Topic: So, who hasn't lost coins or been scammed? - page 3. (Read 22303 times)

so far lost nothing, zero, nada, zip. Hopefully going to keep it that way.
I follow a few golden rules

Remember peeps if it sounds 2 good 2 be true it prob is.

Escrow charges can save you loosing a lot more. (i miss Clearcoin) but there is btcrow now.

Never use paypal ever unless buying coins.

Only trade with people you trust.

I lost one bitcoin.

AK versus KT. Went all-in. Opponent spiked a T on the river.

I haven't lost any coins or been scammed.  I had a small amount at MtGox when they were hacked and they were there when they came back up.

I did however have people screw me over by not selling me btc when I first got here, despite having plenty of id and references to my character.  Missed out on a hefty profit when the rise to 30 happened.

I haven't lost any yet.. but I also haven't entrusted my bitcoin's to anyone but myself.

Here is a few tips for people that may not be obvious to some.

#1.  Keep your computer updated, and if it has EVER been infected with any viruses please know that it is no longer trustworthy, even if it scans clean.  Todays viruses are some of the nastiest buggers ever, and not even some of the most sophisticated virus software is able to remove them.  They hide themselves within unused tracks on your hard drive, they rewrite your master boot record, they replace core system files to cloak themselves, they install themselves as SSL certificate authorities, and some have been known to REFLASH YOUR VBIOS (rare but it has been done and IS possible)!  Doing ANY kind of financial transactions on a system that has ever been compromised is probably a bad idea, take the time to clean / reinstall / resecure your computer properly.  Did you know that if your Java 6 JVM is older then the latest "Update 26" that your machine can be made to execute ANYTHING without a prompt just by clicking the wrong URL?!

#2.  When using bitcoin why not consider keeping your data folder & wallet.dat in a different path than where it gets installed by default?  You can launch the bitcoin client with the datadir option.  bitcoin -datadir="path to your bitcoin data folder"  I like leaving a wallet.dat in the default location with only 1/2 a bitcoin in there as sort of a "Canary in a coal mine."  If you have a significant amount of bitcoins, why not consider purchasing an IronKey?  I can use my IronKey on any computer, Windows, Mac, or Linux.  The Ironkey also has built in Backup Software that is able to backup all of your data in an encrypted format to your hard drive.  If you lose your ironkey, it is protected by HARDWARE encryption that will perform a full data wipe if it receives 10 wrong passwords.  If the worst happens, you can restore one of your encrypted backups that the ironkey makes on to the same ironkey, or a new one if lost or stolen, as long as you know your password you have your data!.  Granted.. once the ironkey is unlocked it mounts the data in an unencrypted format, but also remember the fact that the bitcoin data is now running from a non-standard path, which is just a simple form of protection, but it seems to work. Heck, even if I had my bitcoins at the bank in a safety deposit box, I would still use an IronKey..  for under $100 its a small price to pay.

#3.  Create an address that is NOT online, print the wallet.dat file with "PaperBack", put it on a thumb drive, CD-ROM, whatever.. Transfer coins there for security.  Don't keep all of your eggs in one basket, or in this case, bitcoins.

I hate seeing ANYONE get hurt, financially or otherwise.  I'll admit that its easy to make a mistake, and these kind of things could happen to the best of us.  But lets face it, many of the major losses were due to poor judgement on the wallet holders fault, and they will all admit it openly.  Many of them HAVE NOT practiced some of the basic common sense strategies for protecting their bitcoins, they chose to entrust their untraceable and anonymous bitcoins to the cloud, to dropbox, and even worse to parties who themselves were also anonymous and untraceable.  Some of these large bitcoin holders obtained these coins as early adopters by mining them before anyone else was into the game.  Anything is possible actually and maybe nothing is as it seems... Heck, for all I know, "Losing Bitcoins" could be used as a pretty good tax shelter.  If someone has 1/2 million in bitcoins are they a taxable commodity, well not today at least until they are converted to fiat.  But what about the exact opposite, if you buy bitcoins with fiat and "Lose them" would that be considered a financial loss, or a write off?  It's unknown to me as I'm not an accountant.  Luckily I'm not in this for greed, or to become rich..  I like technology and I find this to be an interesting project with some great really smart people involved...

