Mt. Gox, which collapsed after losing 750,000 bitcoins belonging to clients on its exchange, is finding that some customers dialing in to its new call center are getting lost in translation.
Users of the Reddit social media website made posts Monday complaining of being put on hold and talking to operators who only spoke Japanese. After about 20 minutes, Bloomberg News was connected to an operator who said there are more than 10 people fielding calls, and some are able to deal with English speakers.
Mt. Gox, once the world's largest exchange for the virtual currency, set up the phone line after filing for bankruptcy in Tokyo last week with about ¥48.6 billion in bitcoins missing. Fewer than 1 percent of its creditors are from Japan, underscoring the difficulties for the thousands of clients who had assets at the company to get answers.
The call center would "respond to all inquiries" from Monday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox said in a statement on its website Sunday. An "overview of the situation" would be published on the site as soon as Monday, it said.
Mt. Gox lost 750,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and 100,000 of its own, the company said Friday, when it applied to start civil rehabilitation procedures with debt exceeding assets by ¥2.7 billion.
Bitcoin was priced at ¥57,200 in Tokyo afternoon trading, according to an index compiled by CoinDesk, valuing Mt. Gox's lost holdings at ¥48.6 billion.