort out these problems and relay the necessary information to cryptocurrency users. With Coinbase transactions now being considered cash advances, it is likely that the double charges will remain in place for the time being. It does appear quite a few people have already received refunds, though that’s not the case for everyone.
