SOLUTION to "ERROR: Limited Uphold account functionality”

OK, I think I figured this out after I was experiencing the painful error where your verified account becomes unverified. First off, let me structure this properly:

BACKGROUND
The error usually starts happening after you make a critical change in your Uphold account such as changing the email address, changing password, physical address, or a mix of either. As part of Uphold’s anti-money laundering policy, your account is usually put under a 24-hour restriction where you can’t deposit nor withdraw money. As a consequence of that, your account is temporarily unverified, and Brave is getting an error from the Uphold API. After 24 hours your account is, IN THEORY, back to normal again, however you keep getting this error.

SOLUTION
Unfortunately your account at Uphold is not fully OK. An extra verification is needed. The thing is that you don’t get any notification nor any email telling you this. Go figure, pretty much. Here’s what you have to do in order to fully verify your account again.

  1. You’re going to need some balance in the account, because you have to withdraw some crypto. Actually, let me clarify this: you’re not going to withdraw anything at all, but you have to initiate the withdrawal process, and for that you’ll need some balance. On the right section you enter the balance to withdraw just as if you were to withdraw something, and select a network (it doesn’t matter, you can say you want some ETH on the Ethereum network). Then click on “Preview”. You’ll get a confirmation screen (see 1st screenshot). Read the information, and if you agree, acknowledge by ticking the checkbox, then click on “Confirm”.

  2. You should get to a screen where they ask you to authenticate yourself via your laptop/phone camera. When ready click on “Continue” (see 2nd screenshot).

  3. The authentication process starts. It’s a simple selfie, and it takes seconds to get verified if you do it right (see 3rd screenshot).

  4. Try and connect Brave now - it should work!

Good luck!



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@SaltyBanana @Mattches @steeven do have a look into this. Thanks.

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FYI, doesn’t work. They can only have so many things pinned. But what makes it worse is that by default, all pinned messages become unpinned by Users once they dismiss the pin or if they open the post/topic.

I’ve had topics pinned but people claimed they never saw it, all because they just dismissed it without paying attention. That said, not sure they’ll pin or that it would even do any good if it did get pinned.

I do kind of wish that pinned messages would work like they do on other forums and all, where it remains on top and visible to people. Or at least that we had a bigger category for important/pinned messages for everyone to look through. Yet even if we did, I’ve also learned people never read and hardly ever research first. They just come to the site and immediately post a topic. It doesn’t matter if someone shared an answer for it already, they’ll ignore it and act like it’s the first time anyone has ever seen or heard of the problem.

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Thanks for the information. Well, I guess a simple search should pop this one - that’ll do. Thanks!

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I find Uphold to be a lousy thing. They let the user register, and then they (uphold) can immediately lock the user’s account without any reason? Are they ( Uphold + Brave ) wasting the user 's time . Take the time to register an account on their exchange, and then get locked for no reason. Why do I say Brave is in there? Because locked users are mainly from countries that Brave bans. I’m a user, need your voice so that the responsible people (Uphold + Brave) respect their users (customers).

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Technically, yes. However, they don’t just lock accounts without reason. Sometimes Users don’t like the reasons or they don’t fully explain, but it’s never without reason.

What OP is sharing with you here is that he hadn’t completed all of the KYC/AML and didn’t realize it. So he couldn’t do anything until he finished all of the verifications needed on the account, all of which are required by the government. Does that sound like “without reason?”

Brave hasn’t banned countries from Rewards. When it comes to linking to custodial partners, it’s a joint decision. While it 100% was a choice that came out of talks and agreement between Brave and Uphold, it is Brave that had to “pull the trigger” and thus we say it’s Brave’s decision. Then again, they have valid reasons for doing so, such as insane amounts of fraud and abuse. Not to mention in some cases, that it was because of issues relating to governments.

We’re very sorry to tell you that we can no longer offer you an account. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions as new information becomes available.

Our automated systems aren’t perfect and, if you feel that we’ve made a mistake, please contact support.

Don’t worry, your funds are safe and we’ll be in touch about handling any available balance.

Thank you for your understanding.

