Beleaguered Mt. Gox opens call center to answer bitcoin questions
Add this to the list of most unpleasant jobs on the planet: Working in the call center that Mt. Gox has set up to answer bitcoin questions.
Once the largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox said last week it was filing for bankruptcy protection after revealing it had lost 850,000 bitcoins worth more than $450 million.
On Sunday, the Tokyo-based company posted a copy of its bankruptcy notice on its website (link in Japanese and English).
In that notice, it said there would be both Japanese and English lines open at: +81 3-4588-3921 (Japanese) and +81 3-4588-3922 (English).
Starting Monday, lines will be open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tokyo time. Before you rush to your phone, that’s 5 p.m. to midnight for West Coast callers.
“We first express our most sincere regrets and apologies for this situation and for causing so much inconvenience to all our users and other interested parties,†the notice says.
The notice has a couple of other fun revelations. Mt. Gox is apparently missing about $27 million or so from its bank accounts. Oops!
“We found out large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary but they approximate (Japanese yen) 2.8 billion,†the notice says.
Oh, and those missing 850,000 bitcoins and $27 million? That may not be all that’s missing.
“We are investigating the causes of these problems,†the notice says. “Since there are probably a variety of causes including hacking by third parties, we need to investigate a huge amount of transaction reports in order to establish the truth. As of this date, we cannot confirm the exact amount of missing deposit funds and the total amount of bitcoins which disappeared.â€
Operators are standing by.
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