Topic: How Coinbase stole my life savings. (Read 2988 times)

Same happened here.

Have 2 addresses in notes on an iPhone.
NO chance of infection.
(but iphone safely to apple now to get the history out trough a official technician, we're an MFI supplier so have access to them...)

Transferred quite some money from my Coinbase app to my wallet. Like i did many times before.
Checked the first few positions of my address, i have them in my head and can see if its my BTC or ETH account by that even.
All was okay.

Waited few hours even for the ETH to arrive in my offline wallet. Nothing there.
Checked in the app, could see "transfer completed" so was wondering, could not see any trace in the iPhone app so i went online in the webapp and saw a totally unknown and non-exisiting address in the transfer.

Coinbase keep saying my mistake, but i'm 100% sure it wasn't...

I'm going to get this to the deep end, it was too much money to let it go and the legal dept of my (owed business) is luckaly close by and are stepping in.

Either;
- fault in Coinbase iPhone app
- fault in queue handling or similar on there servers
- a once in a while random 'we take' action of Coinbase

I'm fearing the last since they keep telling its my mistake although they should by now realize there are some other issues or maybe even unfair (i'll call it that for now) situations going on.

I am starting to think you WERE NOT infected...

You stated you got an email response that your country is not supported. When you signed up, you had to tell coinbase where you live and personal info right?

Maybe, LEGALLY, right now they cannot allow you to use their services, and to protect themselves, most likely after giving you a notice when you signed up that your country wasn't supported yet, your account is flagged to NOT process deposits into your balance until they are compliant with whatever is needed to support your country.

I know that sounds shite as hell... BUT if that is true, YOU HAVE HOPE!

IF this is true, Coinbase has your coins, and the tx in their DB linked to your Coinbase ID. The day it becomes legally allowed, you will get your balance credited. Until then, they likely have no other recourse as even refunding you would violate certain money transmission laws in the US.

I hope this works out for you, I hope to see you post here screaming how you got your BTC back!

GL!

I am sorry to hear about your loss. You live in such a beautiful country, but it is terrible whats going on there right now. If you pm me your adress I´ll send you some $ in bitcoins.

So you did what i said and checked if your PC is clean ?

Oh that is reallly ugly what they did to you.I think that this is some kind of virus which changed way  of travelling your money so money go to other way to other wallet.

Yes, it gives you a brand new address everytime you ask for the same and which was  NEVER used before. The address that the OP sent coins too was an OLD address that already had transactions since May 2017. That itself raises a doubt that the address was not generated by coinbase for the user.

This is inaccurate. Every time you click Wallet Address, it gives you the same address UNTIL you send coin to it. Once that completes, the next time you click Wallet Address it will give you a new address.

To make sure you do not have that virus around anymore I say you need to save all your important files to some other place and format the PC, reinstall Windows again, directly after install an antivirus and then install a desktop wallet and stop using Coinbase. This would be 100% of what you need to be in track again.

Sorry for your loss dear. Coinbase (and all 3rd party wallets) always gives you a brand new address and hence it is necessary to check the wallet before sending coins.

Due to a virus, I too lost my coins from blockchain and I did not even get any notification about the same. Is there any solution for the virus in your case? I guess that major antivirus software too don't detect it as it's what in my case.

A lot of people just jump in on this without doing the research they should. Things like what happened to you tend to scare off the faint of heart.. kudos to you for sticking with it! At least you made the effort to understand how this happened.

I lurked here through all of 2012 before I made an account to participate... that was March 2013. My first BTC transaction was in 2011... deposits only until I started actually talking with people here daily.

You are well on your way to making some friends here... keep your optimism but shade it with some skepticism and you will be OK. Learn from this lesson and I have no doubt you will recover and look back at this as a blip in your crypto life.

GL!

If you are still around next week i will donate you 50% of my signature earnings is not that much but i will be able to send you like 7$ just pm me your wallet id, i know is a small amount but maybe it will still help you a bit!

