I just lost all of my crypto in the dumbest way possible

[Lambosexual]

I just got scammed super hard. Was dealing with an issue having sent some XRP to the wrong tag yesterday and I made a post about it here in fact. Binance.us was not responding to my ticket requests so I panicked. I called a number that I believed to be binance.us support (1-877-846-2817.) The person who answered had a middle eastern accent but I'd characterize it as Americanized. He knew right away information within seconds about my sending the XRP to the wrong tag (ie he knew the incorrect tag#, which I still cannot figure out.)

Anyways like an idiot I trusted him because he had that info. He claimed that my ledger and binance account needed to be "reset" and then he would be able to remotely restore my lost XRP. He had me install a remote access program and then had me register my ledger live account and binance.us account on my PC. Then he had me transfer all of my cryptocurrency (approx 25k worth) to an exodus wallet. He said afterwards to wait a while and transfer it back to my ledger and then the XRP I lost would show up. Of course when I got off the phone with him my entire portfolio was removed from Exodous and he locked me out of my Binance.us account. I'm pretty sure I was able to remove my ach debit card that was linked to it. I immediately disconnected my internet and wiped reset my pc to factory settings. 

I still have some recently purchased VET and ADA on my binance.us account that cant be withdrawn because of the 10 day grace period. I'm trying to see if Binance.us will work with me on recovering those coins possibly as well as my initial XRP I tried to send that started all this but they're taking their time. 

I know anyone who reads this is thinking how the hell could you be so stupid. Trust me I am saying by the second. I'm an ICU nurse by trade so obviously I'm tired, overworked and under a lot of stress lately but that's no excuse. This was probably the dumbest thing I've ever done. Bummed.

[VanGogh]

I am so, so sorry; I sure hope you get your crypto back. Stay safe and take care of yourself. Perhaps Binance will come through for you. 

[LetHerRip]

I'm sorry to hear that, your original XRP sent to binance should still be there, at binance, just not attributed to your account because the tag (tag is what identifies you at the exchange) is wrong.

XRP runs on a public ledger so he could see all the details of your transaction (destination, amount, tag etc) if you told him which one you where referring to, that's where he got that information.

He had you install a keylogger/rookit and he now also has access to your Ledger Live and Binance, any crypto on those platforms are not safe, unless now after the reset you change passwords again.

[enrique11]

Dude or 'dudette'? ;), I'm so sorry to hear that.  Being a very long-term crypto hodler I don't think I would be able to handle that kind of loss well at all since all I've been doing is crpyto since 2018, and the government is of no help. We're invovled in very high risk cutting-edge tech so it's easy for the many honest crypto holdlers to fall victim to degenerate sociopathic losers. 

[enrique11]

The big no-no part: 

Quote

 He had me install a remote access program

 

[enrique11]

1 hour ago, Lambosexual said:

I just got scammed super hard. Was dealing with an issue having sent some XRP to the wrong tag yesterday and I made a post about it here in fact. Binance.us was not responding to my ticket requests so I panicked. I called a number that I believed to be binance.us support (1-877-846-2817.) The person who answered had a middle eastern accent but I'd characterize it as Americanized. He knew right away information within seconds about my sending the XRP to the wrong tag (ie he knew the incorrect tag#, which I still cannot figure out.)

Anyways like an idiot I trusted him because he had that info. He claimed that my ledger and binance account needed to be "reset" and then he would be able to remotely restore my lost XRP. He had me install a remote access program and then had me register my ledger live account and binance.us account on my PC. Then he had me transfer all of my cryptocurrency (approx 25k worth) to an exodus wallet. He said afterwards to wait a while and transfer it back to my ledger and then the XRP I lost would show up. Of course when I got off the phone with him my entire portfolio was removed from Exodous and he locked me out of my Binance.us account. I'm pretty sure I was able to remove my ach debit card that was linked to it. I immediately disconnected my internet and wiped reset my pc to factory settings. 

