Bitcoin Forum

Today I got stocked of my fund in an exchange wallet which I couldn't process my intended P2P transaction due to where the fund was sent and it required processes which I couldn't help myself out of it. So I contacted a friend and he was guiding me all through by sharing my wallet pages with him through screenshots so that the instructions would be easier to follow.
It actually went successfully and I appreciated his efforts.

Meanwhile as I'm not so conversant with crypto wallets yet, while I was taking down those instructions from him, I was attentive to catch up any misconceptions of him sending me a wallet that's not mine and asked me to paste at the relevant place where I'm to direct my fund to because the process was so technical of copying and pasting of my wallets, going front and back. Oh damn. I was also attentive so that I don't feel so loosed of myself if Incase he ask me to send my seed phase so that he can check out what's really the issue but though he didn't do any of those suspects.

I basically brought it this up here because such suspectiousness is possible to happen and those who're easily trusted, those who're not familiar with wallets and even some person's could just say "oh damn I'm tired of this whole thing, the fund is kind of lost maybe I should just ignore any risk for the lost of a hopeless fund that seems unrecoverable" and then, such person could be loose guarded by failing such of the suspects victims.
So I hope some person's who are not conversant with operating their assets wallets would always be careful and sensitive whenever someone is playing helping role on your wallet.
As long as my instincts could whisper me Such though, then it's assumed to possibly happen even though non of us here has fallen victim of it.
Careful newbies and careful all

I really hope that with screenshots you made and shared with your friend, there is no screenshot with your wallet mnemonic seed or private key.

If you did it, it's big mistake and you should move your bitcoins to a new wallet as soon as possible. I don't say your friend is a bad person and will steal your bitcoin later. Even he is good, his devices can be hacked and screenshot that contains your wallet mnemonic seed or private key will be seen by hackers. They surely are not good people and will steal your bitcoins.

Hope that this story is not a fiction creatively wrote by you.

If it is an exchange wallet as you said you do not have a seedphrase that the friend can steal. You probably copied the wrong wallet address among the options and needed to make an internal transfer to your funding wallet. All the friend would have been able to do is to take you email address and try to guess your password and gain access to your account or to send you a phishing link were you will enter your log in details.

Always stay vigilant.

- Jay -

If there is a lack of understanding, it is better to seek help from someone. Since you have followed the directions by one of your friends through screenshot sharing, if this friend is known to you i.e. you meet him often then it is fine with such people. And if the friend is a social media friend, no matter how close you are, I think you're potentially putting your money at risk in the future. You should transfer your funds to the new location as soon as possible. Because there are many scammers on social media who can access your wallet by hacking the screenshots shared between you and steal everything. However, everyone should be careful about such things.

You said you contacted your friend to help you out, that means you know the person very well and his whereabout. Before you called him your friend it means both of you have shared lots of things in common. But it's a good thing he didn't ask for your seed phrase and you were attentive to details. Irrespective of who the person is the moment they start asking for seed phrase know that something is wrong. Just politely tell the person that you can handle things from here and end the conversations. Using of wallets are not very hard. Sometimes we can learn all these things ourselves with the help of YouTube videos that are posted by professionals.

I smell fishy here.
Remember the golden rule in crypto "Not your key, Not your coins".

First, may I ask a question?
Did you trust this friend?  Do you have contact with him?
If so, that sounds safe but don't trust it at all.

If your fund or crypto is stocked on the exchange, you must pull them out to the wallet that you're the only one that has control over it.
Learn more about how to create a wallet and how it works.
https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet?step=1

For beginners, ask for advice from people you know and know if it is the best choice. but still, a good mentor will not force him to get or know what he is not supposed to know.
I also got a mentor and my friend to open an exchange account and even how to trade. but he always doesn't want to know anything related to my account or wallet. he gives me what I ask and directs me, but he knows the boundaries of what he needs to know and what he doesn't.
what we need to be aware of is this. Choosing a mentor or anyone is indeed difficult. Especially when it comes to money, we still have to be wary of everything.

It's more reason why you should start learning them now, while it's still very early. Sometimes I see a lot of high ranked members on the forum asking questions that I expected to be answered by them but then I remember that no one is an island of knowledge. We all can learn at anytime but the best time to learn these things is at the very start when you are just getting into crypto. This way, no one will be able to decive you or anything. And in your case, you would not be looking for a friends help.

