I got locked out of my Kraken account because something went wrong with the 2FA, I can't honestly say if its their fault or my fault, but judging by the number of errors generated by their site, I will not automatically conclude it's my fault. I did save the key for the 2FA and tried to restore it but that didn't work. Their website is totally ambiguous about what to do if this happens. They have a 2FA bypass request form which generates a green success message saying that if the input data matches their records (it does) a bypass code will be sent. However the form itself is contradictory saying both that if you don't have a "master key" you can't do it and below that that a master key is "optional". In any case I know the info I am entering is correct and the form generates a green success message that says "if the data matches our records, you'll receive a code" - it does, but no code is ever sent.
see:
https://s26.postimg.org/rsaejr9a1/form.pngand:
https://s26.postimg.org/4yhgaikl5/message.pngSupport is totally unhelpful. I have had more than 15 exchanges with them and they have made no attempt to actually give me access to my account. They don't seem to have any process in place and just seem to be making things up as they go. Every detailed answer to a question generates another round of more questions or repeating the same questions they already asked and already received an answer to or shuffling the request between employees and/or departments. After giving them
extremely detailed information only I could know about the account, including down to the last cent details on account activities that took place as long as a year+ ago, they told me what they really want... or so I thought and hoped... A photo of the ID I used to register, and a few more additional details. If they are not being disingenuous, then they are operating from the default assumption that my e-mail account is hacked along with multiple other accounts besides my e-mail and kraken accounts. Furthermore, if they were to take into account my login login details (IPs, location, etc.) they would also have to assume that my account has been hacked since more than a month and I didn't notice or that I was being held captive in some basement while somebody is using my account for more than a month.
Luckily I was able to determine what ID I used to register with and luckily I still have it! Since they accept a long list of different ID types (including driver's licenses), some of which expire and have to be renewed which changes the ID details, what would happen if the user didn't even have that ID anymore? They don't seem to have any plan in place for that since it took more than 10 rounds of back and forth for them to even decide that an ID photo was what they really wanted in order to give my account back. Prior to providing an ID photo, support reps might respond within a few hours to a day, of course they never did anything useful or helpful, but at least they were pretending like they were doing something. After sending them everything they wanted, they've totally disappeared into thin air. Their "escalate ticket form" doesn't seem to do anything at all:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScCdK0IeMKRdYQUrpZRte71T_ksukoCU_7nnssYWSgrpoYMkA/viewform?fbzx=-1724293387715416600 Trying to get their attention on social media has no result either other than sometimes pointing users to the "escalate ticket form".
With all their talk about "security" and "verification" they have just forced me to put my entire life's history (at least as far as it relates to my interaction with their company) into insecure emails and into their ticketing system which is certainly of at least questionable security... and they still haven't done anything at all to help.
I was once locked out of my account once in the past with Kraken and I remember it was an absolute disaster taking days to get back in, so I hesitated to enable another layer of security that I wasn't absolutely certain I could reset by myself if something went wrong. After an internal debate I thought better safe than sorry since I had some trades pending. I regret it now, I've learned twice in a row, the threat of someone hacking your password during some one or two or three day period when you're trying to make some trades is far less than the threat of having to deal with Kraken themselves. It appears they can hold accounts hostage as long as they want for whatever arbitrary reason they want, or no reason at all.
It really feels like they are going out of their way to keep the account locked as long as possible and to require as much correspondence as possible with support. There is no way a business motivated by resolving tickets as quickly and efficiently as possible would behave like this. If they were being up front and honest
and know what they are doing (i.e. have a clear process in place) they should have been able to clear this up in the very first exchange - say up front what they want, receive it, send 2FA bypass code. Pretty simple and straight forward. Now days later, nothing has been accomplished except wasting a lot of my time and continuing to keep me locked out of my account forcing me to take to social media and write long winded explanations of what they are screwing up, how and why. Just fix the problem!
Add to all of this the fact that Kraken.com generates tons of 502 errors or gives error messages saying "this feature is temporarily disabled" for withdrawals whenever anything significant happens in the market.
If I lost a credit or debit card, I could make one phone call and get it replaced in 15 minutes. With Kraken all I can do is submit a ticket and pray? Where is the telephone support? Where is the direct contact info to somebody that can actually do something? As much as we'd all like to move on to finance and money 2.0, I have to say even the worst bank I've ever dealt with is better than any bitcoin exchange, especially Kraken.
At this point I am wondering is Kraken just incredibly incompetent or are they doing this on purpose? Do they look at customers who are locked out of their account as ways to guarantee themselves some additional liquidity for a finite period of time that only they can control? Or are they just terrible at their job? It has to be one or the other.
Crytpo currencies are great but the exchanges are just
awful!
