Poloniex tries to force NDA on a user. Poloniex withdrawal problems

A Reddit user has reported that Poloniex has been holding his funds hostage for over 7 months now.

He started getting customer support replies only after he’s filed a complaint with the attorney general in his state. After that Poloniex suggested to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) and only they they promised to explain where the customer’s finds were.

The customer refused to sign the NDA (rightfully so) and took it to Reddit instead to shed light on possible withdrawal problems at Poloniex for anyon using that exchage.

Here is the original post (link):

I tried to withdrawal my money 7 months ago. I still have received nothing.

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For 6 months Poloniex ignored my support requests. They also refused to reply to multiple Better Business Bureau inquiries that I filed. Their compliance officer John Brown (skype sweetjohndee) mostly ignored my messages, occasionally promising me he was “working on it” but refusing to give me any real information.

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Last month I told Poloniex I’d be filing a complaint with the Massachusetts attorney general if they didn’t do the right thing. That got them off their asses, and they finally started replying to my support tickets (still a week+ response time, but better than being completely ignored)

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John accidentally let slip that basically nothing had been done on this until last month. That alone is criminal. For 6 months they did nothing to send me my property. Only this last month (the 7th month since trying to withdrawal my money) have they been working on it. Or so they claim, it doesn’t seem like they’ve been working on it during this month either.

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John mentioned that an engineer is needed to send me my money. Yet they didn’t even have an engineer look at my support ticket until the 7th month.

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I told Poloniex I would be an idiot to take their word that they are actually working on it. And unless they gave me real information as to what is actually going on, that I was going to file a report with boston pd and bring a civil suit against them. I went ahead with filing a complaint with the attorney general, because it was clear to me they were not going to do the right thing.

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Poloniex sent me back an NDA. Asked me to sign it, send it back, and then they would call me.

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I refused. I have a right to my own property without needing to sign any further documentation. I told them to call me without the signed NDA.

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They promptly replied (for the first time ever) that they are “archiving” my balance and won’t send me my money. They are holding my property hostage until I do what they want. Their actions are criminal.

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They are now claiming they can’t send me my money because trading of the coin has been delisted. Yet that was the case 7 months ago. If that was truly the problem, they would have said so originally. Also, withdrawals were still enabled. And what would be the purpose of assigning an engineer to the support ticket, if it’s impossible to send someone money that is a de-traded coin? And not trading a coin, has absolutely nothing to do with sending someone their money.

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But the moment I refuse to sign an NDA, all efforts completely stop. They have now closed my support ticket. The engineer that promised a resolution is none responsive.

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I have no idea what horrible news they were going to tell me about Poloniex, that they are trying to coerce me into signing an NDA.

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I STRONGLY suggest everyone take their money off immediately. I sense they are running a fractional reserve, or are doing something else equally shady. Take your money out while you still can. I probably won’t be as lucky.

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I am filing a police report with boston pd and will update you all on what happens.

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Their actions constitute criminal fraud and coercion. If anyone else wants to send me evidence of fraudulent activity you’ve been a victim of please comment below or message me. I will add it to the packet I’m sending boston pd. I am currently sending them all my support tickets, my messages with their compliance officer, my unanswered BBB inquiries, the 500+ complaints and one star reviews they have on BBB, and the NDA.

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I will also put forth my argument to the cops that people at Circle should also be criminally charged. I alerted Circle support multiple times that fraud was happening on their platform. Each time they ignored me and closed my support ticket. Knowingly allowing fraud to take place on their platform is illegal.

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Here is a copy of the NDA: https://imgur.com/iyeLoRE

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TLDR: Poloniex has not sent me my money after 7 months. I told them I would file a police report. They asked me to sign an NDA. I refused. They then responded that they will not send my money.

Most cryptocurrency experts can’t stress this enough: if you don’t own the private keys to your coins, you don’t own your coins.

Poloniex is a custodial exchange that basically holds your money for you. Unless you are doing several trades a day scalping for profits there is no reason to keep your money on exchanges like Poloniex. Especially now with all the Tether-related news that might bring along withdrawal problems in case of Tether’s collapse or insolvency.

Consider this report a daily reminder to keep whatever crypto you are not ready losing from exchanges and into cryptocurrency wallets you control.