Bitcoin Forum

Hi all.  I recently received a BTC refund and I've NO idea where it is.  I've signed up for so many exchanges but as I'm an American living in Ireland, I usually have to delete my account.  Is there any way to see what exchange the BTC is sitting in by using the address it was refunded to?

There isn't an official way of knowing which address belongs to which exchange... You can try to use a tool like https://www.walletexplorer.com/, see if it knows your address, maybe look up the tx funding your address and look up the addresses whose unspent outputs were used to create your transaction using the same tool.

This is not a 100% certified method... Walletexplorer is just a tool that analyses the blockchain and links addresses together in wallets, then parses public info to link owners to said wallets. Sometimes you get a lucky hit tough.

Just FYI, it's a horrible idear to keep a lot of funds on exchanges. Using exchanges as a wallet often leads to loss of funds in the longterm. Seriously consider switching to a decent wallet (for example, a decent hardware wallet)

You need to try to log in on many exchanges you'd have used before, if you still remember about your email and password (with had access to 2FA etc) signed to those exchanges, then  there's a chance to get your Bitcoin.

Popular exchanges in these day are Binance, Coinbase, LocalBitcoins, Kraken, or Poloniex.

Also you can try your luck in some listed exchanges here
[1] https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/ireland/
[2] https://www.bitrawr.com/ireland

I have VERY little to be honest.  However, with the increase in value of BTC, it has grown from $100 to over $300.  Walletexplorer didn't help, but thanks.

I have just tested out https://www.walletexplorer.com/, it works perfectly, less than 5 seconds. But, what I noticed is that it has a way to link transactions from exchanges by tracking the withdrawal transactions on such exchanges. If you have not make withdrawal from the exchange, it will definitely not work, but if you have withdrawn bitcoin from the address on the exchange, it will be able to track the txid as it is connected to many addresses and know it is from the exchange, the site uses withdrawal transactions hash of such exchanges and some other sites which will be used to know the exchange.

Exchanges usually send you an e-mail when they receive a deposit (BTC or cash).

I would search my e-mail for terms like "deposit confirmed" , "deposit received" and so on. This might work.

From where you actually received BTC? Refund from where?

Do you remember anything?

Did you ever heard the wallet coinbase which is also exchange so my guess is just try to login to coinbase with the mail you remember and lets see is there anything left.

@jawhead, I have tried that.  I have a feeling it's with LiteBit but they are not communicating with me at all about resetting my account.  Apparently, though living in Europe, a US citizen can't have an account with them. 

@bitmover, I never received an email from an exchange.

@findingnemo, I remember who refunded the transaction and they are also trying to help; with no luck thus far.

Here is what I have from the blockchain: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NpUiye8kznAjJSdgxyAxorGXsHjFo59FJ

There's no reliable way to know all the wallet that belongs a certain exchange site but wallet explorer mentioned earlier can only provide information about old cold storage wallet belong to an exchange site, you can try it out if you're lucky cause to totally know the wallet that belongs to an exchange site require multiple steps or hire chain analysis or CipherTrace.

@hulla, I don't know what a tx ID is.  Is that the original transaction from me to them, or them to me?

After looking at your transaction then it certainly going into an exchange wallet but can't be able to find the actual name because not all the addresses are revealed by the exchange to public. But you can count the number of reputed exchanges available and try to login with all of them and let's see your luck?!

@find, so if I contact the sender of the refund, they can get the entire txID and then track it?

The TX is already retrievable from the blockchain address you provided (just scroll down) :
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/3db81ed4e294182c1217bea065b4f2e917016f89bbba4c88be4f63ef433c6104

What may be interesting, but probably won't lead us where you want, is to try to get information on the TX you originally sent to make the purchase/pay for the service, and then see if your original sending address takes us anywhere. That is, assuming that the original TX that made the purchase and the TX for the refund involve addresses belonging to you from the same exchange. You could try to see if the refunder can provide you that information.

About contacting the sender, you can't find information about the sender through the txid. As you can see, it's just the transaction from which it came and who the receiver is. What you can do to find out where it came from is to remember most of the exchanges you did or by remembering if something like this you did before.

Delete account, are you serious?

You will have to go to support and open a support ticket to close your account. You can simply delete your account with one click.

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You have bad back up habit so it is a lesson of loss you learned and it is time to consider password managers like Keepass
https://keepass.info/
KeePassDroid (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?hl=en&id=com.android.keepass)

After looking at the tx ID of the wallet 1NpUiye8kznAjJSdgxyAxorGXsHjFo59FJ, the wallet doesn't look like an exchange wallet and the current balance which is 0.0058BTC is still intact. Do you have any newly created wallets or can you confirm the wallet is yours? Who refunded the BTC?

Using a password manager does not guarantee any safety is the users still don't avoid human errors.

It would be a lesson learn to all who are not seriously handling their finances or asset. 100$ is huge already and it already did increase to 300$ as what the OP stated. It is a big loss actually but I think if you want to recover the money then thay would be possible.

Try to check your history in the browser if it is not yet deleted. The history of the browser could help you remember the exchanges and sites that you have visited. It will just take time but it would guarantee to check your browsing history.

If the history of the browser was deleted then try another way of remembering which exchange you are using when the refund was sent. I think since it is a refund then the exchange you are using surely be an exchange that you are known to or easy to remember since you have use to it. Just remember what exchange you like the most that time you wanted to receive the refund.

And if all things you have done will not going to work then I think the best thing to do is to move on and forget. You are not the only one who losses money. Many or some especially the business world now losses a lot due to pandemic so you are not the only one undergone stress of losses.🤔😂😂

Did the refund go to the same address the funds came from? Or did you explicitly set that address as your refund address?

And where did you send the funds from?
If you have sent them from an exchange, it is to be expected that they won't be credited to your account. Your deposit address of an exchange is not automatically the address where your withdrawals come from.