Do you see any reason? I have been contacting them for days but no response

@mr.rechar Yeah, I do see a reason. They also go in-depth at https://support.uphold.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045765351-Why-we-block-or-restrict-accounts-and-how-to-reduce-the-risk

I have a job , need to go to work . Can’t sit back and wait for their response

That’s the good thing about emails. It’s not like you’re sitting on the phone all day. You email them and then they look. Chances are they won’t reinstate your account. They see you as high risk. Whether it be they assume you’re doing something illegal or anything else. When it comes down to it, they told you that you’re not good for business and they are parting ways with you. That’s their reason.

They do say you can appeal it by writing in, as it’s possible the system had a false positive, but that’s about as far as it goes.

And shoot, we hijacked other person’s topic. Please create your own if necessary. This isn’t the appropriate place for us to be having this discussion.

You are not alone in suffering this injustice. Thousands of people are still facing this problem. Brave chose to partner with those exchanges instead of choosing good exchanges like Binance and Kucoin. It’s a game and they make the rules. If we want to play, we must comply with those requirements.

If Brave had the money to pay what Binance and Kucoin charge, they would be happy to offer that. Still, the trouble with KYC, fraud and abuse would still be here. And despite those exchanges are more popular, it would still lead to identical decisions of banning countries or accounts.

And … It is not like Brave “chooses”. The other party must also agree. It is not as simple as transferring crypto. It requires an API integrating both systems because Brave is not sending BAT to Uphold/Gemini on-chain.

Brave pays BAT tokens through Uphold using the internal transfer method on this exchange. This means Brave has an account on Uphold to pay without having to pay blockchain network fees. Binance and Kucoin also offer the same internal transfer feature and no fees.

The KYC process on Binance and Kucoin exchanges is too easy. At the same time, when making transactions, receiving, and withdrawing money on these exchanges, you will find that their services are very fast and have all the necessary security methods. Meanwhile, with Uphold exchange, even if the account is fully verified, you still have to authenticate by taking a selfie to give to another 3rd party when transferring crypto. Scam and abuse? Which financial platform do you think is free from abuse and fraud? Do you believe Uphold will be cleaner?

If the supported countries are the same then why would I use Binance, Kucoin is completely normal, while Uphold has restrictions.

Uphold does not support the 27 countries and regions according to their published listing, and Brave only pays users from 28 countries according to Brave’s listing. If it is said that they must agree, what do these two lists mean?

Obviously, these are internal transfers, not on-chain transfers. Uphold, Binance, and Kucoin all support API. What is the difference between adopting the API on these exchanges?

@Shijio First thing I want to do is look at where you quoted rodrige on the “It’s not like Brave chooses” quote. Just so you know, he wasn’t talking about the supported/unsupported list. He was saying that exchanges have to enter a business agreement with each other. Currently, exchanges like Binance, Kucoin, etc have not entered to agreements with Brave. If you’d like that to happen, then you and other Users should reach out to them and encourage them to partner with Brave. Then, they and Brave need to find agreements on fee schedules and other things.

Not necessarily true. I’m not going to pretend to know what Brave does or doesn’t pay, to be blunt. What I can tell you though is that in talks I’ve had with Brendan Eich and others from Brave, I can tell you there are fees. Uphold isn’t just teaming up with Brave in hopes to have increased accounts. They are profiting off of it. There’s also the cost of maintaining the API and of customer service. So if you’re wanting to say that Brave has an account and everything is free, you’d be sorely mistaken.

In this regard, you have part of the problem. Brave has been a new concept and it’s been getting hit in all directions by people trying to find ways to abuse the system and commit fraud. Uphold and Gemini have been walking with Brave through this process, something that many exchanges may not have been willing to do. We have these smaller exchanges because the bigger ones just don’t want to mess with it for now. It’s not profitable enough and carries too much risk, in terms of the levels of fraudulent activity occurring. In other words, it’s likely not profitable enough at this time for bigger exchanges like Binance. Though with many of the improvements Brave has been making and increasing strictness, we’re getting very close to perhaps making this a possibility. I do know we have a new custodial partner coming, but not sure who or how big they are.

