Hi all,
I am sure many of you have heard of coinbase right? Well you best listen up, because you could lose everything. Why do I say this, because I just did. Earlier today someone outside of the united states gained access to my coinbase account and gmail address, most likely by someone sim swapping my cell phone, here is an article about it, wish I had known this much earlier http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/11896024/How-to-protect-yourself-from-SIM-swap-scams.html. Within 20 or so minutes they had not only emptied out my account with almost all my assets (I had planned to move my BTC to cold storage tomorrow, really wishing I had done it yesterday) but also had triggered Coinbases violation bots by buying 4 BTC using my bank address, though the buy request got denied and they decided to cover their tracks by closing my account. In a way it is horrifically brilliant. How did I figure all this out from a single email from coinbase saying that my account had been closed? Well in my trash folder whoever got into my email had forgotten to delete the email from coinbase saying my bank had cancelled the payment. The email with Googles warning about an unverified login, and all other coinbase emails must have been deleted already. To add insult to injury since the Coinbase account is closed I cannot and probably will never know the addresses my 7 ethereum and .52 BTC were sent to. The message from Coinbases customer service is essentially "Too bad". I hope that this isn't the end of my crypto journey, but the idea that I have lost not only 6 months of meticulous and successful trading, but also most of my lifes savings, is hard to swallow, I honestly keep pinching myself hoping to wake up from this nightmare. You never think it will happen to you... but it can... and it did happen to me.. While 1.2 BTC may not seem like alot for some people, I have essentially lost it all. If you have a coinbase account, I suggest being very vigilant and adding all the security you can, even though it didnt really do me any good. Maybe even move your stored BTC to a cold wallet... NEVER TRUST that coinbase will help you out.
If you would like to help others please help me spread the word by resteeming or promoting this post!
If you would like to help me out of this dark hole, here are my new wallets, anything you can give is appreciated. But again the message is far more important, I cannot sit by and let others get hurt the same way I did.
17kxfiXPJRGtw478FrNo4Nr9KwQXacUX8U (BTC)
0xcD02a7968D80BC10c5a95ed535B468be776FB473 (ETH)
Coinbase is really busy and has very little time to help those that get hacked. Everybody sez never leave your coin with them. MOVE IT immediately.
I was literally going to leave coinbase tomorrow morning. I've lost it all, and all my faith in coinbase because of their reaction to me. All 1.2 BTC has been stolen from me and coinbase doesn't care at all, that's why I'm trying to spread the word
What could they do? You lost all faith in them but in reality with the way ethereum and bitcoin are structured there are really no ways that I know of to reverse the transfers once they are completed. So you got hacked which really sucks, but I found myself thinking about coinbase and I really don't know what they could have done about this. It is something ALL of us run risks with anywhere that we store our crypto. :(
I am truly sorry this happened to you. Oh, and I don't use coinbase, so I am not defending them out of any sense of loyalty. I pretty much leave my money in steem power and I sell steem and sbd and convert it to fiat to buy things as needed. I don't leave it sitting anywhere but as steem power. :)
I am very sorry to read what you went through!. I know its not a lot you lost, but its ALOT to you and I feel you on that! :(
I always thought Coinbase is reliable, being so regulated.. ID verification, limits on deposits, withdrawals, so on, what a nightmare! Hope you recover soon, buddy, all the best!
QUESTION: what were your security precautions? Did you have Google auth as a 2FA?
I had Text 2fa set up (this is what bit me, since my sim card got swapped), my password was only bypassed because they had access to very private information such as my social security number (my password would take 3 million years to crack under brute force) . And Email confirmation as well, but all where redundant in the face of them having taken control of my number
Hm I see, you had 2 step verification - (a code sent to your phone) and not 2FA google Authenticator (thats why i was reading that text code to phone is less secure). BTW just read Coinbase are insured if you are in USA, but only if they are hack attacked, not losses resulting from the compromise of your individual Coinbase account :( And I guess you didn't try the BTC Vault (unfortunately they only have it for Bitcoin).
How can they have your SSN? Do these people know you? Or it all came because of the sim / phone compromise?!
Anyway, I am hearing more that people use PRE-Paid cards for that matter (to avoid sim-swap sh*t).
It is both, my SSN was stolen in a previous hack of Anthem Blue Cross. I'm sure there is an article about that here on steemit but in any case it is a healthcare insurance provider.
So, I guess your phone number was associated with your email??? Yeah, we live in those smart phone times, where the phone becomes your fri**ing wallet...
I re-steemed your story yesterday. I hope more people do that and help you out.
Damn that is awful! I truly feel for you, it's why I only started using Coinbase to transfer and instantly withdraw, can't trust that exchange!
What do you use to cash out? I'm open to suggestions.
Hi @sensatus, I'm a journalist at Fortune writing about Coinbase hacks just like yours (yours is the third I've heard about in just a couple of weeks). Hoping you can tell me a little more about what happened, even anonymously if you prefer. You can find me on Twitter @jenwieczner (email address in bio)--thanks!
"Everybody sez never leave your coin with them."
^This is one of the most important things I learned. Still somewhat new to crypto, but I learned that keeping my BTC on Coinbase was a risk. Now I buy and immediately move to my wallet.
Also, does anyone use Abra to buy Bitcoin? Seems like a better alternative. But I don't see it mentioned much in Bitcoin circles.
if not Coinbase, then who??
Theres a site called Localbitcoins that seems to be a much better way of purchasing BTC, If i hadnt sunk my life savings into BTC originally I would probably use them as my GO-TO, to get back in, and probably to get out aswell when the time comes
Trezor is a good safe place for bitcoin.
Look it up..:)
Will do! This looks pretty sweet, if I ever get some of my money back, i think Ill order one!
The Trezor is great. I'm sorry to hear that happened to you, it's really the wild west here and I know that Coinbase has had a four fold increase in new users since January and that the system is probably a bit overwhelmed. But yeah, def get coins in cold storage right away next time. Good luck
A decentralized exchange like Lykke where you hold a private key! There are also others like Bitsquare, but Lykke is easy to use.
lots of exchanges out there.
lots of wallets out there.
use the right tool for the purpose.
exchanges are not wallets.
I'm sorry about all of this.
Upvoted and resteeming. Hope that will help.
:/
Thank you, it means alot
@shayne just made a $100 purchase with coinbase this morning! Quick, whats a good cold wallet to snag?!
Jaxx Wallett is a very secure and easy to use wallet
I use a KeepKey hardware wallet, personally.
Ok going to check that out, thanks! ☺
i am sorry this happened, but I sincerely appreciate you sharing the info as I was about to set-up an account with them. Resteeming this.
I'm glad that I could help you! That was my intention with posting this!
Resteemed to spread the word. I'll be upvoting your comments on the post too.
You are truly amazing, I know you've probably heard this before... but thank you, thank you, thank you
You're welcome
You're welcome
You're welcome
XD
I know that God will not stop blessing you. Kind hearted man.
Thanks for the heads up
EXACT thing happened to me, now I'm in a back and forth email frenzy. I believe their security is terrible.
How did that happen? Can you explain a bit? I am so sorry to read such sad news, but please enlighten the others as sensatus did. Hope for you and all the best!
oh my goodness that is horrible! Hope that your sharing will bring back to you 10 fold for your losses. Very sad news :(
Yes its really crushing, you'd think life would have given me a little more used to being an adult before it up and strips it all away. And Id probably propose to Steemit if I managed to recoup even 50% of my losses haha
I'm sorry to hear this. It seems to be happening more and more. I posted an article yesterday relating to password security http://bit.ly/2sGwyCV while @stellabelle wrote a post about SMS 2FA hacks 2 days ago: http://bit.ly/2r9gyY9. I hope these links are useful to you going forward.
So sorry for your loss. May God help you to recover all.
Thank you, I hope that it is possible!
