Topic: URGENT! Sent LTC to a BTC address (Read 484 times)

Think of it as if you've dropped a piece of gold into a crack in the floor of a very expensive building. The owner can get it out for you, but it'll cost him a lot of money, and pose a security risk.

That would actually be quite a decent solution. They could even charge a standard fee (fixed + percentage) for this, but they'll be at risk if the exchange rate gets worse. I assume they don't want to keep a stash of any altcoin on their own.

Well, they answered your question. You can't expect a company to keep answering the same question over and over again, just because you didn't like their answer.
Now it's up to you to take further steps.

They closed the case without replying on the 27th. I made a new enquiry on the 28th and it was closed just now without a response. It would seem this is their way of doing business. Be aware!

Edit: Filing a complaint about Coinbase to the SEC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I feel that this is a lost cause. I don’t have the funds to go to court/hire a lawyer as the sum in question is already very substantial, to me at least. The situation is such that Coinbase is illegally holding my funds hostage and there is nothing that I can do about it. They have the funds in a wallet that they own, and they’ve failed to respond to my latest enquiry. The case was closed by them but I re-opened it as this is unacceptable and I fail to understand how this can happen. If this were to happen with a bank I feel they would be more supportive. I would like to post on reddit to make my case heard, but I still can’t make any posts. If anybody would like to help me it would be much appreciated.

Communicating with the support team was the first step, but you have to motivate them to help you (I suggested you Reddit because it solved one problem before)
You can try posting Service Discussion
I tried to find an account related to them here, but I did not succeed.
GDAX [twitter account]  and pm this account https://twitter.com/GDAX_Support

That's a restriction on the subreddit. You may have to make posts to other subreddits that you might not really care about before you will be allowed to post in that one.

I have been victim of that problem as well. You are just going to have to be patient and post a few things, comment here and there it does not take that long to build up enough karma.

I made a Reddit account but I can’t post anywhere because it says I need to have 200-300 karma and be active. The only way to get karma is by other people upvoting your posts so I fail to understand how I will ever be able to gather the karma if I can’t post anywhere.

I see this user has not logged in since 26 may be hopeless but I see a glimmer of light here.
GDAX is a famous platform, so their reputation will be important for them.
It's a huge amount worth fighting for, raise it up on Reddit and if you're lucky it will be resolved quickly.
Here are these quotations of a similar problem.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6s49ql/psa_careful_when_sending_bccbch_to_an_exchange/

At the cost of some liquidity, it could be possible for them (or some other company in a similar situation) to send different litecoins back after verifying that one of their BTC addresses received the LTC - and then waiting for that "giving up" event to reclaim those LTC for themselves, covering the cost.

They wouldn't earn any interest on them, or be able to touch them until switching the keys, but it might look good to the public, and save some customers from terrible circumstances like OP's.

Im not sure about that. I doubt there is a standard that says "if someone mistakenly sends money from crypto A to crypto B, you must refund". I guess it comes down to the individual exchange's policy. They have an incentive to act good tho. If they don't, you can use social pressure, namely, create a thread in reddit and expose them, this will make hurry and solve the problem, bad publicity is not good publicity when it comes to an exchange, and in general money related stuff.

If it was a lot of money, I'd be contacting a lawyer.

You sent LTC to them, to an address that they supplied you for funding an account of yours, and they failed to update your account to indicate the receipt of that transaction.

While you did make the mistake of using the BTC deposit address instead of the LTC deposit address, a small mistake like that should not release them from their obligation to their customer.

It seems like they may have some legal obligations here.

That's a little disingenuous... there IS something more that they could do... they could extract the private key and move the LTC. However, they are making a conscious decision to NOT do this.

OP, you should make a watching wallet with this address... if those LTC EVER move... you need to contact coinbase and demand the coins... as they have obviously gone ahead and done exactly what they have told you they can't won't do.

They may be able to solve this a few months (or years) ahead, if they switch to all new private keys, and "give up" on the old ones.
If they collect all similar requests, they can process them all together at some point. But ultimately, it's up to them.

I made that clear to them. So is my money lost forever? This was their final response just now:

”Hi there,


This is Henry from the GDAX escalation team.


The security and integrity of our private keys is of the utmost importance to us. As a result, the specific private keys associated with an address are not available to any single person. Due to the inherent security risks involved with accessing specific private keys, it is not possible for our support team to recover funds sent to a Coinbase wallet in this way.


I understand that this is extremely frustrating, but the unfortunate reality is that maintaining and prioritizing the security of our private keys is our top priority, which means we will not be able to return any digital currency accidentally sent to Coinbase-controlled addresses. I apologize, and wish there was something more we could do.
”

Somehow, they seem to think you are asking to have a transaction reversed?

I would avoid using the words "reversed" or "refunded" or "cancelled" in any communication with them.

You need to be certain that they understand the following:

• You are a GDAX customer.
• You sent LTC to GDAX.
• The transaction is confirmed.
• Those LTC did not show up in your GDAX account.

Once they understand those four things, then you can explain that the GDAX address that you send the LTC to was your GDAX BTC deposit address.

You don't need any transactions reversed.  You just need your GDAX LTC account credited with the LTC that you sent to GDAX.

This is their response:

”Hi there,


Unfortunately, due to the technical nature of most digital currency networks, it is impossible for us to reverse this payment and we are unable to provide any mediation with this matter. It is important to be careful, and make sure that you are sure the wallet addresses you send to are compatible.


I am very sorry for this, I wish there were a way to reverse the funds once they are on the blockchain.”

Can I escalate this matter further?

At a technical level, this is something that GDAX has the necessary tools and information to recover for you.

However, as a business, this is something that GDAX has intentionally made it very difficult to accomplish for you.

In order to recover these funds, someone at GDAX will need access to the private key associated with the BTC address.  They will then need to take the LTC funds that are accessible with that key and send them somewhere for you.

Think about what that means for a moment.

In order to guarantee security of your funds, GDAX has intentionally made it very difficult for any individual in their company to access any of the private keys.  That way, individuals in the company don't need to be trusted not to steal their customer's funds.  You are asking them to break their own security model.  Whomever accesses the private key for you would be able to access other private keys as well, and theoretically could steal funds. As such, they will almost certainly need a complicated process with redundant checks-and-balances involving multiple levels of authorization.  The typical GDAX support person isn't going to be able to do this for you.  He's going to need to recognize what the situation is and escalate it to the appropriate level within the company to address the problem for you.  I'd expect this to take a while, and to incur some costs (they're not going to want to set a precedent of doing all this work every time some user sends $0.10 of crypto to the wrong address).  Note that every time they do this, they are effectively creating a temporary hole in their own security.  If it was fast and easy, then malicious users would frequently make such "mistakes" in the hopes of finding a way to take advantage of the security hole.

Yes, definitely. I pointed out several times in my response that I'm comfortable with them charging a fee that they determine to be reasonable in order to correct this matter. And absolutely, this happened because of my carelessness.

Yes, they can use the private key of the BTC address to access your LTC.

This is big money. Be insistent, yet polite. It's the best way to get things done.

Admit it was your mistake and that you are willing to pay a small fee for their effort. You probably are, right?