Correct, all of which they legally can’t do or they have withdrawn due to excessive fraud.

Actually, it’s more than that. Brave just isn’t allowing new connections from anyone outside of those 28 countries. Many are able to reconnect or have remained connected this entire time. So even unsupported countries like Brazil and India still receive payments. When first limited, everything was controlled by Uphold. So Brave would have to contact them and wait for Uphold to enable/disable the lists of who is supported. Sometimes Uphold wasn’t doing this properly or had major delays after Brave contacted.

In one of my recent announcements, you’ll have seen that I mentioned Uphold should be like Gemini now, where if you were connected before on the same device/browser, you should be able to reconnect. That’s because control has been shifted to Brave. Or rather should have been. Since I posted the announcement, we’ve received feedback it’s not working as intended, so now Brave’s backend engineers are trying to see what’s not yet in place. Once that’s done, all the prior countries will still be serviceable. Also, Brave is still trying to make sure to have all countries added again by the end of the year.

As to what Brave’s supported regions mean? It means those are ones they have been able to meet compliance with and where fraud is at normal levels or less. The ones that are not supported at this time are reduced because either Brave isn’t in full compliance with their regulations, there’s excessive fraud, etc. What Brave has been doing while the supported regions have been reduces is working on improving infrastructure, getting more accurate fraud detection/prevention coding in, making adjustments to do everything required in those countries, etc.

I just tried this and my account has now been flagged, which I guess might not be a bad thing if It can get eyes on it and correct out anything that was keeping the “ERROR: Limited Uphold account functionality” from clearing.

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Worked perfectly. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

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Of course, stakeholders cooperate with each other for the benefit. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

You should not think that the user has to do something to promote the relationship between Brave and an organization. Do Japanese users contact bitFlyer exchange on behalf of Brave? Do US and UK users contact Gemini and Uphold exchanges on behalf of Brave? It is clear that Brave has reached an agreement with these exchanges on its own. However, Brave did not see or really care about how these exchanges treat users. For example, for the Uphold exchange:

  • Transaction fees are higher than the market. Most users get BAT tokens from Brave ad impressions with a redemption value of less than $10/month. Should they deposit to a high-cost exchange just to use what they get from Brave?

  • Exchange UI is so bad. Uphold only applies line charts. There are no tools for market analysis. The order book is not displayed. It is unclear how they calculate slippage. They have tried to maintain this obsolescence all the time and still calmly receive fees from users.

  • KYC problem. The verified account is still required to provide personally identifiable information when transferring funds on the blockchain network. Instead, they can use Google Authentication or email security if they say it’s for the security of the user account. If not, what are they trying to prove?

As I’ve stated, Brave does not pay an on-chain transfer fee when using a partner’s internal transfers. However, as you said, Brave also incurs other expenses. I don’t completely agree with what you said above. Users receive rewards from Brave as a result of advertising display tasks. Brave, advertisers, users, Uphold, Gemini and bitFlyer share the benefits and costs with each other, right?

Google Ads, Youtube ads, etc still face actions that harm them and their advertising partners, not just Brave Ads. They have been looking for ways to protect themselves and their advertising partners. I think Brave will find a way to solve this problem.

Brave’s relationship with these two exchanges is very good. However, the service they provide is not good for a lot of users. I can tell you that Kucoin has been accepting payments from a website where users receive cryptocurrency for writing articles or rating articles. Anyone can be active and get rewarded. I think the level of risk that Kucoin accepts is higher than Uphold and Gemini. I think Brave’s reputation level will not be lower than that blog site.

Using Uphold exchange will make you understand frustration. Uphold has their problems. I hope that Brave’s project is not plagued by Uphold’s problems.

Many users are looking forward to this. Hopefully, the exchanges that Brave is working with will have significant improvements.

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Good luck. Let us know, and maybe update this thread when you get a reply, so that we can complete the information for other folks to come. Thanks.

Worked!
Thanks a bunch!

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Thanks you @Bizarrebra for finding this elaborated trick to solve the issue (which worked at least for me).
And thanks to @Saoiray for spending the time explaining what’s behind all this

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