Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I recently sent 200 dollars and the receiver stated the transaction failed, so they didn't credit my account for the 200 dollars.  But it is gone from my wallet so it was sent someplace, am I just out 200 dollars now or is there a way I can recover it somehow?

Here is a screenshot of the transaction:  https://imgur.com/a/pbbujMW

From what I can tell it was received, but not quite sure how to read all that.  They gave me an address to look up on blockchain and it said nothing was sent or received and to contact my wallet.  Thanks,

What's the name of the service you sent the funds to?

If the"bc1" address (you can see it in 'outputs') doesn't belong to the receiver, then you must have sent it to someone else. If you're sure that the receiver is not lying, then you might have a clipboard malware. To confirm, you can try and copy another address and see if it changes when you paste it in Electrum.

How did the recipient request the funds, did he send you an email with the receiving address?  If you have proof that the recipient sent you that address, then it's safe to assume that he's lying.

Other than that, you should consider the possibility that your device has been compromised. 

This is your transaction: 7417f7a3f9844aca1fe8d75befb6b24d8902bc7e924a8a69d848741d570609de (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/7417f7a3f9844aca1fe8d75befb6b24d8902bc7e924a8a69d848741d570609de).

If bc1qcygs9dl4pqw6atc4yqudrzd76p3r9cp6xp2kny isn't the receiver's address, your (or his) computer may have clipboard hijacking malware. Or he may be trying to scam you.

Why did they give you an address to look up? Is that address different from the address they told you to pay to?

Take a look at the following thread
Bitcoin 'successfully' transferred to an invalid bitcoin address (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182537.0)

That's a same address.
The OP has likely downloaded a fake version of Electrum.

I didn't check the receiving address, but indeed, it received over 50 BTC already. Some scammer is making a good living out of it :(

Take a look at the following thread
Bitcoin 'successfully' transferred to an invalid bitcoin address (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182537.0)

That's a same address.
The OP has likely downloaded a fake version of Electrum.
[/quote]

Thanks all for the replies, it looks like this is the issue unfortunately, it did ask to download an update to electrum when I loaded it up, guess it wasn't the official one.  I haven't used it for awhile so just figured it needed to be updated.

Sorry to hear you lose. Fortunately you did not lose much. It's always recommended that after downloading the software, always verify the signature to avoid fake copies.

It seems the business is running in autopilot. So sad.

Sorry for your loss.  Newer versions of Electrum prevent that specific vulnerability from hurting people, but there may be others that we don't know about yet, or have yet to be implemented.  It's a good habit to verify your download every time you upgrade Electrum.  Here's a guide to help with that: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.msg54223763#msg54223763

Sad to hear you have lost funds but I will say you are lucky enough that it has gone with small amount. On the other hand this is a lesson for you which will never forget. Anyway this was a mistake since you weren't active here and you are unaware about this scam method. I always upgrade Electrum from the website instead of upgrade from the popups. When you will install latest version it will automatically will replaced older version with latest one. If it doesn't happen with your operating system then just uninstall older version and install again latest version. It will not effect on your wallet file since file stored on different place than software. But don't forget to save your seed if you have fund on your wallet.

But to make sure you should remove all malware from your device first or better option format your device and install everything new including operating system. Who know if hackers controlling your device.

It's already a year and a half (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090097.0) after the exploit was discovered and I think cases like this will happen for years to come. There are people who check their wallets only occasionally, and are not at all aware that there is a danger. A new wave of such cases will surely come again with the next ATH when many will want cash out BTC, and will instead send the donation to an unknown address.

Hmm.. Didn't the devs execute a DOS attack against the client to prevent them from connecting to the malicious nodes? IMO, it does help with the situation somewhat but this, together with the jsonrpc vulnerability would still be quite prevalent.

ranochigo, there is no fix for Electrum versions older than 3.3.4, they are still vulnerable to this attack, and this warning is still displayed on Electrum site. Therefore, anyone who still has one of these versions is a potential victim.

https://i.imgur.com/o9Y5vn1.jpg
https://electrum.org/#home

Its not a fix, thats why I say this would be still quite prevalent.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ElectrumWallet/status/1106479573917724672. Most older clients cannot connect to any server because they automatically gets DOS'ed and loads of people have come onto the forum asking for advice.

Guess it's just bad luck that the user connected to a "bad" server first before their client got "DOS'd"... Unfortunately, there really isn't any more anyone can do at this point... it's been publicised quite a bit, the exploit is very old now (over 1 year) and of course the ability to verify the digital signatures has been an option since before this exploit was created.

There is no way to magically "fix" the exploit on older versions... so unless the users themselves take the time to investigate/read and/or do their due diligence with digital signatures, there is a chance that someone is going to get caught out until all users have updated to a newer version that is no longer vulnerable... or the hackers give up and stop running the "bad" servers. :-\

It wouldn't surprise me if we continue to see more threads like this in the future... especially if the BTC value makes big moves and people need/want to move holdings around.

We will see more threads like this for sure. Not everyone visit the forum ,not everyone is aware of it. I am not sure if there was any media coverage for it , I mean coverage in both news and TV chsnnel. May be spreading this in the mainstream media will help to creat some awareness although this is a crazy idea.

At OP, sorry for your loss.
You are clearly not a "newbie",  you account has been created today to ask about this electrum issue.
Newbies don't magically have an old version of electrum with BTC in it.

The reasons behind the "new" throwaway account are not important.
What is important to see here is that even intermediate to experienced users could get phished.

Luckily it was just $200 and not dozen of thousands.

He is not a newbie with Bitcoin but that doesn't mean that he is an old user of this forum. People can use Bitcoin without being registered on Bitcointalk.
He might have just googled his problem and found links to threads on Bitcointalk that prompted him to register. This is equally possible as the scenario that he is an old forum user. 

People from Asian countries (China, Korea, Japan) have their own forums and social media and have no need to use Bitcointalk.
Same thing is probably evident in Scandinavia, their local forum is inactive but the country is very pro-crypto and pro new technologies, and are surely using them.   

Do you suppose there is a way to disable Electrum <3.3.4 from running entirely on a computer? There won't be much luck in Electrum itself but there should be some system administration tools that block specific programs from running on a computer.

As a system administrator, you definitely can whitelist or blacklist programs.
But what would be the advantage for an enduser ?

If you know that software X is vulnerable etc., you don't need to block it. You can simply uninstall it.
Such administration software is used in companies to allow or block specific applications.

There is pretty much no point to this... If you knew enough that Electrum 3.3.4 should not be run, you'd simply not use it... setting admin tools to block it is a waste of time.

And there is no way to force other peoples computers to not run it unless you're a System Admin in a corporate type environment... in which case, why would anyone want to run Bitcoin wallet software on a machine that they don't have full and exclusive (admin) access to? ???