HitBTC under fire after users lash out at exchange's withdrawal services, exorbitant transaction fees

The cryptocurrency industry has seen multiple incidents where holders and users of digital assets have been negatively impacted due to technical or man-made glitches. Such an incident came to the fore again when multiple customers reported problems while dealing with HitBTC, a popular cryptocurrency exchange.

The problem was highlighted after the exchange was hit by a whirlwind of customer complaints, many of them related to withdrawal and transaction fees. One such customer, Tai Zen, CEO of Cryptocurrency.Market, tweeted,

“I highly recommend staying away from @hitbtc at this time because you never know if you can withdraw your coins from their exchange or not. I do not see any reason why you CAN NOT withdraw popular coins such as @steemit @cosmos @tezos @helloiconworld.”

As a response to Zen’s tweet, HitBTC tweeted,

“We are sorry that you feel this way. Our platform provides hundreds of markets by integrating foreign software for each asset. This software requires regular technical maintenance and sometimes takes longer than expected.”

The exchange’s response was met with tepid reactions from the rest of the community, with many of them calling the exchange ‘diplomatic’ or ‘politician-like’. Another Twitter user, CryptoshiSk, complained,

“The worst thing is that they even do not allow to move coins from main to trading account although this is just internal transfer and has nothing to do with wallet maintenance. Real scam. be careful .”

HitBTC was quick to respond and said,

“Transfers between the main and trading accounts are sometimes affected by the maintenance as well. Can you let us know whether there’s an asset you’re interested in particular? Thanks in advance.”

The list of complaints did not end there as the rest of the customers’ grievances focused mainly on the ‘exorbitant’ transaction fees charged by HitBTC. Presently, HitBTC charges a withdrawal fee of $13.73 for every transaction while Bitstamp, another popular cryptocurrency exchange, offers the service free of cost.

To put things into perspective again, the fee imposed on a single XRP withdrawal on HitBTC costs $2.78 or 6.378 XRP, while at the same time, Bitso, a direct competitor, charges no money for the withdrawals.