Consumer complaint received 2023-01-13
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I fell victim to a multilayered operation orchestrated by a sophisticated con-artist named XXXX from the delivery company XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX the Scammer ) and lost XXXX XXXX of my hard-earned funds. I advised Coinbase of this fact on XX/XX/XXXX, and I havent received any satisfactory response so far. I would like to say that I am a XXXX citizen vulnerable to scams, and the financial institution never took that into account. Financial abuse includes criminal conduct such as fraud, theft or obtaining financial advantage by deception. However, what occurs may be improper conduct rather than illegal because : the act or omission may not be deliberately abusive or malicious, or a relationship of trust or dependence may cloud the question of consent. A fair and reasonable investigation would generate the following questions : 1. Did the financial institution make an error by processing the disputed transfers? Clearly, I was the victim of a scam, I was referred to the scammers after expressing an interest in investing online, I realized sometime after making the disputed transfers that everything was a scam and I was being scammed. In providing its services to myself, the financial institution is required by law to exercise the care and skill of a diligent, prudent financial institutioner. In this case, this means the financial institution should not turn a blind eye to known facts pointing to a real possibility their customer ( myself ) is being scammed. In other words, the financial institution must have had special knowledge of what was occurring or been alerted to a real possibility of fraud taking place. The financial institution must have known or reasonably ought to have known I was dealing with a scammer. 2. Did the financial institution breach any other obligation it owed to the complainant? I appreciate it is very challenging for front line financial institution staff to be alert to facts suggesting a real possibility a customer is being scammed. However, it was apparent instinct that transfers of the sort were not okay. As any prudent Banker should have doubted the circumstances and therefore contacted me, if for the sake of the argument they did indeed contact me and they were not confident in what to ask or tell myself, they could have transferred me to another employee ( such as a manager or someone from the financial institution fraud area, ) who could have questioned me further and had an appropriate discussion with me about the risk of being scammed. If I had still insisted on going ahead with transferring the disputed transfers after such a conversation, the financial institution would not be responsible for any resulting loss. I am a victim of Fraud as I was under a lot of pressure and coerced through very sophisticated methods specifically created by these criminals. I reiterate that there was no trading account and no trading actually took place. This was all a scam and the recipient simply pocketed the money.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation