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Payments processing companies Worldpay and Visa are at the centre of complaints from cryptocurrency traders after erroneous charges were levied on their accounts.
Dozens of users of America’s biggest cryptocurrencies exchange, Coinbase, took to Reddit, the social network, late last week to complain about unexpected charges on credit and debit cards used to buy digital currency.
Some people claimed their bank accounts had been wiped out before refunds were applied, while others said they were hit with overdraft fees.
“I was charged four times and it completely drained my account,” claimed one user on Reddit.
Blame for the charges initially fell on Coinbase, which has grown rapidly over the past year as digital currencies such as bitcoin have hit the headlines.
Coinbase has in the past faced other payments issues, including earlier this year a bout of seriously delayed wire transfers. However, the group was not to blame for the erroneous charges this time.
Over the weekend Worldpay and Visa issued a joint a statement conceding that “this issue was not caused by Coinbase”.
Two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said that the problem related to the merchant category code (MCC) that the payment processers assigned to Coinbase. MCCs are crucial for transactions processing as they help card issuers assess the risk of accepting a transaction.