Its unfortunate that bitcoin has such a big target on its back, but what did everyone expect?  Bitcoin has been under attack since it started becoming more mainstream, not only by hacker theives wishing to steal bitcoins since they are untraceable, but possibly also by other more organized operations wishing to discredit the project as a whole, as it is a threat to them.  It's a true shame that this community can't come together and be stronger than those that would wish to ruin one of the coolest open source projects I have seen in a long time.

Rise up bitcoin and be strong!

Lost 7BTC because of paypal chargeback

Missing some common sense cost me 22BTC while dealing with a ***** individual at biddingpond, anyway could have happened to me anywhere, some normal auction on local and more known sites, no big deal.
Other than that, its pretty impossible to actually lose btc or get scammed, as said before, its supereasy to remain safe.

I've not lost any yet.
Donated some small amounts to things that tickled me... gave some to family.

It is super easy to not get scammed.


To not be hacked or etc, that is another thing.


I have information loose out there now because of tamperers to a site, but honestly, keeps me changing passwords and I am definitely lucky to not have lost any actual coin yet.  Knock on wood and all that, because I do know one thing, shit can happen to anybody no matter how safe you are.

I have not been scammed.


You didnt backup wallet.dat? Copy the file in a couple of cd's and you are set.

Haven't lost any, but I have sent bitcoin to my friend at his mybitcoin address, and I'm fairly certain he never moved or used them for anything. His loss.

I lost about 4btc a few weeks ago because my Live USB Ubuntu went kaput and freezes at startup. The data is still intact when I mount casper-rw on another PC but it's encrypted. Anyone know how I can get my sweet Bitcoins back?

 Me. I don't think it's that difficult.

Lost my original wallet with a small deposit from the faucet: lost 0.05BTC
Lost my mybitcoin password in a password-reset frenzy and conversion from KeePass1 to KeePass2: lost 1BTC

Same here. The friends I gave testing money to usually kept them in online services and the ones that didn't just lost their wallet files. I think one of the problems here is that we, as people of Earth, don't know how to make computers do our bidding. It seemed easy to most people that computers could be regarded as magical things and we should be made to memorize separate instructions to have them do the things we were told that we would want. So, in the current picture, most users have a repertoire and can't even reason about things outside of that. Furthermore, many things computers could do for us aren't even on the table. Only benefit is, I guess, everyone uses at least one computer now, and therefore they are cheap.

Yes, I'm a CLI person.

Hm,

i actually "lost" around 0.1 btc on mybitcoin.com, but i kind of expected that and didn't care.
So, i don't really feel scammed 

I'm perfectly intact. But then again, I do my due diligence and understand risk. I guess that comes with having experience trading and managing finances.

Waiting for the next scam artist to claim they 'lost' X coins by looking at transfers in the blockchain. That is always priceless. Its all in vain, though, eh?

Haven't lost anything or been scammed. Protect your passwords and your wallet.dat and you should be good.

No losses so far. Even despite the MTGOX email release of my password hashes. We are all responsible for our own security. Strong passwords are the rule of the day. Avoid any single point of failure.

I have not lost any bitcoins and I have not been scammed yet.

Neither for me.

So far I've only bought from bitcoinexchange.cc and the designated trader for Mt. Gox (sent a money order, got BTC after almost 2 weeks...)

I currently keep a few BTC with Instawallet, for quick smartphone spending. I expect to eventually lose those, so I won't be keeping a significant amount with them, or any online service.

I've been looking at the smartphone apps that handle bitcoins. Haven't actually tried any yet (would greatly appreciate updates on how well those are working at this point.)

I keep a good chunk encrypted but readily accessible, offline. But the bulk are kept in "cold storage."

My only regret so far is the bitcoin donation I made to a radio show that shall remain unnamed, after hearing one of the hosts admit he got burned in this mybitcoin thing and lost their donations. You'd think he would have learned after getting burned with Mt. Gox (after which a co-worker, on air, chided him for taking a decentralized currency and basically centralizing it.) I wanted to slap the guy. That's just ridiculously lax.