At my early stage, when I newly got into cryptocurrency, i had only a few friends who knew the basics. I learned from them, starting with how to create a wallet and keep my seeds safe. Joining this forum helped me understand everything better. Now, I teach others about wallets who don't know much. If I hadn't been eager to learn early on, I wouldn't be able to do this.

It's good to take precautionary measures when you're doing money transactions, no matter the person that's involved, whether it's a friend or stranger, especially when you're sharing your sensitive personal information. The person might not use your information to scam you, it could be a third party that got access to the person's information, that is why you should've asked him to delete the screenshot that you shared with him or if you think that some information sent to him can compromise your wallet, then it's best to move your coins from it.

Learn everything you want to learn from him, but do not trust a soul with your money, in the past history books many powerful men were betrayed by their friends, even families, do not add up to that list all because you trust someone.

I am not saying that you have a bad friend but they can lose their senses when it comes to money, just for safety precaution, after everything is done between you two, create a new crypto wallet and send your assets into the new wallet you just created.

Do not take screenshots of your wallet seed.

Keep your recovery seed to yourself only, in a safe offline location.

Cloud storages or any online space like email are bad idea for storing recovery seeds.

OP, a topic for children. You are an adult, hopefully, and should understand that anything you do on the Internet can easily become a trap, especially when it comes to your finances. Therefore, learn on your own; you don’t need these problems with sending screenshots; such things can end up not only with your “trusted” friend. If you understand what needs to be done, check everything many times; if not, then study without haste. But the very raising of such a topic unnecessarily should be obvious to normal people, and is simply not worth a thousand words.

The only thing you should be careful about is not sharing your seed phrase and private key with anyone. Those are the only ways to enter and access your wallets and transfer funds out of it, if you don't share those with anyone then you're totally safe.

You should also be careful to not send any funds to a wallet address that's not yours because most crypto transactions are irreversible and sending your funds to a unknown wallet will lead to loss of those funds. Never trust anyone with your sensitive data, and never install software that someone sends you.

Your crypto wallets are just like your bank accounts, but with wallets you're the owner of everything however with bank accounts you are just controlling the account with limits and restrictions set out of higher authority. So always keep your crypto wallets, their seed phrases, and private keys safe.

I don’t know what exchange you’re using but P2P transactions are quite straightforward in most exchanges. Any problem you encounter can be resolved by sending a message to the support team or you could search on google for how to fix the problem. Like in most situations, the information needed to solve the problem is available on the internet yet people are more than willing to risk their privacy and their funds to avoid doing their own research.

I did not see you mention anything about the problem you had or the steps you took to solve the issue.

OP did say he was cautious not to give out his seed phrase or private key. Also his friend didn’t ask for it. I wonder if OP would have declined his help if he did. 

You must have a minimum level of knowledge to distinguish between what could be deception and fraud and what your friend can help you with or even the support team from the platform, and if they ask you for your password or verification data, you should not give it to them.
Therefore, investing in cryptocurrencies without a minimum of knowledge may lead you to lose your investments, either through a fraudster or giving them to a friend so that he can help you and withdraw those currencies after a week or a month.

When it comes to wallet you have to be extremely careful even as a novice because the person putting you through on what to do is experience and you don't have to trust anyone when it is matter about your wallet.  Their is no help you can't get online when you do your own research. The challenge you are going through of not understanding somethings about the wallet,  if you take your time make research and read you will get the understanding you want. This may take sometime trying to get better understanding but it is better than when you meet someone you don't really know the intention of what may happen.  For safety of your fund learn more on how to solve problems that is concerned with your wallet.  It is not difficult and you can do if you really want to solve it your self.

If you are that many newies who do not know the difference between sharing the address and sharing the seed phrases, then you should learn before you invest on a large scale. You cannot rely on others or your friends. In this story, you said that you asked for help. Your friend did not knock you to help but you were the first to ask for help.

If you cannot trust him even though you haven't shared your seed pharse, you should not ask for the help. If some of my friend ask for a help and later see me with suspicion, I won't help such friend in the future. Ask for help only if you trust me otherwise don't ask for help. Do your own research and do it for yourself.

If I am your friend, and I find out that while you asked for my help, you were highly suspicious of me, I will not be willing to help you later when you need my help again.
Instead of me to render my help next time, I will help show you the place where you can get the knowledge of how to do it yourself which is the best.

