Coinbase fields customer service complaints as it prepares to go public

Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange which recently filed paperwork to go public through a direct listing, is battling a growing number of complaints from clients who say they’re locked out of their accounts or can’t get answers to simple customer-care questions.

Why should we care?
This week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took to Reddit to answer 1,300 questions from frustrated customers. Of course, he couldn’t answer all of them due to time and regulatory considerations, but one customer claimed he had lost faith in Coinbase’s customer support mechanisms that he felt were hiding beneath layers of automated responses. Armstrong blamed recent troubles on the nascent crypto bull run and vowed to improve. “It takes a long time to both hire those people and also train them so that they can be really effective in helping customers,” he said. The company faces a major challenge from customers who claim they can’t get into their accounts due to unauthorized access attempts from scammers. The problem is compounded by the fact that transactions often can’t easily be reversed or traced back to a person. At issue is whether Coinbase will need to investigate claims of theft and losses the same way banks are obliged to do so. Christine Duhaime, a financial crimes expert, said in an interview that Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges should have to act the same as large banks, which need legal reasons to freeze assets and are obligated to investigate missing or stolen funds. Coinbase, which counts 43 million customers, said it hired 2,000 customer support staff members in recent months to deal with an onslaught of client inquiries.