I appreciate the advice, but since I'm not a UK resident I'll think I'll have to leave it at that and let them get away with it.

While I still have no particular reason to consider Bitstamp to be fraudulent, they certainly seem unlikely to win any customer service prizes. But I guess that's nothing new.

No receipts provided. If I want to obtain any information about who took the money, I have to pay 2x€30, i.e. €60. But since Bitstamp has no standards for acceptable bank changes, it is useless to pay these €60. I would simply be out $70 more than before, i.e. a total of over $400.

No doubt you're right that one could sue them in theory. But it would not be worth it for $400. What remains is to let others know about their hefty withdrawal fees and strange customer service attitude. [I use the term "strange" because it is hard to understand why Bitstamp would be trying to prevent investigation of theft of customer funds by banks.]

Update: Their manager did offer me a month-long 10% rebate off of trading fees to compensate for this. That was a nice gesture, but kind of meaningless, since I would have to buy/sell almost 6000 bitcoins to recoup the loss.

So what is going on here? Is Bitstamp artificially padding the bank transfer fees to help make up for recent losses due to the hack? Or is it having banking problems, so that it has to tolerate its banks essentially robbing its customers? Or is its management simply too lazy to work out a deal with their bank(s) regarding fees?

The official withdrawal fee is 0.09%, and in theory the intermediary bank in the US might charge a fixed fee, of, say $20 plus perhaps an additional 0.05%. Including Bitstamp's fee, in my case I was charged $373 to withdraw $120K. Such high fees do not occur in normal banking transactions. But Bitstamp's customer service said that I would have to agree to pay another €30 (their "bank charge") before they would ask the bank to justify this charge. When I asked them if they considered this bank charge to be reasonable, Marko in customer service refused to answer the question.

It's certainly possible, but at a minimum their customer service is behaving very strangely. There must be a reason for this.

BE AWARE: Bitstamp's Withdrawal Fees Effectively Increased Since Hack

Today I gave up trying to resolve two problems with Bitstamp's so-called customer service post-hack:

While I have no reason to believe that they are dishonest, they appear to be either incredibly stupid or simply callous. It makes one wonder how long they intend to stay in business. Perhaps this has something to do with Bitstamp's financial problems; I don't know.

What to watch out for since the hack:

(1) When you withdraw funds in USD from Bitstamp, expect bank fees + withdrawal fees to now exceed 0.3%. Bitstamp refuses to "investigate" these outrageously high fees, or to state any position whatsoever. In fact, if you ask any questions, they want to CHARGE you €30 before they will do anything. This happened twice in a row for me, so this is obviously not a one-time thing.

(2) Do not expect to get your money quickly - my two recent withdrawals took 9 days on average. And if your money is missing, don't expect them to do anything about it quickly. In fact, over the past two years I have yet to see them do anything at all, ever.

Very good point. They claim that all transactions have been processed. Yet judging from the comments here and my own experience, this is obviously not true. So they are either (a) lying, or (b) incompetent. I don't know which is worse.

I have noticed that even Bitstamp's one man customer service (hazek) has now apparently disappeared from this Forum. That bodes ill for the future of Bitstamp. Perhaps Bitstamp is planning to go out of business and take off with everyone's money??

I must say that my recent experience has been similar. No crediting of bank wire deposits for 4 days now, and of course.... no customer service. With basically non-existant service you have to wonder how bitstamp will be able to survive. On the positive side: bitcoin withdrawals now finally work quickly.

Update: The funds finally arrived, but after 8 days instead of 1-2. My requests to Bitstamp support to investigate the cause of the delay have thus far gone unanswered. On the Mtgox timeline that puts us at approximately mid May.

Not true. I am hardly the only one to report this, and besides, the past <> the present. Previously I also had no problem with withdrawals. This time the funds arrived, as well... but after 8 days instead of 1-2. My requests to Bitstamp support to investigate the cause of the delay have thus far been fruitless.