Like JollyGood said, that's such a kind gesture Zepher, I really appreciate it, thank you so much!

And I'll do what you and other guys told me, I'll just be more cautious next time. Thanks for everything guys!

That is such a nice gesture on your part Zepher. Good to know there are kind hearted, sympathetic people out there who care for others.

Geupper, firstly I am genuinely sorry that you have been a victim of a clipboard virus. I can appreciate just how much money that 0.1+ means to you in your country.

Secondly, in the picture you posted, you have revealed your identity. Do yourself a favour and edit that post, and remove the image now - its done its' job, and we know now why your BTC never showed up.

Thirdly, this is NOT something I do, but here, have 0.005 BTC on me: https://blockchain.info/tx/3168d430e747bf20b24ae38f2bdb5de28f2e76165f52b755e1062583d2c430f6

(anyone messaging me asking for money will result in a negative rating...so don't even try it.)

Good luck with everything, and always remember, when dealing with cryptocurrencies, make sure you are using a computer with adequate virus protection... That's 100% essential. All the best.

I don't like to preach, but some of you have REALLY BAD online habits... this thing is not like the bank where you can bitch and cry and maybe they can help and refund etc. etc. YOU ARE THE BANK> BE YOUR OWN SECURITY. PROTECT YOUR OWN ASSETS. LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT DOING SO.

The #1 thing about all of this, is it teaches PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for your valuables online.

Take the extra effort, export and backup privkeys, wallets, account credentials... and store them somewhere PERMANENT and SAFE.

Here is an example for you... I have a drive just for coins, wallets and their chains. It stays UNPLUGGED at all times until I need it. It only ever sees the internet when I want to update a chain or make a transaction for those coins. I have every wallet.dat, chain, priv/pub key and the associated miners that I have ever used stored this way.

I can never lose my privkeys... they are stored in the wallet.dat files with passwords... and they are all saved to paper and stored securely too.

Lastly, go the Vanitygen suggestion I made... get yourself a recognizable address and ONLY use it from within a secured BTC client.

This happened to me as well. I just registered for this. I found it and deleted it. The address was exactly the same. And ppl are still falling for it (check the address). I also changed my passwords that I used recently. You do the same.

I wish I registered in this forum the first day i came here, so I could tell you to give your address so ppl could donate to you. But in this fashion, ppl will just say it's a scam.

And btw if you could send me a screenshot of programs you have installed in your pc, I appreciate it.

Sorry to hear this OP. Venezuelans have already been suffering enough and i heard that you can literally live off less than $5 a day so i would assume that 0.1 BTC is pretty big amount for everyone there. Venezuelans are actually using bitcoin to store their wealth as well becaues of the fiat collapse in that country, which is awesome to hear.

Anyways back on topic, yeah unfortunately you have probably been infected by the clipboard virus. What you should do now is download a good antivirus, scan your computer completely and isolate/delete any viruses that it finds. If no viruses are found then unfortunately you'll have to reinstall/reset your OS to make sure everything is clean.

When you copy addresses, make sure that the first four letters/numbers are the same before you press send. Next time you use bitcoin make sure you do that.

I bet it's the clip-board virus too !

I looked on Google and i see another guy bitching about it.

To make sure you are clean now.. as soon as possible do the following.
Copy the Coinbase address into a new blank text file.
COMPARE !
Now does it match what you see on Coinbase ?
If not ? YOU ARE STILL INFECTED !

I heard of this virus before seeing this topic too.

Another thing to watch out for is lots and lots of Ransomware.
Avoid downloading anything ever unless you really need it is my advice.

Also i seen another exploit years ago where a guy got his account cleaned out on Cryptsy.
He used to always use Google to launch the Cryptsy web site.. his big mistake.
He would open his browser then type into Google "Cryptsy" then click on the first search result.
So what happened was is the first result ended up being a fake malicious site..
When he clicked on it.. the bad site stole his session cookie and the hacker broke into his account and stole all his coins.