Is there anyway to really keep your crypto safe other than cold storage? I'm running into the problem of who I can trust with my money. What happens when you store wealth in something that computer whizses can crack and steal from? Which wallet is secure without downloading the core client? I hope you get back 10x what was taken from you. I speak blessing to you brother, keep your head up and learn this very valuable lesson. Be thankful you were not in like a million and have this happen. Learn it now to secure your funds so when you get a million you'll be just fine :-)
Thank you for the kind words! Yea, I think you may be on to something with cold storage and not being able to trust the established services, If I manage to recoup enough of my losses to purchase a physical wallet, I will do so in a heartbeat. Someone recommended Trezor to me
I would also recommend getting out of Bitcoin altogether and looking more towards altcoins like ethereum and steem. I actually think storing money on here is safer than most exchanges.
Sorry to hear about your negative experience with Coinbase.
I wish you success and happyness.
upvoted and following you.
Thats really messed up, sorry to hear that. I'm gonna suggest a desktop wallet to you, it is called Exodus. Presently you can store Augur, Bitcoin, Dash, Doge, Ethereum, Golem and Litecoin.
https://www.exodus.io/releases/
It is now at version 1.26.2 which is there latest release and there next official release is actually going to be today June 8, 2017 @ 10PM PT (-0800)
Always keep the bulk of your bitcoin in a hardware wallet, or a paper wallet. I suggest Ledger or Trezor for hardware wallets. The Ledger Nano S is amazingly easy to use. You can even control myetherwallet.com with your hardware wallet if you use any Ethereum ERC20 tokens.
Keep very little of your bitcoin on mobile wallets, or any 3rd party wallet where you do not control the keys.
This is very useful information, +1 and thank you
Good Luck!
I sympathize with you. It is for this reason, that cryptos are mathematically secure, but horribly unfriendly to users, and essentially demand specialist level knowledge of computer security, that I am not invested in them.
I set up my first computer network in 1987 using CP/M and Osbourne personal computers, but moved to a rural village and took up carpentry while raising a family, and have the educational level of a total noob today, as technology passed me by.
I have just posted https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@valued-customer/mass-adoption-of-cryptocurrency-during-a-monetary-crisis and I address this issue tangentially.
Cryptos are awaiting a certain confluence of ease of use, and security of user hardware is possibly the prime factor, that will potentiate nearly universal adoption almost instantly by people who know the current monetary system is rigged against them, and are aware that the value they store in money is being constantly stolen from them via inflation.
Even dumb people understand this viscerally, and, in places where confidence in the local fiat currency has evaporated, like Venezuela and Zimbabwe recently, the lack of an 'out' such as crypto has caused immeasurable financial harm to people and their communities.
Thanks for openly posting about this hazard that is one of the most salient factors preventing the success of cryptocurrency.
upvoted and resteemed. Hope it helps!
Damn! Those rat bastard hackers
That's terrible, sorry to hear about that. Coinbase had been acting very shady for a while, especially with storing credit cards, which is why I only used it for about a few weeks before I stopped using it completely.
Never keep any coins on any exchanges - they belong in wallets. Localbitcoin is a good alternative for Coinbase and there's also Kraken.
Yea I have been looking into kraken as an alternative exchange, and whenever I decide to cash out of BTC, I will most certainely be using Localbitcoin
Definitely, anything is much better option right now than Coinbase. And Poloniex and Bitfinex are the worst options when it comes to exchanges.
I really hope you get your BTC and ETH back soon! Upvoted and followed you.
Omg I am so sorry to hear this. Some people have corrupted souls 😡. I'm still fairly new to Steemit but I am pretty certain that you will receive overwhelming support from this kindhearted community. It's like a family and family hates to see family get hurt. With people like @papa-pepper in the world crooks have no chance of winning. They may have seized a little worldly gain but the Lord works in mysterious ways and they will never get away with it. I'm sure all of our thoughts and prayers are with you and I'm sure 'karma' will kick in soon. Have faith. I'm up voting and resteeming you for sure. Adam
Thank you for the kind words and for the resteem and upvote, they all mean so much to me! I truly believe you are correct, this community we have here on steemit is like a family and I know it will look out for me!