Suggest you share your experience on the bitstamp thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38711.580

As of Monday morning (7 days now), my funds are also still MIA. Bitstamp guys seem to feel that 7-10 days waiting period is fine/normal. The truth is of course that the pumpers don't want people withdrawing funds and recycling them to cheaper exchanges.

Thanks for the response. With all due respect, it is hard to believe that this failure to send out the funds was an accident. I made the request on Monday, so if the withdrawals team had wanted to provide good service, they certainly could have made sure that the funds went out before the bank holiday on THURSDAY. Moreover, I was told at around 1pm on Wednesday that the funds had already been "sent to my bank account", a claim which does not seem to be corroborated by reality.

BTC-E sends out funds within 24 hours; Bitstamp takes at least 4-7 times as long. What message does this send to the world?

I think it's pretty obvious to quite a few experienced traders out there. Like ALL financial assets, its market is "made" by someone. All big holders of any asset type are strongly motivated to do this.... and bitcoin shows no sign of being any different. So the big question is.... what is the market maker's game plan?

I am experiencing a similar issue.

Comparing my experience with the other cases cited here, I have to say that Bitstamp's feet-dragging in processing international wire transfer withdrawals is strongly reminiscent of Mtgox in May of this year. We all know how that ended.

I submitted my most recent withdrawal request prior to start of business on Monday. By Wednesday still nothing had happened, so I complained. After this, they finally "processed" the withdrawal on Wednesday and told me that it was sent out - i.e. before the Slovenian banks closed on Thursday. However..... it is now Friday and the money still has not actually arrived. By comparison, past transfers all arrived the following business day.

Was it ever even sent out? Hard to know. Of course the funds could be stuck at the correspondence bank in New York (this can happen), but this is not something I can find out from my end. The Bitstamp team would have to follow up on their side. Unfortunately, to date there is no indication that they feel disposed to do this. This is the part that reminds me the most of Mtgox.

Our Slovenian friends may be ignoring my open tickets, but I have the feeling they are reading this. After that last posting the BTC withdrawal I just requested was executed in the record-breaking time of about 1 minute.

Good point. However, that would imply that as suspected Bitstamp did not bother to send it out on Wednesday as they promised, despite knowing about the upcoming holiday. If they had clicked on "submit" on Wednesday it would definitely have gone out that same day.

If this is actually what happened, this would result in a withdrawal time of at least 8 days - echoes of the various Mt. Gox excuses back in May just before they stopped allowing withdrawals altogether.

Bitstamp is starting to remind me of Mt. Gox. I am starting to wonder if there is something fishy going on there.

While I would not say that Bitstamp was always "fast" it the past, they certainly were "faster" than now.

Is anyone else besides me having problems withdrawing funds from Bitstamp? Now BTC withdrawals can sometimes take hours, and this last week I have been waiting on a fiat withdrawal for 5 days now. I submitted the withdrawal request prior to start of business on Monday. By Wednesday still nothing had happened, so I complained. After this, they finally "processed" the withdrawal. However..... it is now Friday and the money still has not actually arrived.

Was it ever even sent out? Hard to know. Of course the funds could be stuck at the correspondence bank in New York (this can happen), but this is not something I can find out from my end. The Bitstamp team would have to follow up on their side. Unfortunately, to date there is no indication that they feel disposed to do this. This is the part that reminds me the most of Mt. Gox.

I have been waiting on my last wire transfer withdrawal for almost a week now. You have to wonder if Bitstamp is going the route of Mt. Gox.

Bitstamp is starting to remind me of Mt. Gox. Is something fishy going on there?

Who else besides me is having problems withdrawing funds from Bitstamp? Previously they were quite quick, both for BTC and fiat. Now BTC withdrawals can sometimes take hours, and this last week I have been waiting on a fiat withdrawal for 5 days now. I submitted the withdrawal request prior to start of business on Monday. By Wednesday still nothing had happened, so I complained. After this, they finally "processed" the withdrawal. However..... the money did not actually arrive.