The cookie attack may not work anymore but it's still a very vulnerable insecure way to get to the exchange.
Create a browser bookmark instead

I was not able to find that address on the foreclosure listing website, however I would guess that someone creating a listing had the same virus and copied something from their clipboard when they created the listing.

The third site is a warning to others and is somewhat expected.

The Wordpress site seems to be designed for what is likely SEO purposes. It is possible that the creator of the virus created that site in the hopes that people would google that address find that site and call those customer support numbers (assuming those phone numbers are some kind of scam).

I am very sorry to hear the end result was clipboard virus.

To date, that specific campaign has well over 10 BTC... they have made $30K USD using that virus... ugh.

This is why for the most part, I only send to Coinbase to sell... and Coinbase NEVER changes your address... so that was a super red flag.

I would suggest you be even more careful moving forward by doing the following:

CLEAN THAT PC - fresh install just do it.
You mine? Got an AMD GPU? Find a copy of Vanitygen, follow the directions and hash yourself your own address, pubkey and privkey... it is not hard and once you have that address... copy those keys to paper in triplicate and put them somewhere safe. That is a paper wallet, and if you familiarize yourself with your vanity address... you know you always have a safe place to send BTC for long term storage.
When the day comes that you want to send coins, simply import your privkey to a wallet and the coins will be there for you to send.

I'm sorry. I guess a lot of you guys won't understand my situation.

That's the worst part..

Yes its a very interesting Type of virus which only changes the address to the child-parent address of the coder who created that virus.
The first create of the virus was Infinity Technology on Dark net.
Generally people who want to download bitcoin hack tools(which really doesnot exist) become the victim of this.

Jesus, this is so devastating, all my savings lost due to a virus.


Thanks for being so helpful, guys

To make the matter worse, I am sure you were victim of clipboard virus.

Looks to me more like a malware that changes the address in the web page you used at Coinbase. That particular wallet address shows up on the internet in the strangest places:

Alameda County Foreclosure listings:

https://www.propertyshark.com/mason/CA/Alameda-County/Trustees-Sales

Some random Wordpress blog:

https://supportantivirusblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/13aqmiworwr6grdfzswq1tdxdn9qkhwapd/

Here's a post on a different forum talking about a similar situation involving the exact same wallet:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@anubhav/bitcoin-virus-bug-hack-worm-steemitians-you-are-been-warned

I know I'm a newbie in this whole crypto-thingies but I'm 100% confident in my self that I did everything correctly, I copied the same wallet ID they gave me and used it.

Also something really odd is happening right now in my Coinbase Community post (I posted there as well asking for help). There's multiple people (Which I don't know any) saying that they sent me money to that same wallet ID and they want it back.

Like this guy http://imgur.com/dVl6fqF

I don't know any of this guys sending me money, they're all saying that it was a mistake and they want it back. Coinbase is weird, and I can't help but thinking their users are mocking me and my situation.

By the way, thanks for the gentle words! Don't be sorry, its no-ones fault.

This is odd. I have used coinbase and continue to use it's services. And I have never seen this sort of problem occurring. The most common problem is instead people's accounts getting frozen and they are forced to withdraw their bitcoin because they used the funds to gamble or buy drugs etc.

As daemonfox said, the address doesn't look right. It is highly probable that you sent the bitcoin to another wallet. To verify this go to your account, pretty sure in settings somewhere you can see all the addressed that are associated with your accounts and you can sign messages from them.

Sorry that your first bitcoin experience is so terrible.

4 days passed and no response. I think my money its lost.

The address in the pic is new, I think its from today. My address also changed two hours after I made the first transaction, the one in which I lost my money.

That is odd... at what point did the address change to the one in the pic... obviously you can see what is there now no longer matches the address you sent BTC to.

Coinbase is the only one that can assist any further. While I know it is crap to have to be without that coin for now... you may not be out completely. If Coinbase does determine something went wrong, your coins can be tracked.

