Credit card company, Visa has accepted blame for an error that has seen many Coinbase users who purchased bitcoin with their cards lose money due to multiple charges on their accounts in recent days.
In a joint statement with its card processor Worldpay on Friday, the company acknowledged that come Coinbase customers who use credit cards or debit cards may have seen duplicate charges on their accounts and assured the extra charges are already being reversed.
Joint Statement from Visa and Worldpay for Coinbase customershttps://t.co/Izgnl70I8S pic.twitter.com/DQLSs1PrU7
— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 17, 2018
Earlier this week, several Coinbase users reportedly noticed multiple charges on their accounts after they used their cards to purchase cryptocurrencies from the bitcoin exchange. They trooped to discussion website Reddit to express their dissatisfaction. This prompted Coinbase to respond saying that it had an issue with its credit card processor and “will ensure that each affected customer will be refunded in full for any erroneous charge.”
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] All reversal transactions have now been issued, and should appear on customers’ credit card and debit card accounts within the next few days. [/perfectpullquote]
Visa’s statement—which was posted on Coinbase’s Blog—did not give the cause of the ghost charges although Coinbase had earlier put it down to a new policy which changed how banks process cryptocurrency purchases. In their statement, Coinbase noted that credit card companies and banks changed the merchant carrier code (MCC) used by cryptocurrency companies when working with credit card networks. The glitch affected purchases made between January 22 and February 11.
Coinbase has responded swiftly to the complaints, a stark contrast to accusations of slow response to customer service queries. The San Francisco based exchange has recently stepped up efforts in its customer care department. After launching its phone support in September, they engaged customer service veteran and ex-Twitter executive Tina Bhatnagar to improve support services and double the support team. Visa and Worldpay’s admittance of the fault will help Coinbase’s image as their statement clearly stated, “This issue was not caused by Coinbase.”
Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.
