StealthEx has been holding 3000 Hive of mine since the start of the bull last night. I've been told it would be returned to me two separate times with each timeline being missed. At this time I have still not been returned my Hive and their customer service is still not advising that it will be ready.
Last night in the madness of the rush up I decided I would try to sell some Hive to take advantage of the price jump. I knew I'd want to go into Bitcoin so I debated between using an exchange account but since StealthEx had been included on Peakd's Exchange page earlier in the year I thought I'd try them out for the first time.
I sent @swap2020 3000 Hive with the memo they supplied. Knowing these kinds of sites usually use a variable rate I was nervous because the price was just beginning it's ascent and I feared they would revise the rate while waiting for it to confirm.
10 minutes go by and I've now refreshed their page 5 times waiting for them to receive my deposit. I know I've sent it to the right address because on the first three times I was checking their @swap2020 account's history and confirmed the memo was correctly typed.
Frustrated I started a customer service chat with their company hoping to get it resolved quickly. Fortunately they have a chat feature on the site and I leave a quick "I've started a swap but after sending the funds my order is still stuck in awaiting deposit. Are there currently any technical issues?" I move on to sending another transaction out to Gate.io but am surprised I hear their website ding notifying me that I've had a response shortly after I get started.
They had requested I send details about the transaction. I look them up and send them the transaction ID and the transaction hash from Hive. While I wait I get confirmation from Gate.io that my deposit received. I'm very reassured that something hasn't happened to the chain with the rush that started since Gate was working. Now I know they should be seeing my transaction on StealthEx since it was sent 10 minutes before the tx to Gate.
George: Usually, our exchanges take up to 60 minutes to finish. As soon as your deposit will be detected by our system it won't take much longer to complete. I will keep an eye on your exchange.
I hear this and am immediately deflated. In 60 minutes will the bull still be running?, I think to myself. I tell George thank you and proceed to exchange the value I sent to Gate.io. When I finish the trades there I went back to StealthEx and was shown a failed transaction state and a contact form to contact support. Fortunately I still have my chat with George up so I mention it's failed. He responds back "The exchange has been suspended by our system due to the rate changed for the worse. It's possible to make a refund of the HIVE coins or continue the swap at the current rate."
I'm beyond frustrated because the rate they were offering me now is well below my original trade amount. Fortunately I had already taken advantage of prices with my Gate.io account so I tell them to refund me the Hive I sent them back to my address on Hive. George tells me that's fine and we settle from there.
I realize after ending that I never asked how long before they'd anticipate it being returned so I opened a new chat and was lucky enough to get George again. He goes on to tell me that "You can expect your order to be refunded within 2 hours." It's only 1:30AM or so at that point so I figure I'll wait for it to process before going to bed. After all maybe I'll get some good prices on the HBD internal market.
Two hours go by and nothing is deposited to my account. I go back to the chat and again am greeted with George as my agent. I tell him I've now waited the two hours but nothing is in my account. He tells me he'd look into it then comes back with another "Unfortunately team needs a bit more time to issue a refund, we’ll get back with updates via email within the next several hours." I express my frustration and again tells me he'll ask to speed it up and that I should hear something in 1-2 hours via email.
At this point it's past 3:45AM and I've yet to sleep. I don't have the patience to keep waiting nor does it look like I'm going to get to take advantage of prices tonight. I decide to go to bed. Before leaving I ask, "Will I be refunded for any price changes in the asset from when it was sent to when it was returned to me?" Of course I get back that they will refund the exact amount that was sent in. I will not get anything for the fact they've held my funds during Hive's biggest run in it's independent history. Fair I guess I'm sure this is in their terms but still frustrating to be stuck behind poor customer experience.
I wake up today and check my Hive account to find there's still no Hive returned. At that point it's been 12 hours since I originally sent them funds and at least 11 since I had first been told I'd have it back in two hours. I'm now beyond frustrated and becoming concerned that StealthEx is going to run with my funds.
I open a new chat and again am greeted by George. George is working some long hours it seems, or everyone is George, I hope he gets a break. I've been frustrated with this company but the speed at which I was able to get in touch with George was decent and he stayed professional in all my encounters. I wish he wouldn't have given two inaccurate timelines but I'm sure that's what he was promised by the team.
I again request my refund for my order and he tells me he'll need a minute to look into it. This time seems he's taken longer to look into it but comes back with "Unfortunately there’s still no update from our team. We apologize for a delay, we’ll get back with updates as soon as got them."
I again push back that this is unacceptable and that they've missed two of their own defined deadlines for resolving my issue. I'm still left with the near generic, "Unfortunately our service is overloaded now and it takes longer than usual to solve your case. We totally understand your frustration but we kindly ask you to keep patient. We’ll get back as soon as got any updates/hash."
At this point I've researched the account history for their @swap2020 account. I see that they bundled deposits from @nftshowroombank, @bitcoinflood, @r0nd0n, @abrockman, @chronocrypto and my 3000 Hive into a single deposit they made to Binance. I presume this is their swapping partner and they just forward the deposits there and automate the withdraw of whatever selected currency the user had on the front end. I'd be interested to hear if any of those users are experiencing the same issues at the moment.
It's now been 16 hours since I originally sent them my Hive. I will continue to report my interactions on this transaction to the community. I hope they resolve this shortly but unless the tagged users above or any other users since last night can report that they were successful then I'd recommend staying away for now.