I get it, and I know it is a suck place to be... but yes if you post a pic of what you get from Coinbase... maybe it will reveal what really happened.

Also, I can't help but wonder if you maybe hit a fake site instead of the real Coinbase. There is an awful lot of BTC going to that address the last few days.
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It truly sucks, I was going to buy my first GPU with that money.

And your theory its a good ne, about a fake Coinbase address, but that crossed my mind already, and I'm 100% positive I used the correct site. Just checked my website history just in case, and nope, only good ol' original Coinbase.

Here's the pic, btw:
I removed the link.

I get it, and I know it is a suck place to be... but yes if you post a pic of what you get from Coinbase... maybe it will reveal what really happened.

Also, I can't help but wonder if you maybe hit a fake site instead of the real Coinbase. There is an awful lot of BTC going to that address the last few days.

Oh noes! I'm not saying that you nor the blockchain are lying, excuse me. But that's what it happened, that's the wallet they gave me.
And I'm willing to show any pic you guys like, of course. By Wallet QR code and key you mean my current Coinbase Wallet QR code and key?

Hey check the link i posted... blockchain does not lie.

Care to link a pic of the wallet QR code and key for comparison?

Also, just to check did you click My Wallet or BTC Vault?

Impossible, I did everything normally.  Went to my coinbase account, then to my wallets, BTC wallet and I copied the exact same Wallet ID they gave me and pasted it.

OK you and others did something wrong...

Look here this is the address you said you sent BTC to Coinbase... this address has over 10 BTc in it... it is not yours lol... you made a mistake somewhere.

https://blockchain.info/address/13AqmiwoRwR6grdFZSWQ1tDxDN9qkhwaPd

Hello, my name is Gabriel, and I'm from Venezuela. My native tongue is spanish so if my English is rubbish, please excuse me.

I'm really new in this whole crypto-currency thing. I only have like one month holding BTC and trading.

I was really excited in this whole world of trading and holding BTC until June 5th of days ago, in which I opened my Coinbase account. One friend told me its the best wallet to keep my BTC in, because a number of reasons I don't remember now. I used to have my BTC in my Bittrex account.

So, to test my new account, and because I was bored and I wanted to see the functions Coinbase had to offer, I send part of my life savings to my Coinbase account, which were 0.10526017 BTC.
I know, I know, for you guys 0.10526017 BTC doesn't sound as much, but for me its a lot. My country is in a deep financial crisis and that amount of money its a lot here.

One hour passes, two, three and I'm getting worried because it doesn't even show as pending.
The day after, I wake up and check my account. The transaction history is empty, no transactions made, not a single transaction as pending.

So I contact Coinbase support and explain the situation, I send them all the information I have, which is the wallet I sent the BTC to, which was 13AqmiwoRwR6grdFZSWQ1tDxDN9qkhwaPd, the TXID, which is 43c00c1d392583879e913427d15e80895609dbf2e064a4b7ab8bcc35e39eaafb, and then I wait. They reply 12 hours after saying that they don't have support for my country, as you can see in this mail:

http://imgur.com/e9UAD52

I reply the mail saying I don't find any other way to resolve this issue.

Later that day one friend told me that maybe I sent the BTC to the wrong wallet. But I didn't. I'm really aware of what I'm doing every time I send BTC and I checked a LOT before sending that amount of money because I knew it was a lot to me. Also another friend experimented and sent me 0.005 BTC to the 13AqmiwoRwR6grdFZSWQ1tDxDN9qkhwaPd wallet and it happened the same, it never arrived.

I also made sure that my Bittrex wallet, which is 14uSznbSoLJe1pxWXxpVskyAdTBfASV1DT and works PERFECTLY doesn't have the BTC I sent to the full of flaws Coinbase address. And it doesnt.

I'm very sad as I write this post, but what the hell, I guess shit happens.

Stay aware guys, because 0.105 BTC was my fortune, and it could happen to you guys.

Edit: This is also my first post in this community, hi!