BTC-e CHANGED MY E-MAIL, THANK EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELPEDIT: I WILL BE UPDATING OP WITH FURTHER DEVELOPMENTWhat happened: Long story short: BTC-e forced everyone to change their passwords via link they send you to your e-mail due to ''security reasons'', if you did not changed it in time, your password expired. Turns out I lost access to my e-mail (2fa, phone lost), BTC-e closed my last ticket (with no answer) to change my e-mail where I sum up everything they asked me to do previously (and everything they asked me to do I DID) in order to change my e-mail, their last contact was 28th february, 11 days ago, that is 264 hours now, not 72 they give themselves to answer, they probably illegally blocked me from my funds by voiding my password through expiration without my consent and do not want to change my e-mail in order to restore my access after I fulfilled every single of their demands.
Detailed story:
BTC-e expired everyone passwords, assuming they did not changed them in time, and demands to change them via link they send to your email associated with your BTC-e accocunt. In order to change my password, I have to log to my email which I do very rarely (explanation further ahead). My e-mail is being protected by 2fa, phone is lost and as result, I can't access my email. I tried to recover my e-mail through Google, all I've got is automatic confirmation that they accepted the request and it takes them usually 3-5 days to respond. It's been about 2 weeks right now, no response and I am not sure if they will respond at all. Sent them another account recovery ticket, we will see what happens.
In meantime, I asked BTC-e for help, they responded and told me that they will have to manually change my e-mail and will need informations about my account: transaction history, methods of deposit, history of ip entries etc. After fulfilling their request, they asked for screenshots to the exchange transactions deposits from my wallet and I did that as well. Then they asked for deposit from the same address and the same wallet I use to deposit funds to BTC-e. Unable to do that at first (since Multibit HD does not allow you to choose specific address to send from just like that and at that time I had little knowledge about wallets since never before I had any problems to deal with and basic knowledge how to send/receive was enough), I proposed them that I could prove my ownership by signing address and all they would have to do is to verify it. In said proposal, I included address with message and signature.
Their response? ''send coins from the wallet xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'' where x's is the address I signed and used to deposit coins to my BTC-e account before I lost access to it, so basically their answer was ''no'', judging from how they totally ignored my proposal. After sending them another message where again I inform them that it is impossible (that is what I thought so at that time, believing I can't send deposit from specific address) to do so and once again offer to prove my ownership by signing address, they told me to contact gmail to restore my email access. After asking for help how to send coins from specific address, I managed to send coins from address they asked for, all I had to do was to empty all addresses in my wallet form coins and send them back to address I wanted to use, so only that one specific address would contain any coins. Not really hard, little bothersome, but shame I did not know that earlier, it would save me a lot of time. After that, BTC-e remain silent and do not answer me (1st ticket was closed automatically due to me not responding in time as I was gathering all the data BTC-e asked for, but that was not an issue as I provided all the data they asked for from 1st ticket in 2nd ticket that is the one being most well documented and being ignored and 3rd was closed without answer, maybe because they considered it spam, as I had in total 2 tickets where I ask to change my e-mail, but if they had time to close it, they should have time to answer the second one they did not answer for so long). They say that it could take them 72 hours to answer, well, their last answer was over 10 days ago and I've fulfilled their last request 6 days ago, informing them about it. I even opened another ticket (that was the 3rd one) asking for e-mail change and sum up everything they asked me for (and everything they asked for, I have fulfilled). That was 3 days ago and on the second(!) day they closed that ticket with no answer, conclusion is simple - they simply ignore me now.
Scammers Profile Link: https://btc-e.com/
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/btc-ecom-33012PM/Chat Logs: Amount Scammed: (REGARDING TOTAL AMOUNT OF COINS IN MY ACCCOUNT)About 6000$ according to current prices.
Payment Method: (REGARDING THE DEPOSIT THEY ASKED FOR TO PROVE MY OWNERSHIP)Bitcoins
Proof of Payment: (REGARDING THE DEPOSIT THEY ASKED FOR TO PROVE MY OWNERSHIP)Additional Notes: On 02.10.16, BTC-e admin announced changes related to the use of passwords, meaning they will expire and will have to be changed. Here is full
announcement:
Update: Security
02.10.16 08:54 from admin
Please, be aware of the latest important changes in our security policies:
1. Security:
Due to the increased cases of account hacking we decided to implement some changes related to the use of passwords:
1.1. Starting from September 30, 2016 all BTC-e accounts will undergo the password changing procedure.
- On your first login to account you will see a notification that your password has expired. You will be asked to reset your password. A message with a confirmation link will be sent to your e-mail. You must click this link in order to receive a new password. Make sure you save your new password in a secure location, otherwise you will have to recover the password again.
