On the Bits.Media forum, a massive thread of complaints against the P2P platform Bitpapa has been running for years. Users are massively complaining about sudden account blocking and funds being held under the pretext of AML checks, which can last for months.

According to user Darksiderus, the exchange can freeze your money and feed you empty promises indefinitely. He had been waiting for a refund since March 29, went through all possible verification stages, but support simply stopped responding. Only after making his case public on the forum were his funds returned. Meanwhile, user serg.ol waited for unblocking from February to May: the exchange made him record videos of himself scrolling through transactions in his banking app, but in the end it simply stopped responding to his messages.

One of the loudest stories was that of user SandroWi, who accused the exchange of stealing 2.4 BTC. According to him, he went through verification via the Sumsub service but faced an absurd situation: first, the exchange asked for his full name in the chat several times before the verification was completed, and months later declared that the account was verified under a completely different person (allegedly he used a fake beard). Bitpapa representatives responded that the user was sending "dirty" crypto from the darknet and deliberately passed verification under a false identity. However, SandroWi strongly disagrees with this and is gathering a group for a class action lawsuit.

Many users are outraged by the platform's hidden rules. According to user DenAlpi, who has $57,000 stuck on the platform, the exchange requires withdrawals exclusively to the return address of the sender. This rule is not stated anywhere in the user agreement, and customers only learn about it after being blocked, which makes recovering funds physically impossible if the money was sent by third parties. True, later this same user deleted all his messages on the forum, for which he received a ban from the moderators, but the essence of the complaint remains.

The intricacies of how their AML scanner works remain a mystery even to loyal customers. According to user vit474, he sent bitcoins from his cold wallet, but the exchange froze them for 17 days. He was never asked for any videos with his passport — the money was simply returned to the sender. Meanwhile, user Zhams had a transaction of 180,000 rubles blocked over a transfer from a third party's card. And although this is explicitly allowed in the trader's rules, the exchange froze the account without explanation.

A separate category of complaints involves technical errors with networks. User Alexandra Kostina sent 4,331 USDC via BNB Smart Chain to a USDC address issued by the official Bitpapa bot, since the network selection option was absent from the interface. The girl waited almost 5 months for a refund and achieved it only after sending an official pre-trial claim. Meanwhile, user Chris19 has been waiting for over a year (471 days): he sent 750 USDT to the wrong address in May 2025. Support promised to recover the funds for a 10% fee, but so far has limited itself to template responses.

Forum supermoderator Helber makes no secret of his negative attitude toward the exchange's policies. He called their KYC procedure a "humiliating proctological examination" and stated that if it were up to him, he would have long ago given the exchange a "Scammers" status, but he doesn't have the rights to do so. He strongly recommends that all users thoroughly check their coins for AML before any transfers and use separate cold wallets, avoiding dubious P2P platforms.