I received an email on Wednesday from Coinbase asking me to accept a new service agreement. I clicked on the link and my browser took me over to Coinbase so that I could log in and accept the new terms. I did, and I waited for a verification message to be texted to my phone. So I entered that code and proceeded to log into the platform. At which point a message popped up letting me kindly know that all of my coins have been transferred to another wallet. Fantastic, I won’t say exactly how much, but quite a lot. I was stupid, I didn’t realize that the email address was fake and was not sent from Coinbase customer service.
Stories
I’m not so good with checks.
I had a guy message me through local bitcoins, he wanted to buy about 500$ worth of them. Okay, I set up a meeting with him. I got all of my things together. We agreed to meet a shopping mall which isn’t too far away from my house. And there are a lot of people there so I wasn’t worried about getting my ass beat. I met with the guy, and I instantly got freaked out. He told me he didn’t have any money, but that he had a check with him. Hm. I thought okay, I have gotten paid with checks before so it wasn’t anything to crazy. We walked together to the ATM machine in the mall. And I deposited the check into my account with the guy next to me. Then I sent everything to his wallet. Cool.
But four days had passed and I already spent the 500$ check that was deposited into my account.
Wells Fargo called a few days later and said the check had bounced and I needed to repay them the 500$. Should have asked for the guy’s ID.
Been scammed before, didn’t expect fake cash though…
I have been scammed before, pennies, here and there, nothing too big, phishing blah blah etc. I found a buyer online who wanted to buy over ten thousand dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies from me, and he wanted to do it in person. I was pretty suspicious, I think any normal person would be, and terrified!! So, I picked a place, I live in a big city by the way, I picked a place where I knew that there would be some security cameras. I came prepared for mischief, I had a full proof form that I wanted him to sign just to secure myself and protect myself from any kind of liabilities.
When I presented the guy with the document that I wanted him to sign, he kind of freaked out, he filled it out anyway with really bad handwriting and was kind of sneaky in covering his id.
His signature was also super sloppy. Everything felt off.
At one point the odd gentleman said that he needed to withdraw an extra 500 Euros because he was short. We walked together to the nearest bank. The guy was visibly nervous. At one point, we were in the bank and I had possession of all of the cash. So, while the guy was withdrawing his money, I ran up to the teller and asked her to do a check on the funds through their machine.
Long story short, all of the bills ended up being fake, security was called, and the guy was put under arrest.
I later found out that any such transactions could be taken care of at the bank and notarized for a small fee as well as with all of the legal requirements pertaining to them. This was probably the craziest situation I have ever been in. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking of doing a trade like that in broad daylight. I’m glad that everything went alright though. I could have possibly been mugged on my way home.
How I tried to buy an old MacBook with bitcoin from Craigslist
I saw an ad concerning a used MacBook for sale on craigslist. What appealed to me about this advertisement was that the person said he accepted bitcoins. Cool, if this deal went through then this would have been the third transaction I do with bitcoins. I wanted the experience, and just wanted to do it for fun. Plus, I needed a new computer. So, we chat up, and decide to meet at a local Barnes and noble store. The guy comes in, I look at the Mac, and everything is okay. So, he gives me his wallet ID, and end up transferring my BTC over to him.
The guy then just stands up, takes the Mac, with my crypto, and walks out, saying that I can’t do anything. And you know what, I really couldn’t do anything.
I thought about calling the police, pulling up the video footage. But how would I have proved anything? Even a lawyer told me that my case was futile, what the hell! I was completely helpless. Bringing a friend would have probably been a good idea or a concealed weapon just in case lol.
Someone stole 3 bitcoins from me through a Google Chrome Extension
So, I frequent a few trading platforms. I kept seeing advertisements about some kind of chrome extension. Selective ad marketing I guess. Anyway, I installed the BTC ticker into my browser. Everything was up and running, I used it a couple of times, didn’t think anything of it. No red alarms etc. Here’s where it gets fun, the ticker actually came with some malware it somehow picked up! I was going to go withdraw some coins from my trading account, everything was going smooth.
It was only after I got #$%^&*#$ out of 3 bitcoins that I realized that the add-on changed my deposit address to its own.
At least they didn’t cost 4,000$ back then…
How I almost lost ten thousand bucks on a Bittrex phishing site
I have been actively trading crypts for about three months now. I really liked it, at first I started with about 100$ of birthday money, and slowly traded my way up, I made about 5,000$ speculating and watching the market. I was so happy; actually, I was saving up for trips to Iceland and Japan. Well, I got fucked two weeks ago. I used Bittrex for trading.
I was too lazy to enable two factored authentications and I’m guessing that I accidentally entered my log in information on a copy site that ended with .me instead of .com.
