Warning about Coinbase One “free trial” — couldn’t cancel

TL;dr Warning for Coinbase users who receive a “free trial” offer — don’t do it.

Just a heads up, but I helped an older relative with cancelling a Coinbase One “free trial” offer. This is where you can buy crypto without fees and on paper, it looks like a good deal.

The bullshit promotional offer promised cancellation was push-button-easy. Spoiler: It was not.

My relative was able to initially access the add on and use it. So they set a reminder to cancel the recurring subscription about three days before the deadline.

Surprise, when the date came the service was inexplicably unavailable, but had a placeholder image assuring them their funds were safe. They tried repeatedly over the next few days and the service was never available, but they could still buy and sell crypto. I saw them try this and it looked like Coinbase may have disabled access.

My relative decided to simply cancel it since the product didn’t work. Guess what? THAT wasn’t available either through their account settings, but they got more assurances it was only temporary and their funds were safe. Again, it looked sketchy as hell and disabled.

The online help didn’t address any of this and surprise, no agent was available to give support via the app.

They called the 24/7 support line at +1 (888) 908-7930 and spoke with an agent named Mark. He tried to tell my relative that the app was “glitching” and suggested they uninstall the app, reinstall and wait and see if it resolves. My relative asked if other people trying to access the product or cancel the product were also having issues. They said yes, it was a known problem.

Like I said, sketchy as hell.

Relative demanded they cancel and refund the subscription fee since it had been unavailable for over a week. Mark said he would do that and to hold, but he hung up on them instead.

Nice professional customer service from a financial institution makes me feel sooo secure.

Relative waited five minutes and Mark did not call back. They called the 800 number again and jumped through all the verification hoops and got another agent.

Mark didn’t cancel the subscription and didn’t refund the money, but claims my relative hung up on him and then did not answer the phone when he called back. Problem was that I was there and this didn’t happen and he didn’t call.

This is some shady shit coming from Coinbase. We are moving my relative’s crypto to their own wallet.

I just wanted to warn people to avoid this “free trial” like the plague.