Yes the Steemit family has got your back! I believe that any type of positivity directed towards you will help you through this difficult time- donations, prayers, positive thoughts... I believe you will come out of this situation even stronger than before! Have faith, keep your head held high and Steem on brother! :-)
crickey! I better review my position one I'm back of my holidays
Its looking better and better that PayPal will eventually move into the crypto world by offering an exchange. Say what you want about PayPal but they have the infrastructure to maintain their customers although they have had their rough patches. My business has been using PayPal for over a decade with little issues. https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@mericanhomestead/paypal-opens-up-bitcoin-exchange-my-dream-come-true-then-i-woke-up
I've always loved PayPal, classic banks are always stinky and honestly if PayPal ever did that I'd probably scream like a little girl, if only for a couple seconds, also funny article title I'll give that a read, we steemit users definitely have a knack for that haha!
Yeah I think that PayPal is heading that way. They see the writing on the wall and by launching an exchange would bring about mass adoption of crypto.
Dude sorry to hear that it sucks being scammed happened to me this year also
That's terrible!! Hopefully you can rebound quickly. Just keep your head up!!
Sorry to hear about that @sensatus. Been reading about a lot of complaints with them lately. Guess it's like shopping for presents on Christmas eve - lots of turmoil at the moment and the pickpockets are going to be taking advantage. Wish I could send you something, but I'm relatively new here and don't have much more than an upvote in my account to spare. Good luck & don't give up!
Sorry to hear that, bad karma on the way to those who did this to you. It won't take you long to recoup, you seem like a successful trader so they can't keep you down for long!
I hope so, thank you for the kind words! I'm hoping that I can try to get some of what I lost back and then rebuild! And you're correct, I shouldn't let this destroy me, especially not without fighting back on my own terms
That is such a terrible thing to happen to you and you still made effort to warn everyone else, good going.
I really hope youre able to bounce back and this hasnt put you off crypto trading completely.
Upvoted and followed you my friend.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm hearing some really awful stories about coinbase accounts being compromised but this is the worst. May it all come back many times over...
Sorry to hear it! Resteemed it to help spread the word. I appreciate the info on sim swapping!
Thank you! That is why I decided to try to spread this post around steemit, I want to help as many people as I can
Hello My friend, Sorry to hear what happened to you. First thing you should do is keep calm, don't panic. I went through same sort of issue but received my coins back.
Ok the first thing is contact coinbase support , Open a case with support. Their support is a nightmare but eventually they will reply, if you account was really hacked then you will receive your coins back. Coinbase is a regulated company, it's on their TOS too.
I wish you best of luck. :)
yes they are, that's why I had trust in them, but you can clearly see from their article - https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1662379-how-is-coinbase-insured-
"This insurance policy does not cover any losses resulting from the compromise of your individual Coinbase account. It is your responsibility to use a strong password and maintain control of all login credentials you use to access Coinbase ".
STILL, I think support tickets, open case and not giving up is the way to go and a grain of hope. You don't have anything (more) to lose.
Geez, so sorry this happened. Kindly post if you find a better alternative.
Sorry for your losses.
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omg sorry to hear this dude, upvoted! hope it helps!
I feel sorry to hear this... :-( I was lucky to have seen a docu about it on the Belgian television, so I knew about this. I never use text 2FA, but use Google authenticator... Hope coinbase will help you with this? Keep us updated if you get a reaction from their supportteam!
Thanks for the support, though unfortunately I did get a reaction, they essentially told me to "deal with it"/"Too bad"
That's the only thing they have said? Damn... I was thinking there would come more support... But guess I am wrong... Damn... :-/
@sensatus Crap! Just made a $100 purchase with coinbase this morning! What wallet do you and others recommend?
On the software side I really like the exodus wallet, shame its a little too late to use it now XD
I looked for it in Play but everything seemed to be name Exodus so I snagged Mycellium and it seems pretty simple to use...fingers crossed 😦
Oh Exodus is a desktop app, be careful with Playstore wallets!
Oh Lord, I'm green as grass! Can you please give me a link? 😫
www.exodus.io
Thank you so much, checking it out ☺
Could you elaborate on how the sim swap happened?
