I'm a developer who's been experimenting with different exchange APIs and programming trading bots. I was told HitBTC had low trading fees, and had pretty decent API documentation. Without any research, I made a HitBTC account, or at least I reopened an old one. Apparently I had made an account with hitBTC a while back, and so I had to change my password, in order to do this I had to accept a 72 hour lock-down of withdraws from my account. I accepted, did the KYC, and moved a decent amount of money (a bit under 2000$) to a hitBTC account, things were looking good, for a couple seconds.This was when I got hit with this email:" Dear User,We regret to inform you that we do not provide our services to US citizens and customers whose primary country of residence is the US. This is due to the regulatory framework for digital asset trading in the US.Deposits to your account are not operational. Withdrawals, if applicable, are operational within next 14 business days. "I went to check my account, and everything was shut down. The funds I had transferred were there, but couldn't be withdrawn for 72 hours due to the password lock down.After a moment of panicking and reading through a series of a majority negative and aggressive critiques of HitBTC (a-la this subreddit), I felt doomed. My money's lost forever. I just gambled nearly 2000$ on this sketchy looking exchange.The 72 hours passed, and I checked to see if I could withdraw on time, which surprisingly went as smooth as promised in their original automated email. No money was stolen, and I wasn't scammed out of anything besides my time, but the entire situation left me with a critique of HitBTC as well as the way in which I've been treating exchanges and my $$$.They say hindsight is 20/20, so here is me sharing with you what I've learned before you make a similar mistake. A couple rules to follow when looking for new exchanges:#1: RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. Google the fricken exchange first, search terms like "[INSERT EXCHANGE NAME HERE] scam", ask around! If the exchange has a telegram/discord/slack, join in and find someone to help mentor you through setting up an account, most exchanges are more than willing to help walk a new user through. If the community seems toxic and full of scam bots, then that will probably be reflected in the exchange itself. Develop this skill for discerning between a solid or fraudulent exchange. Trust your instinct, but keep in mind the critiques of those who have been burned before! Err on the safe side. If I had done just the tiniest bit of research I would've avoided making a hitBTC account to start with. knowledge is power!#2: Test deposits/withdraws. First off, if the exchange won't let your withdraw your funds until x amount of time after making an account, it's most likely a scam. Even if it's not a scam, exchanges holding your $ over your head in defense of your personal security is questionable and may bring up inconveniences in the future. To start try loading the minimum deposit and withdraw into your account to play around with. Withdraw it to a trusted account, and only after this transaction is successful should you deposit your intended deposit to the new exchange. A quick test deposit would've saved me the last three days of wondering whether or not I'd get my money back.#3: Respond to others who are struggling with the same issues. That's what I'm trying to do now, I'm making a point of sharing this post so those of you who are experiencing something similar know that you'll most likely be able to withdraw your money once your account is unlocked, so take a deep breath and withdraw ASAP after the time period is lifted. If you're in a country that isn't verified with HitBTC, and you've changed your password recently, you're in the exact same boat as I was, and YOU WILL get your money back *fingers crossed*.All that being said, this entire ordeal SUCKED. It was mainly my fault, I put myself here, I'm not denying that, but the overall experience would've been made WAY less anxiety-ridden had HitBTC set up a better system around locking out people from un-verified countries. We can critique why HitBTC isn't open to US customers at a later time, but for now, I'd like for whatever lingering team members are around the HitBTC HQ reading this to take 5 minutes out of some front-end devs life to add in bright red font on the KYC page or in the account sign up, these countries are not eligible for verification with a list of the countries that you'll inevitably lock the accounts of.If you're at all concerned with the efficacy of your product and the appearance of your exchange as one worth trusting your money in, you should spend some time developing a better support response team, and a more streamlined KYC.Until this occurs you will always be viewed as a scam, and people experiencing preventable account lockdown and other minor user-errors will continue to post about your fraudulence, even if it may be perceived in the heat of the moment.I want to be clear, I got my money back, I WAS NOT SCAMMED. But that doesn't relieve HitBTC of their overall sketchiness and lackluster support team. Do yourself a favor, and if you can avoid this exchange. You'll thank yourself in the long run.
Submitted May 25, 2020 at 08:49AM
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