A Month Long Battle Ends Tonight

First off, wanted to let everyone know I am alive and well. I know its been a very long hot minute since I posted off the personal Steemit but life is good and happy to report I have branched out with crypto marketing and actually acquired an LLC for that. Soon we will be letting it more public what we are cooking up but trust me big things for crypto is coming, on a project I definitely think everyone will enjoy.

With that out of the way, sadly I got to post a little negative aspect of crypto for this guy but I think its something I better let out to prevent anyone from having the same ordeal I been having.

About a month back I sent about 50 PIVX to the exchange Cryptobridge, I been off and on using them for a few moves with no issues up to that stage but sadly I had to find out the true nature of this place, and I hate to report it but its not looking good for usage of them anymore.

The issue actually started a transaction before this last one. I had one pop up and not redeem in my deposits but luckily that got resolved. Due to feeling like they may have fixed the issues with the PIVX wallets, about a few weeks later I sent in the questionable transaction this post is about, but it never redeemed into my wallet again.

Now here comes the warning I think everyone should maybe heed through my experience after this. Support is insanely incompetent over at CryptoBridge and let me explain this before going in depth about it. I am not the type here to hold grudges or judge people that I don't know personally. I am actually very driven personally to give everyone the benefit of the doubt in as many situations as possible. So when I say incompetent I seriously have to look hard at the shortcomings presented to me to fully envelope my belief system around a team that isn't doing their job in the proper manner.

When I put my ticket in over a month ago, I did suspect a little wait time. Let us all face this hard fact in crypto, support sucks on almost every level when you need someone to help you out when it comes to support related problems. It's tough, there is a lot of users under these exchanges and this technology is not perfect all the time. But these are not crutches to hang on either, I do always say if your dealing with someone's income, make sure you have at the very least a group on standby to fix things as best as possible and within as best of a timely manner as possible for all parties involved.

The situation for me got strange though over at CryptoBridge, while my first ticket got resolved pretty much on par with what I expected, this new ticket ended up going on and on. So I ended up hanging out in the CryptoBridge Discord and this is where things got pretty worrisome about my situation.

Users for the last month have been popping up with 2-3 month wait times on tickets, some with multiple Bitcoin holdings just out there in limbo in Deposit/Withdraw hell. And I noticed a trend when they respectfully came inquiring about their issues, the support team seemed to have this attitude its not their problem or quick to blame the user themselves. This is something I never seen in a situation when your dealing with someone else's funds, a little respect goes a long way but over at CryptoBridge it appears they beat to a very different drum.

So five weeks passed on my deposited transaction, five long weeks I waited for someone to clear this issue up (don't worry I didn't sit in the Discord night and day, I do have a life here) . At that stage I pretty much called the PIVX a loss seeing the markets dumped and it is now worth half what I sent in. But low and behold, tonight I found a message in my inbox from the CryptoBridge support team!!

I was ecstatic to be honest, finally the long wait for that side pocket cash is back in my grabby hands and some bill man can snatch it right back from me in turn, lately that seems to be always the case....but wait, did CB just actually respond like this?

Hi SFlaherty,

This is CryptoBridge technical support, we're sorry for the delay.

The address you have supplied, DMu3kjbfi5ReeNwgJ5HiRXmbaV2EgMqhJb is not known by our pivx daemons:

We cannot credit funds that we have not received, we're very sorry. It seems you have deposited somewhere else.

CryptoBridge technical team

INFURIATING!!!

Okay I this is not a response I remotely expected back, heck after 5 weeks I pretty much figure its was gone anyways but this is my fault? "I" sent this to the wrong address?

I don't know maybe if that is the way this place handles things if they can't fix something or understand an issue but I have officially come to realize that I been placing my trust and families money into an exchange full of incompetence. That is a very sobering thing to realize.

No I didn't send this to the wrong address, I long figured that out going into day one before I sent the ticket in. See I been in crypto long enough, fought with Yobit a few times, had stuck transactions numerous times with Cryptopia so usually my first line of defense before any ticket sending is to verify I didn't do something human and screw up things. I mean its always possible, I am not perfect but luckily I know for a fact on this one I sent to the address CB gave me. How do I know this? Because I checked my Ledger like a paranoid freak the last 5 weeks and I kept going into OCD mode looking at the deposit address on CB and where my TX ID showed, always matched up.

