His thought process:
- buy as many used hardware wallets on ebay as he can
- try and recover any confidential data he can from it, when he realises that doesnt work, tell a sob story to the seller to try and get confidential data leaked from them.
Although you may feel safe and feel like you could just tell him to suck lemons and go away, he knows something about you know, and that is you hold enough crypto currency to be worthy of requiring a hardware wallet, he knows your email address and depending on his payment method he may know your bank number, paypal details full name, phone number which would not take long to find your physical address if he wanted etc. - Just be extra vigilant for a few months.
Topic: . (Read 196 times)
Assume you are dealing with either a scam or a total moron, niether of which deserves any of your time.
If someone bought a used car from you, and got arrested for DUI, would you feel like you needed to help them? Just because it was your wallet before doesn't mean anything. If they are not smart enough to figure out how to use a ledger wallet, then losing 4k in bitcoins is likely the least of their worries.
If someone bought a used car from you, and got arrested for DUI, would you feel like you needed to help them? Just because it was your wallet before doesn't mean anything. If they are not smart enough to figure out how to use a ledger wallet, then losing 4k in bitcoins is likely the least of their worries.
You don't owe them anything if you were upfront with the product you were selling, which it seems you were. This honestly is not your problem, and it seems you've already gone beyond what you owe this person. I would maybe direct them to some online resources that could help them, but I agree with you that once you hold the private keys to their coins this will become more complicated for you.
Exactly. I keep explaining to them that as long as they have their 24 words, that they have not lost their coins and that they would eventually be able to regain control with another wallet.
What struck me as odd is that they kept going on about losing coins from a hardfork, when there have been no hardforks since the sale of the wallet. When I pointed that out they quit mentioning it. Which lead me to believe that they are highly exaggerating what's going on.
Perhaps I missed this in your OP, but has he sent you the address that supposedly has $4k stuck in it? I just find it hard to believe that someone who bothered to buy a hardware wallet and put a non-trivial amount in it could be so careless. I agree with you that his explanation about forks seems odd, maybe he's just a crypto noob.
So sad to read this. I understand and I praise your attempts to help the buyer.
But take in mind that in the world of cryptos scams are almost the rule. Combined with the fact that eBay is another nest of scams... Boom, perfect environment not just for sellers scamming buyers, but also buyers for scamming sellers. I have sold in the past mining gear on ebay and I have been attempted to be scammed several times: people impersonating the buyer providing a different address, people that provides you a mail-forwarding service as address trying to force you to pay their fees for delivering overseas, buyers that exploit the 14-day guarantee and at the end of the 13th they claim the miner is broken and force a return (me having to pay both deliveries to realize that, of course, the miner was working)... Some other times the buyer is just a noob and you have to go beyond the exceptional to help them (once I had to record a 20 minutes video...).
If it was me, I would keep helping them providing instructions and links to resources, nothing more. Do not touch his seed or otherwise they could claim liabilities. Worst case, he will claim the 14-day guarantee return (sadly, even if he is wrong and the product is working, eBay overprotects the buyer and you will have to accept the return), but better that than being sued, losing the item and the payment or whatever other evil thing I just can't envision right now...
But take in mind that in the world of cryptos scams are almost the rule. Combined with the fact that eBay is another nest of scams... Boom, perfect environment not just for sellers scamming buyers, but also buyers for scamming sellers. I have sold in the past mining gear on ebay and I have been attempted to be scammed several times: people impersonating the buyer providing a different address, people that provides you a mail-forwarding service as address trying to force you to pay their fees for delivering overseas, buyers that exploit the 14-day guarantee and at the end of the 13th they claim the miner is broken and force a return (me having to pay both deliveries to realize that, of course, the miner was working)... Some other times the buyer is just a noob and you have to go beyond the exceptional to help them (once I had to record a 20 minutes video...).
If it was me, I would keep helping them providing instructions and links to resources, nothing more. Do not touch his seed or otherwise they could claim liabilities. Worst case, he will claim the 14-day guarantee return (sadly, even if he is wrong and the product is working, eBay overprotects the buyer and you will have to accept the return), but better that than being sued, losing the item and the payment or whatever other evil thing I just can't envision right now...
You don't owe them anything if you were upfront with the product you were selling, which it seems you were. This honestly is not your problem, and it seems you've already gone beyond what you owe this person. I would maybe direct them to some online resources that could help them, but I agree with you that once you hold the private keys to their coins this will become more complicated for you.
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