Bitcoin Forum

Ok...I was supposedly paid by someone and they sent bitcoin to my blockchain account.  The dollar amount shows up, but I cant send, transfer or spend any of them. It is an imported account and it says I need the private key.  How do I get that?  I will pay the first person who helps me .5 bitcoin.

Tim notsobrite

What software are you using? How did you import the account? From where?

You were most likely scammed.
That's a watch only address.
You imported an Address, not a private key.
Anyone can import a bitcoin ADDRESS to watch the "balance" and transactions of the address, but unless you have the private key to that address, you can't spend from it.
So if the person gave you just a bitcoin address to import then he scammed you.
For example, this is Bitfinex's cold wallet Address: 3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r
It contains billions of dollars worth of bitcoin, everyone can see the amount and transactions, but only Bitfinex can spend from it because only they have the private key.
You can import that Address into your blockchain.info wallet to WATCH the address, but that DOES NOT mean you can spend from it.

It may be to late now, but take a look at the formats of private keys to avoid this problem in the future: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key

An address only start with a 1 or a 3. Unless, it's a segwit address which starts with bc1. bc = Bech32, but will always have a 1 after it. Whenever you are sending Bitcoin to an address (thes ones which start with 1, 3, or if segwit bc1) make sure you have access to the private key which corresponds to that address. You can import this into a desktop wallet such as Bitcoin core to verify if the private key is indeed to the address you are sending too.

Where did you get this address from to import it into your wallet? You should never import any address that you haven't actually generated.

Where did you get the imported wallet?

You must provide complete details of your issue from blockchain. Like the other said maybe you put a public key and your wallet from blockchain is a watch-only wallet.

You can get the private key in the wallet where you get your imported wallet.

Do you have any seed phrase save? If you had the seed phrase you can recover it in blockchain here https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/recover

I assume you are talking about blockchain.info account, if not please do tell more
Did you give him an address from your account/wallet to get paid?
or you imported an address given by him to your account/wallet?
if what happened was the latter then I believe you've been scammed :-[

For almost sure you used the blockchain.info account and you have been scammed... It may be the painful lesson for the future :(

The rapid development of bitcoin everybody competes to get as much as bitcoin which justifies various ways. I think you have been cheated, be careful with the presence of a new person you are not convinced of. Fraud is a painful thing for us