Coinbase Runs From One Fire to the Next

Coinbase Inc. shirts hang on a wall at the company's office in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. Coinbase wants to use digital money to reinvent finance. In the company's version of the future, loans, venture capital, money transfers, accounts receivable and stock trading can all be done with electronic currency, using Coinbase instead of banks.Photographer: Michael Short/Bloomberg

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By Julie Verhage

February 19, 2018 at 12:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Coinbase Inc. is one of the most popular online exchanges for digital currencies. But last year, it started seeing complaints soar on the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website. Unfortunately for the San Francisco business and its customers, things have only gotten worse.

From January to August 2017, Coinbase had received at least 293 complaints on the site. So far in 2018, the total is more than 900. Some customers have also taken to Reddit to express dismay over multiple unauthorized charges to their credit cards, money disappearing and bank accounts drained to nothing.