Coinify, when do I get my ETH back?
Refunds in the Age of Crypto
Update on 21.12.2020. Alright, so the day after I wrote this story. The payment was processed by Coinify, and I was given a digital certificate by the Doctor Who World’s Apart people. I’m still wondering when and how that will convert to an actual NFT on the Ethereum Mainnet. But, to Coinify’s credit, they did process the transaction which is super and I didn’t need a refund. So, I can recommend them for payments, and am a happier customer. That’s better.
The beauty and promise of a new relationship, is well the newness: It’s somebody different, and the hope is that the old problems that we carried around before, and that came up over and over again will evaporate in order to leave us with a richer and, hopefully, less painful experience.
And, so, I tried to buy some Dr Who Worlds Apart (DWWA) founders tokens, which eventually will be ERC-721 compliant (we hope) and pay using Coinify which amongst other things accepts ETH.
Here is how it happened: First, I got a prompt from Coinify to enter an address, to which they could return my payment if needed. I put the public address of my wallet in, and followed the prompt. Next, they gave me an address to which to send the crypto to. Tick, tick. There is 15 minute ticker, that sets a time limit on the transaction. So, I authorise the transaction on Metamask, and send the payment to the appropriate address.
On Etherscan: One block confirmation, then two, then three, and so forth.
On the DWWA site, the prompt on the screen, from Coinify, is — we need at least one block confirmation in order to process this transaction. And, I waited and waited, and at the end of 15 minutes the transaction failed….
Now, I’m still waiting to hear back from either DWWA or from Coinify with regard to my support ticket, and the ETH is still in the wallet address that I sent it to…
Surely, Coinify, you can write a contract that generates an instant refund for a failed transaction? Isn’t this the promise of crypto over banking?
And, there’s more.
So, I bought some Dr Who Founder’s tokens, after the failed transaction, and lo and behold, they never asked for a crypto wallet. Hmm…
That’s strange. So, where are my tokens going? And, when do they get allocated. Where do these mysterious cards end up?
I know they are still in pre-sale, but anything can happen. Right now, I don’t own the tokens. I own a promise of the tokens, and have direct evidence of a not-too-good support handling mechanism. Do I now have to trust that the tokens get allocated?
If you are going to do things on blockchain do them well, or we all get a bad reputation…….
