Gate.io withdrawal fee scam

Hi all,

A warning:

I was liquidating my small holdings on gate.io to withdraw them from the platform (ironically because it has always seemed dodgy as hell and makes me nervous holding anything there). They were tokens that other exchanges didn't trade at the time of purchase.

I spot traded into USDT ready for withdrawal and checked the network fees. Tron was showing up as 0.5 USDT and ERC20 was showing as 3 USDT. My target exchange didn't accept Tron network so for 3 USDT I decided to go ERC20. I was withdrawing around 97 USDT. I was on this screen for perhaps a minute.

I entered my authorisation and everything was confirmed. I pop over to my target exchange and the USDT arrives a few minutes later. Except instead of the 94 USDT I'm expecting.. I receive 72 USDT.

Gate.io has just charged me 25 USDT for the withdrawal instead of the 3 on their withdrawal page. That's over 25% of the entire sum I was withdrawing.

After a long and unhelpful conversation with gate.io support, here's their official position:

Dear user ,
So sorry for all inconvenience , we all understand your feeling .
The withdrawal fee displayed on the page is for reference only , kindly regard the actual withdrawal time and fee as standard .
Besides ,the more people withdraw in per hour the fee is higher. The withdrawal fee will be dynamically updated.

Right, so the withdrawal fee displayed is totally meaningless. It's also controlled by Gate.io rather than relating to actual gas fees. I watched the withdrawal fee over a couple of days and it seems to largely stay at 3 USDT, flipping to 25 occasionally (presumably when people withdraw).

Most exchanges either give you a timer to complete the withdrawal or a withdrawal fee that dynamically updates on the withdrawal screen. On gate.io there's no indication that it changes dynamically (when? we don't know) or the range that could be charged (8 times what was stated)? More importantly there's no warning that their displayed withdrawal fee is totally meaningless.

Hope this helps someone.