Finally received my coins last night, after two weeks and nearly zero communication. I really wanted to use this site and trust it, unfortunately it is just too risky.

I'm relieved to report I finally received my coins last night, no word from customer service as to why it took so long. I really wanted to like and use BTCPOP but the near absence of communication and high risk are definitely making me stay away.

Here is the post from the BTPOP message boards from the CEO of BTCPOP:

Posted 18-06-2016 22:24:07
Some of you may know the story behind Pop, for those that don't here it is ....


Pop actually started out as a forum (www.jamtalk.co) back in late 2014. The aim was to have a place where people can talk about P2P BTC lending without fear of being black listed etc.

At some point (I can't remember which user it was, but I'm sure they are still active on Pop) asked why I didn't build a platform as I could code. Challenge accepted.

My aim was to build a base bit of code that I could pass to someone else to take over, and learn about BTC wallets etc in the process. BTCPOP launched on Christmas Day 2014.

By March 2015 it became a full time job. We took on staff, bought Ardeva, took on more staff, got a bigger office, took on more staff, and today hit userid 20,000

We created an Alt exchange, LBC style trading, collateral, IPO's, Shares, Insurance, Collections and much much more but above all else, we created an amazing community.


Pop over the last few weeks and months grew to a stage where a choice on how to take it forward had to be made. We needed more staff, had to start complying with new UK regs coming in, how to update all our servers to cope with demand.

Several options were laid out in front of us. The first accepting some VC offers that had been made to us, but we did not feel this would be right for the community.

The second option was to plow through the issues we were having. This would of been fine, but again I don't feel that I can take Pop much further, and also, running 3 companys as well as Pop being a full time, 24/7 job (it's not uncommon for me to work through the night several times a week), I am really tired.

Then a third offer was made, which is for me to pass over the torch for someone else to run with. When this option was given to me, the first thing I thought was "I can cut the grass and go on a family holiday". With this in mind, I have chose option 3



This allows me to have a bit of a personal "Reset" take a few weeks off work, do some diy and get the grass cut (It's knee high at the moment!!!!). It also creates an opportunity for the team behind Pop to turn the KYC world upside down with Ardeva, just like we did with the p2p btc world with Pop (maybe we won't include Ardeva goats though).

I will still be active on Pop. It will be great just to be a user. I can start investing, looking in to scammers and moaning about bugs

I know the new owner is going to be great for you guys,  wish him all the good will in the world going forward and will always be available for help, advice and coding if needed.

This is not a choice I have made lightly by all means, I'm sad to be departing, but also majorly excited to start working on Ardeva fully as we have some absolutley amazing plans for it

You guys have been awesome

Lee Bartholomew
(former) CEO BTCPOP

Apparently there has been an ownership change, I received the following message:
Ownership of Btcpop changed! Withdrawals now will take max 12 hours for Bitcoin. Other problems will be solved as soon as possible

That's great, but what about my request that has been "pending" for over a week!

June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**
June 17, 206 - **Silence**
June 18, 2016 - **Silence**
June 19, 2016 - **Silence**
June 20, 2016 - **Silence**
June 21, 2016 - **Silence**

June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**
June 17, 206 - **Silence**
June 18, 2016 - **Silence**

Yes, horrible news.
http://www.businessinsider.com/dao-hacked-ethereum-crashing-in-value-tens-of-millions-allegedly-stolen-2016-6?r=UK&IR=T

Love this quote:
"You can't rollback and drag the whole of Ethereum into this mess," one community member said in Slack. "The fault is entirely with The DAO and not Ethereum, let the DAO sink and have done with it. Ethereum will recover, there's nothing wrong with Ethereum."

Timeline:
June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**
June 17, 2016 - **Silence**

This is absolutely amazing. So I go on to BTCPOP.co and login so I can try and talk to someone. I post a message on their chat system:
"my withdrawal request has been stuck in 'pending' for 5 days now, any suggestions?"

I received an immediate reply directing to a post of a user who is doing "voucher" trades for people who are trying to cashout. To put that more plainly, it is so difficult to cash out of BTCPOP that a secondary market has materialized for people who simply want to get back THEIR OWN COINS, of course at a steep premium. What a scam.

This is absolutely amazing. So I go on to BTCPOP.co and login so I can try and talk to someone. I post a message on their chat system:
"my withdrawal request has been stuck in 'pending' for 5 days now, any suggestions?"

I received an immediate reply directing to a post of a user who is doing "voucher" trades for people who are trying to cashout. To put that more plainly, it is so difficult to cash out of BTCPOP that a secondary market has materialized for people who simply want to get back THEIR OWN COINS, of course at a steep premium. What a scam.

Timeline:
June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**
June 17, 206 - **Silence**

They could at least email notifying me of the status. This is a horrible way to treat customers if you are a legitimate business.

Thanks Bigboxx, I appreciate the information. I'll keep you updated with a post tomorrow to see if they have gotten around to giving me my coins back.

I'm afraid I have had an extremely negative experience with BTCPOP and as of now, four days after my attempt, they have yet to return my 2.5646 BTC.
I was first attracted to BTCPOP because of the savings account. I plan on holding my BTC over the long term and who wouldn't want to earn a little interest while waiting? I checked out the reviews and I justified that even the negative ones eventually seemed to get resolved. So I took the plunge and deposited with BTCPOP, they were even offering up to 10% bonus.

The deposit went smoothly, taking only about as much time as getting 3 confirmations on the network. After I saw that my coins were safe in their new home I started poking around the website, there is a lot going on. I began to notice that the majority of the P2P lending opportunities were very risky and that the features of the website that would have helped managed risk (like reporting late loans) were not functioning.

After reading some internal message board posts it became clear to me that my worst fear was happening, that people were having extreme difficulty retrieving their coins. At that point I panicked and withdrew my coins. When I place the withdraw order the system asked me for my 2FA credentials which I input. When I pressed "send" the balance was removed from my wallet and placed in "pending" where it sits today... four days later.

Even the most basic operations have to be able to do two things at a minimum, deposit and withdraw. If that doesn't happen efficiently people are going to rightly worry. That is were BTCPOP is right now, it does some really innovative things... some really groundbreaking ideas are being pushed there. But if people can't get their coins as easily as when they deposit them, something smells rotten.

Timeline:
June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**

Ps. I will be updating as to their communication and for those who think I'm scamming because I have so few posts, I'm not, message boarding is not really my thing. Here is my identity: https://onename.com/aaron1

I'm afraid I have had an extremely negative experience with BTCPOP and as of now, four days after my attempt, they have yet to return my 2.5646 BTC.
I was first attracted to BTCPOP because of the savings account. I plan on holding my BTC over the long term and who wouldn't want to earn a little interest while waiting? I checked out the reviews and I justified that even the negative ones eventually seemed to get resolved. So I took the plunge and deposited with BTCPOP, they were even offering up to 10% bonus.

The deposit went smoothly, taking only about as much time as getting 3 confirmations on the network. After I saw that my coins were safe in their new home I started poking around the website, there is a lot going on. I began to notice that the majority of the P2P lending opportunities were very risky and that the features of the website that would have helped managed risk (like reporting late loans) were not functioning.

After reading some internal message board posts it became clear to me that my worst fear was happening, that people were having extreme difficulty retrieving their coins. At that point I panicked and withdrew my coins. When I place the withdraw order the system asked me for my 2FA credentials which I input. When I pressed "send" the balance was removed from my wallet and placed in "pending" where it sits today... four days later.

Even the most basic operations have to be able to do two things at a minimum, deposit and withdraw. If that doesn't happen efficiently people are going to rightly worry. That is were BTCPOP is right now, it does some really innovative things... some really groundbreaking ideas are being pushed there. But if people can't get their coins as easily as when they deposit them, something smells rotten.

Timeline:
June 12, 2016 (PST) - Withdraw request
June 13, 2016 - Emailed Chad in Support
June 13, 2016 - Chad got back to me saying if I input my credentials correctly transfer imminent.
June 14, 2016 - Emailed Chad again, still haven't received coins.
June 14, 2016 - Chad escalates to "transaction review"
June 16, 2016 - **Crickets**

Ps. I will be updating as to their communication and for those who think I'm scamming because I have so few posts, I'm not, message boarding is not really my thing. Here is my identity: https://onename.com/aaron1

I'm with both of you. I don't even look at the price anymore. It's all about the community for me. The price will catch up in due course and we will all look back on whatever it's trading at now and think, "if I would have only bought more when it was that cheap."

When the time comes that it is profitable to mine with a CPU, I think a different type of person will start mining. For instance, I have little to no mining experience but would definitely take the time to learn if I can at least pay for my electricity using a CPU.

I did that with MaxCoin, someone created a website giving a tutorial on how to mine MaxCoin. Kind of like "how to mine for Dummies." It was really fun to do but was not really economical so I don't do it anymore. I would to do it for UTC if:
1) I could recover electricity cost
2) I could figure out how to do it.
3) It was benefiting the community.

It will be fun to watch how this develops. For now I am happy to be on the investing side, but it would be fun to do a little mining.

Sweet. Really awesome job, I like how you used 'also sprach zarathustra' which conjures the image of an evolutionary superior coin. Small tip heading your way. Cheers.

Thanks for all your work xwebnetwork, if/when our beloved UTC hits the big time it will be in no small part due to your efforts. Cheers.

I've been trying to encourage folks to hang out over at the UTC official site and it's forum. It's essential that we use it because new people will automatically head over there first and wouldn't it be nice to see something other than tumbleweeds? You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

On that note. It appears that UTC is being traded on a new exchange. I can not vouch for it yet, but it looks promising. They are advertising that they offer futures contracts on cryptos. Now you are talking my language. How cool would it be to buy and sell futures on UTC. I'm investigating. Oh, by the way. It was first announced here:

http://forum.ultracoin.net/index.php

If you are not using the UTC forum you are missing out.

I have to head out for about an hour but people are already starting to go over to the forum. Join us!!! Remember, it's in our own best interest to show momentum on our own website.

As incentive, when I get back I will donate some UTC to the last person to have posted on the forum. Just for fun!

I'll be over there in about 1.5 hours. See you there!

http://forum.ultracoin.net/index.php

I don't think the forum was on line at the time of the creation of this thread. It was a chaotic time and this thread served it's purpose well. It's time for this community to grow up and stand on it's own two feet.

http://forum.ultracoin.net/index.php