- After the first password reset your account will not be blocked. But if you reset your password for the 2nd time and further your account will be blocked for 48 hours (the standard blocking according to BTC-e rules).
1.2. Changing the password from within your BTC-e account:
- If you are already logged in to your account and you remember your current password, you can change it via the Edit section of your BTC-e profile. Go to
https://btc-e.com/profile#edit/home and click Reset Password. A message with a confirmation link will be sent to your e-mail. You must click this link to get a new password. Make sure you save your new password in a secure location.
1.3. Password Expiration:
You will need to reset your password every 6 months. After this procedure your account will not be blocked.
1.4. We added an automatic e-mail notification to inform you of failed login attempts to your account.
1.5. The option of using an own password is added.
To change the password you need to go to the "Edit" section
https://btc-e.com/profile#edit/home and press the “Own password” button. The following message will be displayed: “Further instructions were sent to your email address”. You will need to click the link in the email and enter your old and new password.
The requirements for a new password are as follows:
minimum length: 12 characters;
at least one uppercase letter;
at least one lower case letter;
at least one number.
Make sure to save the new password.
2. BTC-e code:
The following terms and conditions take effect as of September 30th 2016.
2.1. When creating a BTC-e code you can specify the username of the BTC-e customer, who can redeem this code.
If the username is correct, the code can only be redeemed by this specific user (or the user who created the code).
If the specified username is invalid (spelling error or the username does not exist within BTC-e), the code can only be redeemed by the user who created the code.
If the Username field is left blank, then the code can be redeemed by any BTC-e user who receives it (as well as by the user who created the code).
2.2. Expiration of BTC-e codes:
- BTC-e codes will be active for 120 days since creation.
If no one redeems a code within 120 days, the code will become inactive. An inactive code can only be redeemed by the user who created it.
For BTC-e codes created after January 1, 2016 the 120 days of lifetime will be counted starting from September 30th 2016.
Best Regards,
BTC-e Support
I do not know if said operation was needed and if it was right thing to do to implement it. What I care for is fact, that we are not obligated to track BTC-e news and check our e-mails every week to be updated on what is going on, as nobody expects that exchange will simply void your password just like that, and, as a result, block access to your account. Since I exclusively play long, I only log to my e-mail associated with my BTC-e account in order to take a look at transactions/do some technical stuff regarding my BTC-e account and it happens VERY rarely. Last time I logged on was months ago and when I visit BTC-e site, I only take a look at trade page to see what the current prices are. It is then pretty self explanatory that one could not know about this operation at all and as long as you could argue that it is in your own good interest to keep track of the exchange you use, I hardly see how letting people know in advance about expiring passwords justifies anything, because way BTC-e handles problems that emerged regarding passwords expiration is, to be straightforward, simple theft, ill will or malicious intend, call it whatever you want, as they offer you no way out of this regrettable situation, prolonging this whole ''e-mail change procedure'', obviously hoping that they will discourage your further efforts to regain access to your money. After you hard-press them, they start to pretend you don't exist.
Being ware that I could be the one who is wrong here, I offer my apologize to BTC-e in such case, but for now, my stance on this is clear. After ignoring me for 11 days, I warned them that I will publish this and eventually take legal action against them. They chose to continue this. We will see what comes next.
Edit 1: They started to loop their messages
http://imgur.com/a/LafgW Also, they deleted my post in their official russian thread:
http://imgur.com/a/XB28E I issued them negative feedback that will be deleted AFTER they resolve my request:
http://imgur.com/a/iSYRdEdit 2: Again, they deleted another my post:
http://imgur.com/a/DmQhgEdit 3: BTC-e is not giving a damn and they are not going to resolve my request:
http://imgur.com/a/y6vdbEdit 4: No point in keeping in touch with them and ask to fulfill their obligation. Also, since posting my correspondance with BTC-e starts to resemble soap opera by now, this will be last update regarding our messages until they send me something significant:
http://imgur.com/dIVDLH8 (also, notice how they still stubbornly argue that I want to restore access to my email, while I want to change it).
Edit 5: I have started spreading the word further:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/600dux/scamunsolved_btce_appropriated_my_coins_worth_now/https://forum.bitcoin.pl/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=8002&start=560#p301941https://forum.bitcoin.com/topic21078.htmlhttps://forumbitcoin.co.id/threads/scam-unsolved-btc-e-appropriated-my-coins-worth-now-6000.23017/