Coinbase has frozen my account

L.W. writes: I recently inherited some money. I decided to invest in cryptocurrency and was doing well until Coinbase froze my account for no apparent reason, under the guise of ‘fraud prevention’. I have contacted the firm and been told to be patient and someone will ‘review my account’, but it has now been a few months and I feel completely fobbed off.

A SPOKESMAN for Coinbase told me that it allows investors to open an account and deal in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, and only later does it take up any queries.

I would have imagined that any necessary checks – particularly to reject potential money launderers – would have been carried out the moment an investor applied for an account, but apparently not.

The result, of course, is that an account can be frozen just when it is inconvenient or damaging for the customer, so I asked Coinbase whether customers should regard it as normal to be able to invest money instantly, deal instantly, yet face potential long delays in making withdrawals. It seems the answer is yes.

The spokesman offered his apologies, but explained: ‘As part of our robust compliance procedures, there are occasionally circumstances where we are required to temporarily freeze a customer’s account.’