Gatehub vs Bitstamp security?

[Samuel]

Just wondering where the best place to store and trade XRP is? 

A friend of mine had is account on Gatehub hacked a while back, all his XRP were stolen and has been unable to get them back. He has contacted Gatehub several times and just gets a generic email back. He didnt have 2 factor enabled, but when he transfer from Ripple Trade to Gatehub, i dont think 2 factor was available then. So when XRP jumped up last month he tried to access his funds and they were gone. This really sucks, a young man with a growing family needs his money and its gone. We have contacted representatives and followed their instructions but still no luck. Any chance he can recover them? 

[JackTheRippler]

The best place to store your xrp is in a cold offline wallet. Cold wallets can be a bit technical to get but there are tutorials here on the forum which explains how to set one up.
The second best wallet in my opinion is a normal desktop wallet. You can also just generate a key pair, a public key and a secret key, which you save and then not having to worry about installing a wallet. It's not recommended to store your main stash of xrp on an exchange (Bitstamp, Gatehub, Poloniex etc) as that means you're not in full control of your xrp.

If you want to trade then you'll have to store xrp on an exchange. I don't know the best place to trade as I'm only holding at the moment. Though I would say the best place to trade xrp is where there is most liquidity - right now that's Poloniex.

As for your friend's situation I can say he's really unlucky. It all depends in what way he was "hacked" - did someone find out his password to his Gatehub account or was it someone that actually hacked Gatehub and gained access that way? Sadly cryptocurrencies are not regulated yet and therefore you won't have the same type of insurance as with fiat. Some exchanges have an insurance for losses but I don't know if Gatehub has one. I would suggest to file a report to the police. If the xrp were stolen recently then you should check where the transaction was sent to before the thief has time to cash out. If you see that it was sent to an exchange it can be worth contacting that exchange and tell them the situation and if possible to freeze that particular account, also attach the police report as proof.

You can check your friend's Ripple address here: https://www.bithomp.com/explorer/

[kanaas]

12 hours ago, Samuel said:

Just wondering where the best place to store and trade XRP is? 

A friend of mine had is account on Gatehub hacked a while back, all his XRP were stolen and has been unable to get them back. He has contacted Gatehub several times and just gets a generic email back. He didnt have 2 factor enabled, but when he transfer from Ripple Trade to Gatehub, i dont think 2 factor was available then. So when XRP jumped up last month he tried to access his funds and they were gone. This really sucks, a young man with a growing family needs his money and its gone. We have contacted representatives and followed their instructions but still no luck. Any chance he can recover them? 

If you post the public key of that wallet here (starts with an "r") we can trace where the stolen XRP went...