Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I created an account on the scammer company localbitcoins.com and deposited a few bitcoins. - After that it got locked. I asked the costumer support why my account is locked asked them to unlock it.
The costumer support answered they can not give any information.
After trying to verify my account what worked 2-3 times, the account got locked again without using it at all, I asked to get a proof of balance of my account. But the costumer support just say they can not give any proof of it. After asking 3 times I just found out all support tickets got deleted, and I am afraid they will delete my balance.

Is there anything I can do?

Can you provide evidence about this allegation?

If you have enough money on the account and worth seeing your lawyer, you should consult your lawyer for advice about it, but the amount might be low and not worth spending for.

Be careful of online services that says they can recover yotu money for you, they are scammers.

Know that it is not your key and not your coin on blockchain if you are using exchange, you have no complete control over your own money on exchanges, use noncustododial wallet.

For p2p, Localbitcoins is demanding for kyc already, so you can use Binance or other trustworthy p2p exchange like Paxful.

It's quite strange if you don't get any reason with this lock. This is actually exactly what happened last 2020 (https://cointelegraph.com/news/localbitcoins-quietly-suspends-accounts-in-multiple-regions-without-notice) for maintenance reasons. But more than that, this service several times applies new rules that were not previously written on their ToS page so that users are not aware of it.

You can't use those two without undergoing KYC verification.

The best options are Bisq and Localcryptos that have no mention of requiring any KYC verifications in their terms of service.

Are you sure this site is https://localbitcoins.com? I am afraid that this is a Phishing site that uses a similar domain because Localbitcoins.com is an ancient company in this field and has high credibility and reliability, hundreds of users around the world used the site and got their money without problems, of course problems occur sometimes, but if the "support tickets got deleted" and then your account got locked, then this is this Really strange and suspicious !! Please make sure of the site information accurately.

Please, would you mind telling us how the domain you shared above is of a phishing site?
I am sort of confused because all these years I have known that localbitcoins.com and localbitcoins.net were official domains of localbitcoins

Your support tickets may have been marked as solved on their end, that's why. It's also worth mentioning that not all support agents know what they're doing e.g. they could close your ticket abruptly, give false answers, make the conversation longer than it should be, etc...

Don't trouble yourself with the proof of balance thing. Focus on requesting to lift the restriction they put in your account. Exchanges don't delete your balance, what they do is come up with a reason to prohibit their users from withdrawing and stay in the gray area of law. This balance you speak of are just numbers and your coins are already in their wallet which they can spend however they want.

how much such a laywer coasts?

My account got locked after that time. I bet they did this large scale scam two more then two times already.

I wonder if its possible to get a proof of balance. I am afraid they just delete my account and I dont have any proof and nobody beleave me.

Localbitcoins is not a scam site, what you're describing sounds like you got phished.  There are plenty of scams out there that have very similar looking URLs.

You should have a transaction listed in your wallet, you can use that transaction to prove you sent the money.  Regardless, as I said before you probably got scammed by an impostor, so it's very unlikely that you'll get your money back even if you could prove that you sent the funds to their address.

That's what I'm saying too, localbitcoins.com and localbitcoins.net are already official sites so I asked OP to check the domain name because phishing sites use similar names like 'localbitcoins.io" or "localbitcoins.org" or something like that, and sometimes they do By deleting the last letter, for example, "localbitcoin.com", in short, they use names that are very similar to the names of the original sites, so most famous sites and exchanges ask users to make sure that the name of the site is written accurately so as not to fall victim to phishing sites.

If you sent the funds from a non-custodial wallet, just find the txid of your deposit. Then also prepare a signature message that proves your ownership address. I guess that's enough as evidence.
I don't know what kind of wallet they use as escrow, I just hope it's a centralized wallet swept to their 1 main wallet.

Bisq, localcryptos, hodlhodl and some exchanges are decentralized and they are bitcoin decentralized exchanges where you can exchange some altcoins to bitcoin, no kyc required. But OP is talking about Localbitcoins, it is a KYC P2P exchange and not decentralized, it is just like Paxful or Binance p2p, the reason I mentioned both instead.

I just know that it would be very costly and may not worth it, the cost is even beyond just lawyer.

Just to clear things up. It's only Bisq that is a truly decentralized Bitcoin p2p exchange if you are trying to exchange Bitcoin for fiat.
Localcryptos is noncustodial
HodlHodl is custodial, but they are not yet so strict on KYC. But they can ask for KYC anytime. Just check their terms and conditions.


You wanted to say Localbitcoins?

Yes, OP was talking about Localbitcoins which is what I also meant, it's a mistake. Thanks.

I was thinking Localcryptos is a decentralized exchange, but out of all decentralized exchanges, only Bisq is most decentralized, that is true. I will look into localcryptos ToS and check if KYC can be requested for, if so, it means it is not decentralized but working like instant exchanges, I find this new and I will look into it.