This isn’t the first time someone gets duped by a phishing site, make sure you keep your eyes peeled and always remain vigilant. Btw, I lost bout 7,000$, in almost five minutes.
Cops raided my house while I’m studying abroad
Basically, I was going away for a semester of studies abroad in Madrid, Spain. I had some extra bitcoins that I invested in the year before. I was in desperate need for cash so I decided that I was going to sell them. I went on local bitcoins and found some dude in five minutes who wanted to buy them. I was a little worried that it was a face to face transaction.
Though, I have done face to face transactions a few times in public places so everything was going to be okay. I was pretty sure.
I met with the individual in a spot not too far from where I live, maybe like five miles away. The guy gets out of his car, walks over to mine, goes for his pocket, I get a little worried, but then he pulls out the money, 350$. Then the dude booked it and ran to his car. Whatever, lol. I was driving back home and noticed that I was being followed by a piece of trash Toyota. I decided to drive a little erratically, took detours, drove through a parking lot and eventually lost the Toyota.
Cool, I was packing my bags and really looking forward to my semester abroad in Spain.
I don’t check my physical mailbox often, but when I did a few days after meeting with the individual and being tailed by the Toyota, I noticed a bunch of needle marks and rips on my envelopes, it definitely didn’t look like an accident… Two days went by, and I was really freaked out, but it was Saturday and I was supposed to be leaving for Madrid that day.
When I was in the shower, I heard my house door get smashed in.
I freak out, run downstairs, and see six police officers with canines standing in my living room. I was notified that I sold my bitcoins to an undercover cop and that they had a search warrant. Long story short, they found some weed, but it wasn’t anything serious, I had a medical marijuana registration card. The police just had suspicions that I was selling drugs through local bitcoins or something. They ended up going through my personal laptop and phone. Thank god, I was clean and clear.
I lost hundreds of dollars’ worth of bitcoins on eBay
Hey everyone! So, my goal was to sell some bitcoins via eBay, because I figured a lot of people were still confused back in the day as to how to purchase, trade, sell bitcoins and what not. And I figured that I might as well do it on eBay since most people were familiar with how it worked.
Well, everything was going okay, I was doing the trades through PayPal, and had my customers verify themselves by providing me with some of the info in that link.
So, one day I get a message from a client, asking me if I could sell 600$ worth of coins. A few days pass, and I get a notification of a gigantic hold of funds with a message stating that the individual got hacked.
So, an unauthorized payment was submitted by the client, and pretty much I lost a ton of coins with no way of getting them back.
I didn’t know that PayPal has a reversible payment option with a dispute system that doesn’t take bitcoins into account. Guess I got screwed, note to everyone else. Never sell any bitcoins on PayPal or eBay if it’s more than $50 worth.
Sent my money to a copy website
I was once trying to buy something from an online auction that a friend of mine recommended. The site looked completely fine and trustworthy. So, I found the merchandise that I needed on the platform, browsed around some more, and was pretty much ready to check out. I noticed a little notification spring up in my message box soon after I registered my account. I didn’t give it any thought really, whatever, just a system message. Well, I ended up transferring my bitcoins and waiting for my wallet on the website to receive the funds.
Two hours went by, three hours, four hours.
I went to bed and woke up the next morning hoping that my cryptocurrencies would have gotten to the wallet already. Which they didn’t. So that’s when I decided to read the message in my inbox on the website. It was a warning from the mods to double check the URL and make sure that it ended in .com, and nothing else…
Whelp, the website to which I transferred my funds, about 400$ ended up ending in .gg, so I pretty much god duped by some guys who made a complete copy of the website, and all of my money went to their personal wallets with absolutely no way of getting any of it back.
Pretty pissed, but pretty sly guys to pull that one off. Now I will always read moderator messages lol. Watch out!
I got hassled by police in Montenegro
Hello, I’m 25 years old and was, note the word, WAS, really interested in cryptocurrencies and digital asset trading. It’s not so popular here in Montenegro, but I was able to make some easy money speculating anyway. I sold over $400 worth of BTC to someone through localbitcoins, we did all of the trades in increments, and not everything was sent in one day.
About one week after doing the last trade, the police officers knock on my door.
What? They arrest me instantly, take me to the station and start questioning me. I told them everything, that I was just a trader on localbitcoins and wanted to make some money, that everything was legal and okay. They didn’t believe me at first and thought that I was some kind of drug dealer and that we were laundering money back and forth. I was forced to let them go through everything that I had, my phone, my email, my social media.
For some reason, the police want me to send back the money that I received for trading.
Which is kind of ridiculous, and makes me think that they didn’t listen to me at all. If I send the money back to the guy, he will just keep his cash AND my coins.
Good think the Montenegrin police didn’t find out that I was a miner, hehe.