LOS ANGELES – After thousands of customer service complaints, Coinbase started a newly live call support argumentation. But numerous customers remain torment with the ship’s company after its latest feat to address their concerns. Take Erick and Molly Richardson, for case. The text message on Erick ‘s phone alarmed him indeed much that he pulled complete to the side of the road. It was a cheery good afternoon in July. The go to bed lawyer clicked on the message which said person had logged into his account. He logged on, and soon got an electronic mail that his two-factor authentication had been changed, meaning his security settings had likely been compromised. then the nightmare got worse. He and his wife, Molly, had saved about $ 1.1 million in cryptocurrencies. on the spur of the moment, a fraudster started withdrawing all their bitcoin investments, about $ 700,000, as Erick watched. And there was nothing he could do. “ I was panicked. It was that feeling I have n’t had in a long time, ” Erick said, acknowledging the text message was probable a phishing attack to obtain his account information. Coinbase customers Erick and Molly Richardson lost about $ 700,000 in cryptocurrencies when their account was taken over by a fraudster. source : CNBC The Richardsons could not call Coinbase for aid because when the account coup d’etat happened in July, the company lone offered e-mail support. A CNBC probe in August found thousands of customers ‘ accounts were hacked and they were left hang by the company, according to politics records and interviews. Coinbase, which went public in April, has a market cap of more than $ 50 billion. Since 2016, users have filed more than 12,000 complaints against Coinbase with the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Better Business Bureau, by and large related to customer military service, according to public records. An extra 1,500 complaints have been filed since August. other cryptocurrency exchanges have faced similar complaints, but less numerous than the complaints for Coinbase, which is the largest exchange in the U.S. Coinbase, responding to criticism that customers could n’t talk to anyone at the company, set up the live patronize line in August. however, dozens of customers whose accounts were hacked and drained told CNBC the alleged help did n’t result in their trouble getting resolved. In the Richardsons ‘ case, Erick said it took lone about 20 minutes for the fraudsters to withdraw 21 Bitcoin in 110 different transactions. Erick reported the larceny to Coinbase, which locked the account. But he said for more than two months, no one reached out to help the couple get their money back or unlock the report. “ I hush have no idea how it happened, ” he said. In September, the Richardsons called the new Coinbase call confirm tune. The agent told Erick that he did n’t have access to the case file and suggested he respond to the last e-mail from Coinbase, which he had already answered. The 10-minute call ended not with a resoluteness, but with more frustration. “ It was a antic ; it barely makes me a little more angry. And there ‘s cipher who has any decision-making power at customer overhaul, ” Erick said. “ They equitable ca n’t help out a distribute. You know what Coinbase did two days after I got hacked ? They sent me a customer review and they asked me to rate their service. ” Coinbase customers around the area told similar stories to CNBC since the hot earphone confirm began. For case, customer Marc Boulos said in an electronic mail that “ the alive documentation is only for accounts that are actively locked ; since my score is nobelium longer lock, I ca n’t evening reach live accompaniment even if I try to do sol. ”
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“ The system recognizes that the account associated with my telephone number is not locked and does n’t let me reach populate patronize, ” Boulos wrote. Another customer, Don Pirtle, called the call line “ a joke. ” And after unsuccessfully trying to restore access to his score, customer Conrad Yiu said, “ It seems like they ‘ve failed in every unmarried part. ” A Coinbase spokesperson said in a statement that the company will deliver “ ball-shaped telephone support for all customers, and live messaging by goal of class. Our finish is to be the most trust and slowly to use chopine in the crypto economy, but we recognize the challenges some of our customers have experienced with their Coinbase accounts. Improving our customer experience continues to remain a top priority. ” “ In most cases, Coinbase does not cover any losses resulting from unauthorized entree to Coinbase accounts due to a breach, ” which is often a phishing fire, the statement said. Earlier this calendar month, in a note to Coinbase customers, the company disclosed that funds were stolen from about 6,000 customers in a phishing attack that took rate from March to May 20. The hackers took “ advantage of a defect in Coinbase ‘s SMS Account Recovery process in order to receive an SMS two-factor authentication nominal and profit access to your report. ” A company spokesperson said : “ We immediately fixed the flaw and have worked with these customers to regain master of their accounts and reimburse them for the funds they lost. These large-scale, sophisticate phishing attacks are on the rise, and we strongly recommend anyone that uses online fiscal services to remain argus-eyed and take the necessary steps to protect their on-line identity. ” Asked about the security of Coinbase accounts, the spokesperson said, “ While some Coinbase customers unfortunately have fallen victim to phishing attacks and account takeovers, at no indicate have attackers breached Coinbase ‘s security system infrastructure. ” Experts say there are alternative ways to store cryptocurrency that are basically hack-proof. A move that would have helped protect the Richardsons and others is moving cryptocurrency from an exchange, like Coinbase, to what is known as cold storage, or moving crypto offline. “ I ‘ve beaten myself up every day because I have my friends ‘ voices in my head. ‘Erick, put it on coldness storage. ‘ And I merely did n’t, ” Erick said. Nicole DeCicco, who helps clients secure their cryptocurrency through her caller CryptoConsultz, says cold storehouse is virtually hack-proof. Crypto owners get a individual key, which is like a password, to store that key offline. “ A cold storage or a cold wallet is wholly disconnected from the internet. It is sometimes a device that you connect to your calculator, ” she said. “ When you keep your funds in cold storage, you own those funds. … They ‘re offline, away from hackers. ” Nicole DeCicco helps clients secure their cryptocurrency through her company CryptoConsultz. reference : CNBC “ I like to tell my clients that precisely like you might pull money out with your ATM card, you can always load from your cold storage wallet into a hot wallet. But if we ‘re talking a significant sum of money, truly the best practice is to keep it in coldness storage, ” she said. DeCicco said setting up exchange accounts is easy but setting up cold memory takes more study. To set up cold memory, many investors buy a device for this purpose. It then needs to be loaded with a private key and safely stored, such as in a vault. While cold storage is more fasten, it has its own issues. Owners can lose passwords, or the device can break. The Richardsons, after extra e-mail exchanges with Coinbase, said access to their account was finally restored. And the company did send them some money back. But it was n’t what they expected. The company put $ 500 worth of Bitcoin in their account. “ It felt like they kicked sandpaper in my face, ” Erick Richardson said. “ Is there even anybody senior at Coinbase looking at this ? Somebody make a calculation and said, ‘OK, this is what happened to this ridicule. He lost 21 bitcoin. Let ‘s give him $ 500. ” Please email tips to investigations @ cnbc.com.
— CNBC ‘s Angelica Serrano-Roman and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report. correction : Erick and Molly Richardson had saved closely $ 1.1 million in cryptocurrencies. An earlier adaptation misstated the figure .