This is a good reminder for most of the newbies. When some of my friends asks me about this, I'm giving a disclaimer as soon as they've asked me anything related to crypto. First, that I'll never earn anything from them unless I give them a referral link of mine which I don't usually do. Next, is that the private keys or seed phrases shouldn't be given to anyone even if the intention of the person they're talking to is good about helping them. It should be only them that must know that information because if it's given away then they should just say goodbye to their hardearned asset. It is the reason why it is important to learn even the simplest and most basic thing about wallets and newbies shouldn't trust anybody quickly if the matter is about them helping about wallets and always verify what's being taught to you guys.

Don't let anyone help you out on crypto wallet.

If there is anything you don't understand about crypto wallet, do research on your own, ask questions on the forum and you will be guide right.

Crypto wallets are supposed to be created without the presence of your friends and even your family members, they must be private.

I happen to know someone who asked a friend to help him to open a crypto wallet and this same person lost all his assets weeks later, since I advised him to never ask anyone to help him open a crypto wallet he has never lost his assets again.

I just want to say that doing trades or moving funds in and out of exchange is not at all a complicated process, exchange made it very simple and the only thing we need to do is just copy paste. So just get yourself familiar with that then you won't be in need of help from anyone.
As others pointed out, don't trust your money with anyone but what you did is not really risky you just asked for a guidance and the person at the other end has no way of taking your money, but keep out always.

You know this advice of not wanting anyone to help you out in the crypto space is actually for someone who already has direction already. For example this forum will be a perfect please to at least get the members help you but how do some people find way to this forum? It is still through some friends or family members. Also there are some things that some individuals actually need guidance because they hardly grasp some things just through reading. So I will rather say after a friend guides you on something, try back testing or recreating that same thing again and move your funds outta your wallet.

Okay, so let me understand this.

You encountered a problem and couldn't solve it. You reached out to a friend whom I assume you trust. But then you started becoming suspicious of this person even though you knew they were the one among your circle of friends who could help you out.

After this, what did you learn? Your lesson shouldn't be just about being alert when someone helps you with a wallet issue. Your lesson should be to start doing your own research, taking courses on bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and wallets so that you don't have to put yourself in a position where you suspect your friends.

This is an exchange wallet and no seed phrase is available that his friend can copy and access his wallet. He should just be wary of the informations he was sending to him, and shouldn’t let him have or see the information that can be used to access his wallet. Email, phone numbers or user ID should be kept private from him because if he has access to them, getting the passwords can be guessed if he’s very close to you or can use phishing links through your email or number to make you give out your login details out of ignorance. So be careful with activities like this in your wallet including a third party.


Oh nice idea, if he can stick to that also, it’ll help reduce asking others for help or guide which in real sense it is not bad if you trust the person in question but just need to be cautious about it. Going for more research about crypto and bitcoin is something everyone does or loves to do, but when it comes to some part, they still have to engage those who are better than them for the first time in order to get a grasp of it from that time henceforth. What he was taught is a lesson research on its own, he won’t ask again next time and have learned new thing.

Op, from your explanation you sounded like someone who's already had experience with wallet and security, I wonder why you had to involve a third party to handle your pending transaction when you can possibly ask questions here or through Google to get the problem solved, your story may be true but if you had pending transactions that involves sending screenshots of your wallet and some personal information that could lead to another person having access to your wallet, I think you need to have a change of wallet because you never know if you have sent an information that you are not supposed 5o send because you appear to be restless from your post because you suspect that the person you reached out for help has had some information about your account that you don't really know so to avoid lost of funds, it is better you handle little issues with this by yourself or by someone whom you really trust, though don't give a total trust to anyone when it involves your account, your wallet and your privacy.

So, I guess that he isn't your friend anymore? You made very primitive mistake, but I'm not going to mock your for it. You shouldn't share such things with anyone, even if it's your friend. When things comes to money, friendships often ends. Like probably you wouldn't share your bank account details with anyone, same should be with crypto. And also, put 2FA on your exchange account.
If you know this friend face to face, in your place I would find him and try to talk politely with him to resolve situation. If that doesn't help, then I would kick his ass badly. If you know this friend only from online conversations, then you will have to accpet this storry as expensive lesson.

One of the things we learn from this is:
not to trust anyone completely. Remain alert and also careful with various matters related to your wallet and its contents, related to transactions, related to requests for filling in personal data and other important data. Also related to requests to send several tokens or coins suddenly. Never mind in the online world, in the real world, often, someone who claims to be a "friend" can fool us into borrowing money and in the end just walk away and disappear without a trace.

especially in the online world, where it is very easy to carry out various kinds of fraud and other acts like that. especially when we need help because of our confusion, it can really be one of the ways they can easily fool us and then succeed in taking our assets quite easily. Yes indeed, not everyone is like that. But what is certain is that we must be more vigilant and not easily trust other people.

Apparently non of the screenshots shared with him details about my wallets seed phrase or accessories secrets to my wallet.
I actually trusted him so much but I just have to be much careful that's why I was so concious about it all.
So with my sense of sensitivities during that period, I felt some persons in my position might not be so vigilant and conscious to such situations and that's why I shared this storylines here so that we don't have to even over trust those who assists us to some extends when we're stranded.
Trust but having every moves suspicious would actually save us some regrets of time.

Even though you found it comfortable enough to share some of your details while requesting some help from a friend you trusted, In crypto you don't trust anyone completely just like you said you were paying attention to how he was asking questions and the kind of questions you he was asking and that was basically because you have a little security knowledge because had it been it involves someone who doesn't have much security knowledge they would not have cared about the kind of information they are giving out that is why it is important to have a little knowledge about security so that you don't get scammed why trying to get help even if it is from a reliable person because people changes all the time, so someone you trust may betray your trust when it involves money.

There's nothing wrong in trusting or sharing your challenge with a friend, but people do crazy things when money is involved and sometimes they go to the extent of betraying their friendship. It's not my business what you do with your funds or who you go to for help, but next time if you've a wallet challenge, I'd advise that you get help from the forum where there's zero tendency of being misled or deceived, rather than reaching out to a friend.

This is where a thing called "knowledge" will be very helpful.
As they say. "Knowledge is power" so your knowledge will help you solve these type of problems.

My suggestion is that, don't use any wallet that you aren't familiar with. I mean there are some wallets out there that are user-friendly, and there are some that might be a bit complex for some, but if you have a bit of knowledge about the basics of wallets, you will learn how to use it very easily. In my time that I'm involved with cryptocurrency, I didn't try to ask for help thru PM with other people regarding my problem when it comes to wallets, or transactions etc. It's because you can make a quick google search on how to solve it, and sometimes, just asking for their customer support will solve your problem (if it's a transaction problem). Nevertheless, this is still a good advice to all of the newbies out there because they're the most prone to scams since they don't have any knowledge whatsoever.

Like what I'm always saying, always be vigilant especially now that we are almost entering the bull market already. Scammers, and those who want to take your assets are always there waiting for the perfect time. :)

Do things yourself then, you have the internet and Bitcointalk to help you, ask questions here and search online to see if you can get a guide to help you solve your problem. If you grant someone access to your wallet, they can steal your seed phrase and import your wallet into their device and then steal your coins.

The wallet you are talking about here is an exchange wallet. Though you should not keep your assets in a centralized exchange, but the person helping your out cannot steal your seed phrase, because you do not have any when you use an exchange wallet, they can only deceive you to send your assets to a wrong address that they control.

A good observation OP, you observed the whole process and make sure the person guiding you did not make any suspicious move in attempting to scam you or move your funds to his or another wallet that is not yours.
But I want you to know that it is also possible to scam you if you keep sharing screenshots always because you might make mistake and send a sensitive information to someone and you might get scammed.

Since you said you get P2P problem in an exchange, I think you are safe because exchanges don’t use private keys to access them, you only need email or phone number with passwords to access your exchange accounts. That means there is nothing wrong in sending screenshots.

Well op what i just understand here is that you don't need to be entirely relying on someone most times you have to seat on your own to make your personal research and handle things the way it should look like than totally relying on your friend, most time your friend could be so much occupied in way that he can't find out time to run it with you or come to teach you how it works. What i understand about here is that is open place where you can learn things on your own and make personal research at same time you can testrun them to see if they actually work as you planned or not, if they don't then you can seek the opinion of the elites to helps look into it and by the time they confirmed themselves and noticed is not correct then they have to correct you.
Keep in mind that you don't need to share exchange password with anyone, neither are you to share 2fa with someone else to reduce you the risk of losing your asset.

Being here as a member is a peck and there's always a popular saying in my side of the world that, 'person wey ask question, no dey miss road o'. That is, when someone asks questions for directions, they do not miss their way.

A newbie investor can use the guide of any close person but should limit certain access to certain key information like the seed phrases and passwords. Also, try to leave the wallet empty to a standard such that even if someone were to want to steal your funds, they would find nothing in it.
For large investment however and for intended traders, use a broker after you have learnt to handle your wallet or not, and try to be independent mostly limiting the kind of information we disclose.

I could only think of sensitive information is private key, seeds, pin and passwords and these data are usually filtered out in the screen so such way is impossible to scam or trick a user, unless you click and provided the info needs on the link that provided by that user (scammer) which usually a phishing link or malware/keyloggers. Nevertheless it's good to be wary as always for strangers trying to help you even they sound like a very kind person in the internet.

because the context here is that as a beginner investor, it is more advisable to use small amounts of money while learning everything. So when the person guiding us turns out to have bad intentions such as stealing funds, we can still feel relieved because it's not the actual investment money that's big.

Your instinct was right to be on alert. So many weird stuff are happening in this crypto space. Most times those we call friends are even those who exploit our vulnerability.

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Except he was taking you round in circles to get you confused, otherwise there's nothing confusing about copying and pasting of wallets. It's a simple process that doesn't require going forth and back. Anyway, it's soothing to read that you resolved the issue without turning a victim. I believe that smartness of yours can be attributed to knowledge gained on the forum. Keep it up.

I have read what you mentioned in your story, OP. It would be best not to rely on anyone in your financial and investment matters, no matter who they are. You should be familiar and knowledgeable with everything you do yourself.

What you did wrong was transfer your funds to an exchange wallet to try the P2P feature without gaining any necessary experience or knowledge or access to any article instructions and guidance and all the risks and difficulties that you may face when doing this. Also, if your claims were valid regarding your friend, his directions and requests would have been traps for you, and this is indeed what the vast majority of scammers do to gain the victim's trust to carry out their requests, whether it's depositing in a fraudulent exchange platform or ponzi scheme, or connecting his wallet to one of the phishing sites, or sending his seed phrases and private keys to them. Therefore, for those unfamiliar with the basics of this field, how to secure their wallets and assets from scammers, and the drawbacks of centralized exchanges and methods to use them, the help they will receive 100% will not be in their interest.

I was surprised when he started with an exchange and ended up saying seed phrase. What you said was possible to happen but I don't just think the guy in the other side is that savvy to be that smart.

Exchanges especially the centralized ones are known for user friendliness. The UI/UX is not that complicated for anyone not to follow up. It could be that OP narrated what he thinks is possible to happen but didn't just happen.

Just trust no one if it's about wallets, crypto balances, etc. Whether you're new or not, don't trust anybody because if you've seen the news in the past.

There have been incidents that they're attacked with a $5 wrench and the other were even worst. Got kidnapped because they know that you've got some crypto money.

Actually, your problem is easier because it's on the exchange and all you have to do if you've got concerned is to contact the exchange to do the help for you.

So, all of the possibilities that will be threatening to you because you've already disclosed that you're holding some funds there could happen to you.

You're right. The encounter was very much risky and I also don't have to trust excessively because I don't know what's in the mind of the other.
Beside they are actually operations that I'm supposed to do by myself and I only owe to research and consult without sharing my wallet screenshots as I did because there could be slight mistakes of me to had shared some of my private keys without being aware or the risky exposure.

I should really adapt to do lot of privacy works by myself because such as a helper may not be there always in helping out.
Hopefully I'm urged to had learnt some lessions out of the replies got here.

It is definitely a cause for suspicion if a person comes forward to help you for no reason and if that help is in the case of your wallet. Wallet is a very important thing, no matter how much we invest if our wallet is not secure but our money will not be safe and if money is not safe there is no point in investing there. There are many such fraudsters who will message you on Telegram or any other site by themselves and through the message they will try to know your wallet information. As a strategy to get information, they will point out various problems of your wallet in front of you unnecessarily, so if you are confused by hearing these words, you will share some information of your wallet with them and this information is enough for them to cheat. If the private information of the wallet can be saved, then the wallet does not have much problem, I think we have to be careful not to fall into the trap of such fraudsters.

I agree with you, there're definitely dubious people in this Crypto sphere would may disguise to be good Samaritans to help you out from a needy or even when you make a public post in need of help pertaining your wallet, a lot of them would show helpful interests to you claiming to really help while they're of selfish mindedness just garnering to get access to your wallet.
Sometimes they may sincerely help but keeping your wallet on watch to steal your funds in a way that you wouldn't even have to them on suspect.

Well as long as you don't disclose your seed phrase to him I think your account is still safe, but you really need to be careful because those who happens to be your close friend can even do beyond what you think nor imagine that they could do. I hardly trust people due to the things that is happening nowadays, if I May ask this friend of yours did you met him in social media or you see him often times? Because most people can pretend to help you when they're indirectly gaining access to your wallet.