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Freewallet comments on the accusations of being “100% a SCAM!!!”

Aug 4, 2018

So, why do people think that Freewallet is a scam?

Our support team monitors multiple social media platforms and investigates each and every case when people leave comments about having a negative experience with Freewallet.

Personal finance is a sensitive topic, and sometimes things get heated. However, we always provide all the necessary assistance to our users and resolve the vast majority of their support requests. As a result, we have collected substantial statistics about the most typical complaints and the reasons that stand behind them.

“Freewallet is a scam because they store your private keys”

Very often, users call us scammers for storing their private keys. Sometimes, they don’t even have a wallet in our system, so they talk solely out of bias towards the type of service that we provide.

It might not be clear enough from our website (and we are working to make it clearer!), but we do indeed store our users’ private keys. This is how a hosted wallet works and we are a hosted wallet.

Being a hosted wallet allows us to provide our users with bank-level services such as backup, additional security and extensive support capabilities to solve transaction issues. As a result, our users can make instant fee-free transactions between themselves; a service that other wallets do not provide.

The accusations relating to this fact are never followed by a support ticket. People saying “stay away from Freewallet” express prejudice towards custodial wallets because they believe that a “true” blockchain wallet is supposed to leave the management of private keys to the user (no). However, there are other services (like exchanges) that have access to user private keys.

“Freewallet does selective scamming”

Any issues in a financial app are no laughing matter, and it’s our job as a service provider to make our users’ crypto experience seamless. But when something goes wrong, it does not automatically make us villains and thieves, just like app downtime doesn’t make a bank a scam (www.thesun.co.uk/money/6118658/tsb-online-banking-app-problems-issues-fixed-latest/).

The theory about “selective scamming” implies that we are in fact a legitimate service with proper development and support, but that we occasionally steal money from particular users.

The most popular post to propose this theory was written by a user who exchanged his BTC to altcoins during the time of a high network load in late 2017. His exchange transactions couldn’t be completed and his funds got stuck. To restore access to the user’s funds, the Freewallet support agent asked him to provide additional information about the transactions and proof of identity.

After the user-provided them, he was fully refunded, which he clearly acknowledges in the post. However, even after a refund, the user still suspects us of financial machinations.

In a nutshell, the only unresolved concern of his is a mismatch of the pay-in and pay-out addresses in his wallet. But this is, in fact, how it should work in a hosted wallet that uses cold storage.

How does our support team process cases like these?

When we see a new comment about a user’s Freewallet experience, we take it as a support request and match it with an open support ticket. (Not every service provides support on such a wide variety of social media, but we’re not here to brag 🙂 )

Comments like this one on BitcoinTalk get a lot of attention since BitcoinTalk ranks pretty high on Google.

fwt reddit

Unfortunately, people very rarely scroll any further to see that the case has been successfully resolved. We very much appreciate when people come back to update their posts in the event that their issue has been fixed. However, very often they don’t and the only proof of our best intentions is the ticket in the support system.

freewallet support

There is a common assumption that by posting a negative review to a service, you’ll get faster assistance than through a regular support request. That’s not true for our service. We monitor all the channels and the support ticket processing system is our first point of investigation. If you post more on social media, we’ll have to process that request too, which makes the resolution of your issue even more time-consuming.

Instead, here’s what you can do to make sure that we process your support ticket as soon as possible.

How to speed up your support ticket resolution?

Even though you want to speed things up, please don’t post several tickets with the same issue. We process every support ticket, so every additional ticket only takes up time that we could spend on resolving yours.
Before creating a ticket, check our recommended informational resources.
First of all, check the notifications in your app. All announcements about maintenance and downtimes are posted right to your app in the form of a notification plate.
Check your email. When a technical issue might cause severe damage, we always inform our users personally by email.
Check the Status page. It contains information about all blockchain downtime as well as the stability of Freewallet’s components.
All news about maintenance and downtimes can also be found on our social media accounts — Facebook and Twitter. There, you can also request assistance in the comments, but there’s a high chance you’ll be asked for a support ticket, so it’s better to start by posting a ticket.
Provide as much information about your case as possible. We understand how annoying it is when you need to prove that you are actually you. But without identity verification, our support agents can’t help you. Security should always come first. (And you won’t believe how many times people try to “restore passwords” for somebody else’s account).
Stay positive. It won’t speed up the process, but it will make the time pass faster.
When your support ticket gets successfully resolved, don’t hesitate to update your comment or review. Not only will we really appreciate the gesture, but it will also reassure your fellow users that they will get the assistance they are looking for.

Got questions?

If you’ve got questions or any ideas to share, we’d be glad to hear from you on Facebook and Twitter. And to paraphrase a famous meme, Every time you comment “scam”, somewhere, a supporter cries.

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