Consumer complaint received 2021-11-13
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
At XXXX central time, I was driving and got a phone call from XXXX. I answered with the XXXX in my truck. It was an automated message saying that someone was trying to change my Coinbase password. At the same time a text message came through asking for my 2 step authentication. Before I had time to do anything, I heard buttons being pressed on the other line. The call then ended and right after I got another call from the same number and another text message from coinbase. I pulled over at a gas station and saw that I had been logged out of my coinbase and XXXX apps. My password had been changed and I couldn't log back on. I called coinbase and told them what was happening. The costumer service wasn't very good. While I was on the phone I was looking through my emails, but I wasn't seeing anything new from coinbase, so I checked my spam folder. All of the emails about changing my password were in the spam folder, and so were 8 transactions : 6 transactions for {$2700.00} worth of bitcoin, 1 transaction of {$1000.00} worth of bitcoin and 1 transaction of {$950.00} worth of bitcoin, a total of {$18000.00}. Which is all the money that I had in my account. The emails for these transactions all took place at XXXX central time and the only information it showed was that the funds were all sent to XXXX which I assume is the hackers account number. 

I own a small business and I was on my way to give a quote on some XXXX XXXX, so I went and did that. 

When I got home I called coinbase again to see what could be done. He told me that the transactions had been made around the time of the emails and asked me when the last transactions were made by me, which was back in XXXX. It was obvious to me at that point in time that my coinbase account had been bled dry, so I was worried about my wellsfargo account that was linked to it. He told me that my coinbase account was frozen and that the hackers could no longer buy or sell. 

This was not the case, later that even around XXXX central time, I checked my XXXX XXXX account. {$1000.00} had just been withdrawn and was pending being sent to Coinbase. I immediately called my bank, marked it as fraud and froze my account. I will have to get all new cards and change my account number, but at least I was able to get that {$1000.00} back. 

Later that night at XXXX central I called the XXXX number, a woman answered and said she was with XXXX XXXX XXXX  in XXXX XXXX I explained what happened to me earlier that day and she said, " Oh, you must have been scammed '' and then immediately hung up. I thought I was odd that she ended the call that way, so I had a friend call that number. She answered and said the college name and hung up again. Today I called the same number and nobody answers. 

I'm really hoping i gave enough info for someone to help me. Coinbase has done an investigation and pretty much told me everything I already figured out myself. I'm in the process of reactivation my coinbase account. Hopefully I can get more information about who stole the money or where it went. Another thing I'll add is that Coinbase was already hacked this year because of a flaw in the 2 step authentication, but they said the issue was fixed. It's pretty obvious to me that it was not, nor was my account frozen, because the hacker was able to try and take money from my bank. I can't help but feel like coinbase didn't help me in anyway, if anything, they made it easier for the hacker to get away by blocking me out of everything for 72 hours.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation