You can try to escalate your ticket using the form below...  in general, the exchanges are swamped by the recent huge influx of new users, hopefully they manage to scale up in the coming weeks.  I would not open new tickets about the same issue as it just creates more mess. 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScCdK0IeMKRdYQUrpZRte71T_ksukoCU_7nnssYWSgrpoYMkA/viewform

Kraken's reply on my ticket wrt the issue of disabled deposits and withdrawals and my deposit not credited:

Their reply to CNY withdrawal requests as crypto or other instructions:


And if you reiterate that you ask them to convert CNY to BTC or other crypto they just stop answering. 

BTC38 (another Chinese altcoin exchange) closes down much more gracefully - allows to convert CNY to crypto, resolves tickets etc.   A pity that BTC38 has to close down as well, no regret for BTER.

Indeed BTER is still alive, it was a false alarm.  Of course one should take precautions, don't leave untraded coins there etc (although that holds for any exchange anyway as MtGox or Bitfinex taught us).

Eventually, I received a reply from Bter customer service and I am able to withdraw now. 
So although it takes time to resolve issues, Bter is still alive!

atomicat, have you tried to use them recently?  At least for me, the site looks looks like working fine (deposit, trading, API etc) - except of no withdrawal, no answer to tickets regarding the withdrawal issue (also their QQ number does not seem to exist anymore), as I have just written in another thread today.  Kind of reminding the last weeks of Cryptsy (and some other exchanges)...

I have been trying to withdraw from bter.com for several days without any success...  I only get the error message "Account is protected. Please contact admin to unlocked it.".  Several tickets created, no reply.  I even created a QQ account but I do not seem to find their QQ number 4000070955 in the network anymore...  Is bter definitely dead?  Anyone has any recent experience with them or an advice? 
(Please deter posting how irresponsible/stupid anyone still trading there must be, thanks.)

That may easily be the case but still it may be just too expensive for many people, compared to converting BTC to fiat at an exchange and sending the fiat to an existing bank account with a debit/credit card attached to it.  That way you can have ~0.2% conversion rate instead of ~2%, no need to pay the unavoidable extra 1 euro per month, plus the ATM/payment fees of your bank are typically cheaper.  Everyone has to decide whether the simplicity of the service is worth the extra fees.

I have only experience with the E-coin card that has been working reasonably well for me for over a year.  No major issues during that time, just a few minor ones. The SMS confirmations after payments were rather erratic (sometimes coming, sometimes not).  The 1 euro fee was charged every month, not only in the months with an activity as I was assured the by E-coin team initially.  Occasionally there were issues with the E-coin webpage, usually resolved within 1-2 days though. The Wirex account forces a mobile phone verification which I don't like, taking into account that together with the unavoidable 1 euro fees, I don't think I will try Wirex after my E-coin card limits are exhausted.

You are right!  Thanks for pointing this out.  I can indeed connect by doing this.

that was exactly my feeling but then zazarb said it worked for him, so I hoped it could be just something (eg IP) specific for us and it's up otherwise.  Probably just wishful thinking...

It is down for me too even when using proxies from China or Russia...  zazarb, which country do you connect from?  Does anyone know how to approach bter.com to notify them?  They do not post anything on their twitter account, so perhaps it works for some people and they are not aware of the problem?