Of course I poked more about this and I find out I sent a previous transaction to a different address so I guess CB has some ever changing address system going on where your taking a risk by sending in deposits now. Point is. where I sent this TX is where CB told me to send, so pointing that mighty finger at this guy isn't gonna fly far.

And then the real interesting mystery unfolded

I am not an unreasonable person, most things don't effect me much so I decided to just check into things further to see what is going on. Interesting thing, and something I really want to highlight to you guys about this. I found out through the Block Explorer, not only did that address I sent to all the sudden show up deposited but almost exactly around the same time CB sent that above message did the funds just poof get sent to a new address somewhere. I don't believe in coincidence but maybe I am just paranoid but isn't that odd that for 5 weeks a transaction sits NON REDEEMED and as soon as support hits you up it releases then moves to a new location you can't access at all?

You can see the transaction here for yourself and the mystery addy that got a steak dinner on me: https://chainz.cryptoid.info/pivx/address.dws?DMu3kjbfi5ReeNwgJ5HiRXmbaV2EgMqhJb.htm

So Now What? And Should Crypto Users Still Use This Exchange?

Basically after some words about this with the support team, its clear they are just chalking this up that I should not care, its not a lot of money and basically I was told its my doing anyways. I personally don't care if its $5 or $100, if an exchange has such an attitude that lost funds should be just looked over and moved on about, then I can't recommend anyone putting a dime in that place, its not right, very immoral and honestly I wouldn't be a decent human being for not pointing that fact out publicly.

The situation here is this, and I hope a few of you have managed to read down this far to get to the wrap up about my opinions on this matter. Decentralized exchanges are supposed to be a step in the right direction, I still believe in them but if we continue to let places like this keep screwing up, its just gonna keep hurting users and setting back progress. My money, its not the end of the world, lesson learned to avoid this place for me personally and I will just move on. Right now though I do fear for others after seeing so many lost transactions happening while I hung out in the CB Discord that I think one must be cautious with this place. If you want to use them, do test transactions or maybe hold out for a better decentralized solution, but for the love of your family make sure you keep them accountable every night and day you use them.

Please be careful with your funds and I suggest if you have issues, get on them about it, don't wait it out, enforce your rights to obtain what is yours. Exchanges need to realize without us they will have nothing and there should be a line of respect in place due to that fact.

The biggest kicker in all of this, I lost PIVX, which is so odd because I started my marketing career by marketing for PIVX. The one coin I can say I never lost much on but even knowing the PIVX family supports me there isn't really much they could do about this nor is it their fault or problem to bother about. Once your funds are redirected in such a way like this, your kind of at the mercy of thieves which usually is a group with no mercy.

I don't know exactly what happened in my situation, all I know is I received a deposit address in my account, sent to that and I have verified numerous times that is where CB told me to send. Maybe I got hacked, maybe someone on the inside manipulated this situation to side step me and move the funds somewhere else, not sure and one can only speculate. Thing is they did not do right by me and many other users so I hope people are cautious when depositing funds to CryptoBridge.

Anyways, guess I better hope for some UPVOTES here to make up for the loss lol. Ah, its only money, long as one is still breathing there is ample opportunity to gain back more.

I will try to keep you guys posted on the situation, but I basically got the brush off that its not their problem like I seen them say to many other users, I figure things out and survive, that I do daily!!

~sflaherty

Follow me @sflaherty

THE PLOT THICKENS, INTERESTING UPDATE TO THE SITUATION

So I woke up to an interesting message, one of the guys over at CryptoBridge told me they credited back to my account the amount from the moved funds. And get this, it sits on the very address they tried to claim was not my address numerous times. So there you go, I am vindicated, I did send this to the address and I guess a little post shook the tree enough to get things properly in line. I am not going back to them after this though, definitely after this experience the trust levels will be mighty low for the old CB and my business. Anyways, watch those exchanges, they are tricky sometimes.