Hey folks so I’m sure whether it’s your Uber, G-mail, or my least favorite, Amazon account, at some point you’ve probably gotten an e-mail that looks like this:
Assuming that you’re not getting phished and assuming that it really wasn’t you, like any responsible citizen, you’ll probably go in and immediately change your password.
On September 7th, after doing so, this is exactly what happened to me, and after signing in, I immediately saw a notice towards the top of my screen that my account was frozen:
Considering I really only use my Gemini account for storing my BRAVE $BAT, which is probably less than a hundred dollars worth, I wasn’t too panicked. Regardless, I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t have control over my funds so I immediately contacted service in order to request that it be unfrozen. This first step was extremely quick, for after I opened up a ticket and in about 24-hours or so, they got back to me with instructions detailing how I needed to resubmit my KYC information. After doing so on September 10th, I was told to wait while they reviewed my documentation. Standard right?
Once again, my documentation was submitted by September 10th, and with how quickly they were responding so far, I assumed that I would have my account unfrozen at least by the end of the week.
I was extremely wrong.
Because of all the things I do with miles and points, I’m use to sorting things out with customer services reps and I know that things take time. To make sure that I didn’t lose track, I made myself reminders to routinely follow up on these matters. For the next several weeks, this is how I followed up:
September 10th— Resubmitted all of my KYC documentation, got a response informing me that they were working to “resolve your issue regarding unfreezing your account”
September 17th —I contacted customer support via e-mail asking for an update, no response
September 21st — I submitted ticket #2 requesting an updated status of my account, no response
September 28th — I submitted Ticket #3 requesting an updated status of my account; received a response saying they could “confirm with you that your case is being reviewed with my team”
October 7th — I contacted customer support via e-mail asking for an update, no response
October 11th — Submitted Ticket #4 requesting an updated status of my account, no response
October 13th — Submitted Ticket #5 asking for any information at all, also sent contacted customer support via e-mail asking for an update furthermore asking to talk to a real person; received a response informing that they were still “working on the case.” I then responded immediately via e-mail asking for clarification for why it was taking so long — no response
October 19th — I received a response to my October 13th e-mail, with the representative apologizing for the delay and informing me that they’d “let the team know.”
At this point, it was pushing a full month and a half and I was simply just pissed. I was also beginning to think of all these conspiracy theories that Gemini itself was going to rug or that they were going to become the next Voyager or Celsius.
So like I do every time I’m looking for outside-the-box answers, I went onto Reddit in order to find out if there were other people in my situation…and lo and behold there were many.
The Gemini Reddit Mega Support Thread
Scanning different reddit forums, it was actually pretty shocking to see how many people were having the same issue as me, if not worse. Eventually my perusing took me to the Gemini’s Mega Support thread, which had the following directions:
In addition to the above stated rules/directions, I also gleaned from the subsequent comments that by going through the support mods Gemini GianaGemini George, there are a few key things anyone wanting help through Gemini’s customer service should take notice of:
- Don’t submit multiple tickets, apparently this only bogs down the system
- It’s pointless opening up a second Gemini account, if you do, the second one will be in pending KYC forever
- It takes roughly 5–7 days (sometimes even less) for your ticket to get escalated.
- If your ticket gets escalated, your issue normally gets immediately resolved
Once you make a post with your ticket number explaining your situation, one of the mods will eventually get to you as you can see below:
Finally, unfrozen
So magically on the same day that my ticket got escalated, I got a confirmation e-mail that my account was finally frozen, nearly a full 2 months since I got my frozen notice. I got my issue resolved through Reddit, despite the fact that I was continually following up, borderline harassing Gemini’s customer service to find out what was going on with my account.
There’s a few takeaways that I’ve gotten this experience that hopefully will aide you if you’re in a similar situation, Gemini or not:
- As I mentioned before, I only had $100 dollars or so in my account and thankfully I didn’t need access to those funds right away. I can’t imagine the stress this might have caused if you needed access to it immediately.
- It really doesn’t matter how safe or reputable a platform is, for in the end, if it’s not your keys its not your crypto. Therefore, keep that in mind before putting huge sums of money in one place.
- I never found out why it took so long to unlock my account, and perhaps I never will. Incompetency? Are they horribly backlogged? Who knows…
- Reddit has all the answers. Seriously. Even the wrong ones. If you’re stuck with anything, chances are you’re not the only one and it’s worth it to do a quick check to see what other people have done to troubleshoot your issue.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates.
Disclaimer: And as a final reminder, this is not financial advice and this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please as always, do your own research and find what investments are best for you. Cheers everyone!
