Consumer complaint received 2022-08-31
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: TN
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
on XX/XX/XXXX I logged into my XXXX account to check on an order placed previously for a roll of postage stamps and saw a notification that suspicious transactions had taken place.I navigated around until I got to security, and the first agent was not able to help much and he transferred me to another security agent with higher credentials who introduced himself as XXXX XXXX and gave his employee id number as well as a phone number and reassured me that he would get to the bottom of the fraudulent transactions. : He asked for my XXXX login and password and stated that he could back out these transactions which he said were coming from XXXX, the XXXX and XXXX. the asked to download an app called XXXX which didn't work, then XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) which also didn't work. He then tried XXXX, which didn't work and he then decided that my XXXX app was blocking the successful download of these apps so he disabled my XXXX He then asked to download an app called ask desk and proceeded to " back out '' the charges from XXXX when in fact he was using my checking account that was linked to XXXX to purchase bitcoin and send it to his own account.He asked me not to log in to any of my financial accounts for 5 days as that would draw attention to the hackers.Then he asked if any of my other accounts had been affected and I saw that the balance on my Coinbase account was off, so he asked me to login to Coinbase which I did.He still said he was backing out the fraudulent transactions when in fact he was transferring my Coinbase holdings to his own account.At some point he asked for XXXX to my Coinbase account and I entered it. he started calling me repeatedly to assure that I had not logged into my financial accounts and stated that he felt that someone at my own bank had compromised my account login and password. He then transferred me to XXXX XXXX who was supposedly the head of security at XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX then told me that unless I sent an international wire to XXXX to a dummy account that all the transactions to XXXX would. go through, and that I needed to help set up a reverse sting to apprehend the hacker.So using the information he gave me I wired the money XXXX to the address/person he sent to my email.The following morning I felt uneasy about what had transpired so I called XXXX back and they assured me that their employees would never give their last name nor a phone number and that I had likely been scammed.I went to my bank, closed my accounts and opened 2 more.I filed disputes with XXXX and with Coinbase and filed a report with the FTC, with ic3, the fbi and made a police report with the XXXX sheriffs dept.I have called Coinbase 30-40 times to be left on hold, they say that they are working on it but I have seen no progress. In fact, when my bank denied one of the Coinbase transactions Coinbase then liquidated the remainder of my holdings and told me I owed them another XXXX +.All in all XXXX was removed from my Coinbase account by this hacker and then by Coinbase. I bought another computer and another XXXX XXXX XXXXnd only transported my contact list, yet the hacker called me on my new phone within 12 hours of purchasing it. I was not sure of the amount of information that was hacked off my computer. I have subsequently changed all my passwords, replaced my credit cards, protected my brokerage accounts etc.Coinbase was told that I had never sold any of my holdings ever except for a small amount of XXXX in 2018, and they can verify that through my account activity that the selling/transferring my holdings is definitely fraudulent.All the fraudulent transactions took place on XX/XX/XXXX and were reported on XX/XX/XXXX and my account was locked.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation