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Comment by kjackson2012 | Hacker News Reader

kjackson2012

Why are people even posting on HN? The easy answer is do an ACH chargeback and be done with it. Do it quickly as well since the price has plummeted. Don't even bother with contacting customer support.

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It serves the useful function of alerting the community of early adopters that coinbase is (probably) not (yet) ready to be trusted to competently handle one's cash. Also, YC is a backer of coinbase so there's a high likelihood that someone from coinbase will see the post here if it's on the front page long enough.

Don't do a chargeback because the price plummeted, you chose to invest in a volatile asset class, and that's all on you, under different circumstances it could be construed as fraud.

But DO the charge back in this case as it is CoinBase's fault, they failed to deliver. This delay clears the path to one simple understanding, these guys don't know what they are doing and have no understanding of the laws they are governed by.

I had written a few posts explaining this on the other thread, that could be referred to:

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6931647

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6930863

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6930591

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6930100

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6930065

edit: grammar

Could Coinbase be arbitraged this way? Just running ACH chargebacks every time the Bitcoin price falls before fulfillment?

That would be fraud. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to make money if you're willing to commit fraud.

I'm not sure if it is fraud or not. Maybe an attorney can comment, but here is how I look at it:

Fraud:

(1) a false statement of a material fact,

(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue,

(3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim,

(4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and

(5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

The attempt at buying coins on coinbase while selling coins outside of coinbase, then if the coin price falls… If Coinbase doesn’t deliver the coins according to their TOS and you say to the bank that you want to do an ACH chargeback due to them not delivering, it doesn’t fit the definition of fraud in multiple ways:

The statement you would make to the bank would be: “Coinbase did not deliver the coins based on their TOS so I request my money to be sent back to me via ACH chargeback and if they do send the coins, I will send them back to Coinbase”

1) it isn’t a false statement

2) doesn’t apply since it isn’t a false statement

3) not deceiving anyone

4) they are relying on it, but it isn’t false

5) no one is injured since Coinbase waited to fulfill the transaction, they can just resell the coins at the current market price, assuming they are able to actually sell coins.

You and eterm are talking past each other. Eterm is talking about the situation where Coinbase fulfills their end of the bargain and gets you the coins you bought, but you chargeback anyway.

If you only consider the chargeback in the case that they honestly failed to live up to the terms of service, then I will agree that it doesn't sound like fraud. It's still kind of slimy, though.

It's both fraud, and unethical.

It may be unethical, I don't make that judgement, but it definitely doesn't match the legal definition of fraud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith_(law)

Surely there are repercussions for issuing chargebacks for non-legitimate reasons?

I imagine Coinbase would just cancel your account pretty quickly.

It makes you wonder if this is why these customers didn't get their bitcoins, someone else charged back their transaction; concommitant risk?

I don't think chargebacks can go to a different account.

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