I am guessing that the method they used was a sim swap, since my gmail password is almost impossible to brute force, and it looks like they simply used my number to bypass it. What I have gathered is that someone posed as me using details probably stolen during the anthem blue cross dump(thats an insurance provider), they were very coordinated and managed to do all the damage relatively quickly, as I did not notice my phones service had briefly gotten messed with, until I received a text from my provider much later on when it was too late. I.E. my phone service fell for the social engineering and did not bother to think that something was wrong. I don't entirely understand how or why they picked me, but all I can do right now is spread the word and hope that this wasn't all for naught.
Wow, that's pretty crazy and sorry that happened. I noticed that Coinbase has just integrated google 2fa, i have that enabled and try not to keep much on there. Thanks for sharing your story
Thank you for letting us know. I'm so sorry for your loss. 1.2 BTC is quite a lot. Upvoted and followed. Hope you can recover it in someway possible.
I up voted and resteemed. That sucks man, you should check my posts about how to get free coins.....at least u can slowly start getting back in the game.
This seems to be happening a lot. Your the third person I have heard this happen to.
https://medium.com/@CodyBrown/how-to-lose-8k-worth-of-bitcoin-in-15-minutes-with-verizon-and-coinbase-com-ba75fb8d0bac
I implore anyone using coinbase to use Google Authenticator 2FA. I also don't think it is a good idea to link your google account to your phone number. I don't know how these people are finding people to hack but this is unnerving. I only used coinbase to buy BTC and ever since it has gone up I haven't used it at all. I'm sorry this has happened to you man
Never, ever leave your crypto's in any exchange.
I have used many but never trust them to hold on to my coins.
If you bought gold and silver coins would leave them in the shop you bought them from?
Newbies to crypto's need to heed this lesson as there has been enough warnings in recent years that trusting exchanges is foolhardy.
These thefts are used by the media to spin the story that crytocurrencies can be hacked when we know that not to be the case.
It is used to drive sentiment away from the crypto space.
Be your own bank that's the point.
@tremendospercy
Good analogy about never leaving gold and silver in the shop where you bought them, comparing that to leaving cryptos in an exchange.
Cheers.
This might seem like pointing the blame at you but these were the first advise I received when jumping to crypto trading. Never store all your crypto in any online storage. It is not coinbase but any other site would have failed to prevent this. You could also have had 2 factor authentication turned on.
I actually did have 2FA turned on, but it was text 2FA and the hackers sim swapped me. I was also planning to move everything offline the very next day.
Ah okay. Can now understand your pain. This is indeed sad. But felt misled by the post title. As I mentioned, this issue cannot really be tied to coinbase. But yes they should look at reconsidering text based 2FA in the least!
thanks for the tipp. I changed my password to an long generated one and have two way authentication enabled. Is that secure enough?
Upvoted and followed. Please check my post: https://steemit.com/poloniex/@lucky.digger/poloniex-my-experience-with-the-largest-cryptocurrency-exchange Important you watch the John McAffee video.
Open Ledger says ig has a walet, is that any good
Sorry to hear your bad luck, there are some things you can do to avoid this;
1/ Use a decentralized exchange like Lykke or Bitsquare, you hold a private key so your funds are way safer
2/ Use 2FA but not the text/email type, use an app like Google authenticator
3/ Dont leave your funds on exchanges, keep in a local fullnode or in cold storage devices
I downloaded google 2fa this morning and as soon as I am able to get even half my bitcoin back, I will be using cold storage and those nifty decentralized exchanges!
Cool, on another subject, how did you get 16 upvotes and I got 0?
Uh idk too be honest
No worries, i thought there was some magic you were doing, oh well :)
Thank you for your info, great to be in touch with someone who's keeps us up to date . X many thanks again
it seems that serious crypto crime times have started :(
Things like this is what will prevent more people from investing in the crypto market. So sorry this happened to you, hope the steemit community can help you recuperate your losses. Upvoted and resteemed.
Keep making great posts like this and you'll have the Steem to make up for it!
Wow. Sorry to hear. Upvoted this. Hopefully maybe we steemers can help you get some of that back with some upvotes. I have a coinbase account too and appreciate the info. Their site has been really slow as of late. I just move the last of my coin from there today.
Really sorry to hear that :-( I think the true moral of the story is, don't do any kind of financial transaction using your phone. There is nothing so urgent it can't wait till your in front of your computer.
Cg