The complainant’s account was temporarily suspended to complete a review of account activity. Mr. [redacted] was notified, and subsequent correspondence confirms, that while Circle regrets any delays in processing transactions, they may occur from time to time because we are committed to keeping Circle...
safe for all customers. As the restriction on the account was lifted and Mr. [redacted] was able to access the funds available on the account, we consider this complaint as resolved.
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted].
True, the government has not come down hard on regulating companies such as yours because many others in the industry have taken it upon themselves to implement measures that maintain a better standard of protection. Chances are the government will eventually have to step in, which is sad, because it seems like companies should take it upon themselves rather than force the government to do it to protect people. A simple measure that would have prevented what happened to us is to verify the account by sending "holds" on the account with random small amounts under a dollar. For example send a hold of .19 and .25 (cents). Then require the owner to go to their bank account and verify what that amount was. They would have to then send you what those numbers were - .19 and .25. If they can't do that, then it's not their account. Obviously if the person does have access to the actual account, then the person who has been a victim of fraud has a lot more problems than their card number being stolen. But if Circle would have done something like that for us or others like us, it would have prevented what happened to us and several others who have complained here. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Circle will continue to respond that they are taking responsibility, when the nature of their responses makes me think they are attempting PR without improving their actual policies/being specific about how they will do that. It is obvious they will not take responsibility in our case and will not refund the money. If I choose to not reply or "accept" their next responses, it might be because I don't have the time to waste refuting a company that will not admit wrong doing/they need to change.
Regards,
[redacted]
The customer's account had been placed into a state that would permit a withdrawal to a linked checking account but would not permit the customer to send the money to an external Bitcoin address. On June 10, 2016 Circle adjusted the state of the account to allow the customer to remove funds via...
either means.The customer successfully initiated a withdrawal to a checking account at 11:28AM Eastern time on June 10th. We apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by this account state.
Hi there,Thank you for getting in touch with us. We have initiated a refund to the card for the amount of $214.00.We apologies for the trouble here, but it appears that some of your financial information was compromised and used on our platform. We do our best to prevent this type of activity and...
continuously strive to fight fraud. Please let me know if you have any further questions.Best,[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments below.
The firm refused to allow me to send funds to another, more secure bitcoin wallet and limited my withdrawal to a bank account. This is not satisfactory, as the funds were derived from another bitcoin account (wallet) and as it was the intention to disrupt and inconvenience me, they should not have accepted payments or the fund transfer. The funds should have been rejected/returned to the originating source.
Regards, [redacted]
The Circle customer, [redacted], first contacted Circle regarding the hard fork of [redacted], as he was looking to receive [redacted] Cash from the recent hard fork of [redacted], and threatened Circle with a class action lawsuit. The customer later contacted Circle when his account was closed for...
suspicious activity. Circle has treated the former issue under company [redacted] policy and has treated the latter account closure under its AML policy. First, a “hard fork” of [redacted] is not analogous to a stock split. A hard fork is a permanent split in the [redacted] blockchain that creates multiple and different “versions” of [redacted], and because [redacted] is an open source and decentralized protocol, there is no limit to the number of hard forks that can occur or who can create them. That means that Circle has no control over when a hard fork might occur or how many might occur and it would be technically and practically impossible to support all such hard forks as it requires a substantial amount of technical development and security work. Prior to the occurrence of any hard forks, including the referenced “[redacted] Cash” hard fork, Circle notified all customers with a [redacted] balance that Circle might never support any specific fork and that if they wanted to receive the new “forked” version of [redacted] they should take advantage of the ability to move their [redacted] off of Circle. The email sent on July 28, 2017 to Mr. [redacted] and all customers with a [redacted] balance. Prior to the above communication, on March 21, 2017, Circle sent another email related to the March [redacted] Fork. Mr. [redacted] contacted Circle on six (6) occasions, from August 17, 2017 to November 14, 2017, requesting information on [redacted] Cash he believed was owed to him. Subsequently, Mr. [redacted] received responses from Circle reminding him of the information outlined in the initial email communications. On November 24, 2017, Mr. [redacted]’s account was flagged by an automated transaction monitoring trigger related to suspicious activity. On November 30, 2017, upon further investigation, the customer was found to have transacted through a cryptocurrency exchange called Local [redacted]s. Local [redacted]s is considered a high risk platform because it holds no money transmitter or other licenses and allows people to buy and sell [redacted] without any regulation or controls. As a result, the account was closed and Mr. [redacted] was notified about the account closure on the same day. Mr. [redacted] cashed out the remaining [redacted] balance available on his Circle account on November 11, 2017, so there was no remaining account balance available to Mr. [redacted] at the time of the account closure. On the same day of account closure, November 30, 2017, Mr. [redacted] contacted Circle on four (4) occasions, requesting information as to why the account was closed. Mr. [redacted] received acknowledgement of his inquiries, a reminder of the Circle terms of use, and an explanation that Circle does not disclose specific details on its security processes. Based on the details above, we reaffirm that we have notified Mr. [redacted] about the [redacted] Fork and his options to manage the [redacted] balance in his Circle account. The closure of Mr. [redacted]’s account is a result of routine monitoring for suspicious activity, and is unrelated to the fork in [redacted] protocol.
This customer violated Section 16 of Terms of Service Agreement, and once we notified him about this violation, he created multiple accounts in attempts to bypass our monitoring system. We have strict policies regarding violations of Section 16, and as as a result, had to close his account down.