I still have some recently purchased VET and ADA on my binance.us account that cant be withdrawn because of the 10 day grace period. I'm trying to see if Binance.us will work with me on recovering those coins possibly as well as my initial XRP I tried to send that started all this but they're taking their time. 

I know anyone who reads this is thinking how the hell could you be so stupid. Trust me I am saying by the second. I'm an ICU nurse by trade so obviously I'm tired, overworked and under a lot of stress lately but that's no excuse. This was probably the dumbest thing I've ever done. Bummed.

I don't think you're stupid.  I think you are too trusting.  I'm the same way and usually learn the hard way...I was brought up by my parents to be a trusting type, to treat people fairly.   It runs in the family, but it's not the right way to interact with the world.  It worked for my mother and her business because people appreciated her honesty and she got tons of business,  but my mother and grandfather suffered a lot of financial losses because of their desire to help people and believe that people are generally good, and then get stabbed in the back by a few bad apples that caused great financial harm. 

  

[Flintstone]

Damn! Sorry to hear that.

A google of that phone number brings up a couple of websites pretending to be Binance customer support.

If you can pull up the destination wallet where the XRP went to, hopefully the perpetrator can be hampered or caught.

You should file a report with the police and hopefully, if those XRP are frozen sometime, there may be a chance of getting them back.

If the XRP were sent to an exchange, file a report there too.

All the best.

[Lambosexual]

57 minutes ago, Flintstone said:

Damn! Sorry to hear that.

A google of that phone number brings up a couple of websites pretending to be Binance customer support.

If you can pull up the destination wallet where the XRP went to, hopefully the perpetrator can be hampered or caught.

You should file a report with the police and hopefully, if those XRP are frozen sometime, there may be a chance of getting them back.

If the XRP were sent to an exchange, file a report there too.

All the best.

Yeah I actually did file a report with the FBI cybercrimes division. Not sure what's going to come of it. 

I tried earlier today after no response from Binance.us to log back into my account. It allowed me to change the password but then it said account banned when I actually tried to log in. So i don't know the status of what's going on or how they would get the cryptocurrency back to me if they could, seems like it would be hard to prove my identity other than email verification now that the account is banned?

[Lambosexual]

2 hours ago, enrique11 said:

Dude or 'dudette'? ;), I'm so sorry to hear that.  Being a very long-term crypto hodler I don't think I would be able to handle that kind of loss well at all since all I've been doing is crpyto since 2018, and the government is of no help. We're invovled in very high risk cutting-edge tech so it's easy for the many honest crypto holdlers to fall victim to degenerate sociopathic losers. 

I'm a dude. Yeah tell me about it. I still have a small portion of my portfolio on Coinbase. That combined with the amount that's on Binance with the XRP if they're able to get it back to me would be like 15%. Im hoping. 

[enrique11]

6 minutes ago, Lambosexual said:

I'm a dude. Yeah tell me about it. I still have a small portion of my portfolio on Coinbase. That combined with the amount that's on Binance with the XRP if they're able to get it back to me would be like 15%. Im hoping. 

Coinbase is a good exchange.  I had crypto lying around there that I forgot about for about two years...it never got stolen.  Fortunately, Coinbase protects its users' USD wallets because those deposits by investors like us go into banks, and that's covered by FDIC insurance. Although crypto wallet protection is lacking for individual users, Coinbase seems like the type of company that would try to remedy the situation if there were a breach on its exchange and lots of people lost crypto because 1)  I believe Coinbase only allows a small percentage of it's crypto to be traded "online" (on hot wallets), and the rest is stored offline in cold wallets. I think I recall in the past that hot wallet usage being around 4% of their crypto holdings - don't know what that value currently is; and 2) Coinbase has a hot wallet insurance policy for up to 225 million USD, covering thefts, loss of keys by Coinbase employees, hacks, and in-transit loss of crypto, so I believe they would help reimburse users' lost crypto in order not to lose their reputation as the crypto exchange leader in the US, just my guess..no guarantee they would do that.

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