I would rather not walk off the edge if I can avoid it.
Introduction
A while back I posted about all the issues I had been having with the Poloniex Exchange and their appalling customer service.
At the time there were massive increases in overall Bitcoin and altcoin traffic - as always they used this as an excuse for the problems.
The thing I found strange were the many people appeared who appeared out of the woodwork to defend their terrible service.
I found their defence rather dubious at the time since I have been using Poloniex from the beginning and such problems have been occurring on a fairly regular basis.
Nothing has really changed in the last 3+ years. They have the exact same excuses and they have the same terrible customer service.
As one of the biggest exchanges they can't really keep giving the same excuses time after time. At some point increased traffic can hardly be a surprise and it becomes hard to believe.
It just smacks of failure to invest or simply not caring about customer experience. Both are big red flags.
From Bad to Worse
Over time the situation has actually become worse.
The last time I used their support it took me 5 days to get a response - an eternity in the age of cryptocurrency.
Further they have now disabled their trollbox so you can't even try to escalate a ticket that way.
They also seem to be having difficulty with Steem/SBD transfers to the point where it is causing all sorts of craziness on their market prices.
For those who are continuing to use Poloniex, my question would be:
At what point do you draw a line and say that you will no longer support an exchange that has so many problems?
Is the size of the exchange and the interface enough to justify the risk?
(Remember MT GOX and Mintpal were also once the biggest exchanges in their day.)
I have moved all my trading coins off Poloniex now and will not be using them again unless they make some big changes.
Trading is risky enough as it is and I don't need the behaviour of the exchange to make it worse.
A Poorly Run Business Will Fail Eventually
Of course I expect a whole host of people will pop up saying how perfect Poloniex is and how they have never had a problem there.
Others will say they love the interface so much that they can't use another exchange.
The funny thing is I have heard these exact same kind of responses when people were raising concerns about how other exchanges were operating.
The same thing happened with MT GOX, Mintpal, Cryptsy and many others.
People were complaining of problems and warning others but the warnings fell on deaf ears.
Those who had not experienced problems did not want to hear about it - when people think things are going great they don't want to be inconvenienced by uncomfortable truths.
Then when those exchanges failed they acted surprised as if there had been no warning - even though there had been ample warnings.
It seems to me that if the whole business of an exchange is built on shoddy foundations and incompetence then it is only a matter of time before they make a colossal screw up.
Not only that it also seems when it does inevitably happen it is easier for someone within those organisations to simply take any remaining customer funds and run off with them.
All it takes is one bad guy on the inside to do it and if it is a poorly run business they will likely not have bothered with the added security required to prevent this.
I don't know if anything like this will happen with Poloniex.
It could just be that they remain incompetent and have terrible customer service but I don't see why I should take the risk either way.
Conclusion
Before many of the previous exchange failures occured there were huge warning signs weeks and sometimes months in advance.
I liken it to a car engine that suddenly starts making a strange noise when it is functioning poorly.
Any sensible person would take it to a mechanic to find out what is wrong and get it fixed before it dies altogether.
Unfortunately with an exchange we have to rely on the people that run it to get it fixed.
If they have been unable or unwilling to do that then it makes sense to stop using it before it breaks down and takes your money with it.
The warnings are there. Whether you listen or not is up to you.
Thank you for reading