The complainant’s account was temporarily suspended to complete a review of account activity. Mr. [redacted] was notified, and subsequent correspondence confirms, that while Circle regrets any delays in processing transactions, they may occur from time to time because we are committed to keeping Circle...
safe for all customers. As the restriction on the account was lifted and Mr. [redacted] was able to access the funds available on the account, we consider this complaint as resolved.
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted].
True, the government has not come down hard on regulating companies such as yours because many others in the industry have taken it upon themselves to implement measures that maintain a better standard of protection. Chances are the government will eventually have to step in, which is sad, because it seems like companies should take it upon themselves rather than force the government to do it to protect people. A simple measure that would have prevented what happened to us is to verify the account by sending "holds" on the account with random small amounts under a dollar. For example send a hold of .19 and .25 (cents). Then require the owner to go to their bank account and verify what that amount was. They would have to then send you what those numbers were - .19 and .25. If they can't do that, then it's not their account. Obviously if the person does have access to the actual account, then the person who has been a victim of fraud has a lot more problems than their card number being stolen. But if Circle would have done something like that for us or others like us, it would have prevented what happened to us and several others who have complained here. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Circle will continue to respond that they are taking responsibility, when the nature of their responses makes me think they are attempting PR without improving their actual policies/being specific about how they will do that. It is obvious they will not take responsibility in our case and will not refund the money. If I choose to not reply or "accept" their next responses, it might be because I don't have the time to waste refuting a company that will not admit wrong doing/they need to change.
Regards,
[redacted]
The customer's account had been placed into a state that would permit a withdrawal to a linked checking account but would not permit the customer to send the money to an external Bitcoin address. On June 10, 2016 Circle adjusted the state of the account to allow the customer to remove funds via...
either means.The customer successfully initiated a withdrawal to a checking account at 11:28AM Eastern time on June 10th. We apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by this account state.
Hi there,Thank you for getting in touch with us. We have initiated a refund to the card for the amount of $214.00.We apologies for the trouble here, but it appears that some of your financial information was compromised and used on our platform. We do our best to prevent this type of activity and...
continuously strive to fight fraud. Please let me know if you have any further questions.Best,[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments below.
The firm refused to allow me to send funds to another, more secure bitcoin wallet and limited my withdrawal to a bank account. This is not satisfactory, as the funds were derived from another bitcoin account (wallet) and as it was the intention to disrupt and inconvenience me, they should not have accepted payments or the fund transfer. The funds should have been rejected/returned to the originating source.
Regards, [redacted]
The Circle customer, [redacted], first contacted Circle regarding the hard fork of [redacted], as he was looking to receive [redacted] Cash from the recent hard fork of [redacted], and threatened Circle with a class action lawsuit. The customer later contacted Circle when his account was closed for...
suspicious activity. Circle has treated the former issue under company [redacted] policy and has treated the latter account closure under its AML policy. First, a “hard fork” of [redacted] is not analogous to a stock split. A hard fork is a permanent split in the [redacted] blockchain that creates multiple and different “versions” of [redacted], and because [redacted] is an open source and decentralized protocol, there is no limit to the number of hard forks that can occur or who can create them. That means that Circle has no control over when a hard fork might occur or how many might occur and it would be technically and practically impossible to support all such hard forks as it requires a substantial amount of technical development and security work. Prior to the occurrence of any hard forks, including the referenced “[redacted] Cash” hard fork, Circle notified all customers with a [redacted] balance that Circle might never support any specific fork and that if they wanted to receive the new “forked” version of [redacted] they should take advantage of the ability to move their [redacted] off of Circle. The email sent on July 28, 2017 to Mr. [redacted] and all customers with a [redacted] balance. Prior to the above communication, on March 21, 2017, Circle sent another email related to the March [redacted] Fork. Mr. [redacted] contacted Circle on six (6) occasions, from August 17, 2017 to November 14, 2017, requesting information on [redacted] Cash he believed was owed to him. Subsequently, Mr. [redacted] received responses from Circle reminding him of the information outlined in the initial email communications. On November 24, 2017, Mr. [redacted]’s account was flagged by an automated transaction monitoring trigger related to suspicious activity. On November 30, 2017, upon further investigation, the customer was found to have transacted through a cryptocurrency exchange called Local [redacted]s. Local [redacted]s is considered a high risk platform because it holds no money transmitter or other licenses and allows people to buy and sell [redacted] without any regulation or controls. As a result, the account was closed and Mr. [redacted] was notified about the account closure on the same day. Mr. [redacted] cashed out the remaining [redacted] balance available on his Circle account on November 11, 2017, so there was no remaining account balance available to Mr. [redacted] at the time of the account closure. On the same day of account closure, November 30, 2017, Mr. [redacted] contacted Circle on four (4) occasions, requesting information as to why the account was closed. Mr. [redacted] received acknowledgement of his inquiries, a reminder of the Circle terms of use, and an explanation that Circle does not disclose specific details on its security processes. Based on the details above, we reaffirm that we have notified Mr. [redacted] about the [redacted] Fork and his options to manage the [redacted] balance in his Circle account. The closure of Mr. [redacted]’s account is a result of routine monitoring for suspicious activity, and is unrelated to the fork in [redacted] protocol.
This customer violated Section 16 of Terms of Service Agreement, and once we notified him about this violation, he created multiple accounts in attempts to bypass our monitoring system. We have strict policies regarding violations of Section 16, and as as a result, had to close his account down.