Poloniex Wallet is Back Online, and I got my 3,000 STEEM!
About two months ago I posted how my dumb mistake may cost me 3,000 STEEM. Today, I got my STEEM back, minus a minor withdrawal fee.
Over 50 days ago, I opened a support ticket. I waited. I pinged the ticket a few times. I asked about my ticket every few days in the now-gone trollbox. You can see the helpdesk conversation here:
Appologies are great, but how about an explanation?
I have to wonder, did this tweet finally get me some attention?
I was searching around on Twitter and elsewhere to find any Polo employees who actually respond to tweets and found MickD whose Twitter profile describes him as CXO @Poloniex - UX & IxD Strategy. That tweet was sent on the 28th and the very next day on the 29th my support ticket got a reply.
Coincidence? Maybe.
As soon as I saw the STEEM in my Poloniex account, I wanted to tell you all about it, but I decided to wait until they re-enabled the wallet so I could get everything off of there completely.
So why am I writing about this? Mostly to say thank you to all those who have been asking me about this over the past two months. In addition, I want to reiterate how important the first rule of cryptocurrency is:
Control Your Own Private Keys
When you send money to an exchange, you no longer own it. You are at their mercy. This is another reason I'm such a big fan of BitShares and OpenLedger. Decentralized wallets are the future, but that future will only get here if we stop using centralized exchanges.
The second reason for writing this is to reinforce an important principle.
We, the customers, have all the control in a market-driven system if, and only if, we take that power and use it.
That's why I won't be using Poloniex any more, and I hope you don't either. They went almost two months without responding to my customer support request which is unacceptable. I'm not the only one to experience this from Poloniex.
I run my own business, and I can't imagine treating users this way. We don't need government regulations or someone to use threats of force to make Poloniex behave. What we need to do is ignore them. Use other exchanges and decrease their profits, something they will have to listen to or go out of business.
This is the part we usually mess up. We get greedy. We take on risk in spite of our principles. We think we're making a rational choice because of lower fees or more liquidity or some other reason which may mean more profits for us. We have to stop and factor in our long-term goals.
True rationality considers the importance of timescale. How long will we put up with companies like MtGox and Poloniex who clearly demonstrate a disregard for the value of their customers? If that's not part of the long-term vision for what this space should look like, then we need to start making changes now.
If possible, do your trading on a decentralized exchange and don't give your business to an exchange which doesn't value you. That's how we can help create the future of cryptocurrency we all want to see.
Created with ChainBB to help support that project.
Congratulations!
I never forget that all businesses that charge me fees and all government employees that are paid with my taxes ARE MY EMPLOYEES!
It is my responsibility to manage them and promote or demote them accordingly.
Upvoted, re-steemed, inspired :)
That's exactly right. They work for us. Glad this inspired you.
Ugh...that's frustrating. I'm really starting to hate Poloniex too. I just transferred about $1000 of Peercoin from Bittrex to Poloniex, and it's been 3 hours and still not there..I can't imagine those months and how annoying that was for you. I opened a support ticket, but reading what you went through, I can't imagine I'll be hearing back anytime soon. Awesome
Did it eventually go through?
It did! Took 4 hours but it did. That part is ridiculously frustrating and causes a ton of anxiety. Can't imagine how people feel when they're doing like a 50 btc transfer!
It took me about 12 days to get my Steem back after I accidentally sent it to a bitcoin wallet. Still learning my way around this brace new world. 😀 Kept updating my ticket with new asks and then, finally, out of disgust, I opened a second ticket with Poloniex and it seems that they responded to that one. Seems like they were back logged or something. Just glad I didn't lose that Steem!
Ah, good idea to open a new ticket! I wonder if that was the key for you. Glad you got your Steem.
Congrats bro!!! From now on this is the way we are treating poloniex
Glad you got your steem back.!!
What do y'all think about exodus wallet?
Comment below.
I haven't used it yet, but it looks pretty sharp. Have you used it?
Oh wow 3k steem stuck in limbo.. I would have been a nervous wreck over that lol. Glad to hear it turned out ok for you.
@lukestokes . Great writeup, many of us are experiencing the same pain with Polo. I believe my failed deposit happened when I made the transfer while the Steem deposits were disabled at Poloniex. Seems to be no retry logic on that process so it just sits in @poloniex account until the support tickets are picked up. My ticket is 2 weeks and counting.
The one think I like about this community are people like you who help others by writing solutions based on your experiences.
MickD may be getting a lot more support tweets now!!!
Congrats. 3000 steem is a lot of Power!
Congrats, that is really big amount and finally you have it back. I am happt for you @lukestokes
HappT! :)
Thanks.
I think the tweet got their attention, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. It made them look bad. I won't go near Poloniex anymore. I'm just waiting for the headlines about the owner raiding people's wallets and running off to China.
Maybe. I tried tweeting at @poloniex before and got no response. This time I tweeted a human. Maybe they did something about it.