Bitcoin Forum

Hey fellow bitcoinairs so I recently thought of receiving some payments through Bitcoin for a contract deal sometime around January 10-01-22 as I newbie then looking for a wallet to use I searched google and stumble on a free bitcoin wallet all my thoughts was to get a good and fast service from the wallet, the Bitcoin was sent with network confirmation but I never receive the balance on my free Bitcoin wallet and this is running to a month now and when I contacted the support they simply told me To be relaxed that it will be processed when the technical team is done solving the problem, I have lost that deal due to my inability to meet and I was asked to send back the Bitcoin when it eventually drops in my wallet.
This act is quite unethical of a Bitcoin wallet provider.
Posting this here to warn others to desist from using the free wallet, it is better to use a none custodial wallet that you are in control of the keys to be able to restore the wallet on any other wallet provider app or site.
I have moved on to a lightning network as it gives faster transactions and low fees.

Ah, FreeWallet. Probably literally the worst cryptocurrency wallet that ever existed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/k2nfkq/my_story_of_being_scammed_by_freewallet/
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/ptzf1t/psa_freewallet_is_a_scam_avoid_report_posters_who/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/n63t65/freewallet_kyc_scam/
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/ks8ttc/i_think_i_may_have_been_ripped_off_by/

This wallet is too familiar as a scam in this forum, there have been many accusations and problems in the past and even once locked Elonmusk funds (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5316100). LOL
You can PM this guy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1177176) or their official thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2266917) if your balance has not been credited, and create a thread or move this thread on the scam accusations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0) board if you don't get a response.

They are very famous also for locking Elon Musk account  (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1359409599972007936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1359426271906852866%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcryptogeek.info%2Fit%2Fblog%2Felon-musk-and-freewallet-situation)and receive a negative promotion by him directly on twitter.
However it has been a kind of historical dispute, and for sure (after such events) I will never use their wallet (but no doubts since not my keys, not my coins).

Please find below some posts/news about this issue
https://news.bitcoin.com/musk-shoots-down-crypto-wallet-app-freewallet-after-it-tried-to-ride-his-dogecoin-fame/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5316110.0

Thanks for your reply I have contacted they support and all they could say it that there is deposits delay on their server that I have to wait for the issue to get resolved.

It's even better if you choose non custodial and open source wallet with decent reputation.


Ask them how long you'll need to wait until the "issue" resolved, IMO they expect you'll forget about the issue soon by giving vague answer.

Well, good luck if they will do what they've said.

The best thing that you can do is if you still have pending transactions and payments to receive, don't use that address anymore from freewallet.

It's better to use electrum and it's easier to use and known to be trustworthy. And before you search and download for it, make sure that it's the legitimate link because there are phishing websites that copies them.

Official electrum website --> https://electrum.org/#home

The two accounts you mentioned here are heavily tagged. I'm not convinced there's much they can do to alleviate OP's issue. I feel bad that OP didn't do embark on search before using them. It's really sad that Freewallet turned out this way. I guess it's a new development as I didn't notice such when I used the wallet a few years ago. Now, I doubt I will want to attempt using them with all the negative reviews to their credit. Who waits for a Bitcoin transaction to reflect in their wallet after a month when there isn't any reported case of congestion on the blockchain. This is unethical and appalling.

Freewallet again ;D see the problem that freewallet has is been centralised, the team keeps users private keys themselves which is wrong, any crypto project that gives users no control over their keys should be avoided at all costs.

Recommended wallets (https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/recommended-wallets.html)
Cryptowisser.com - Wallets (https://www.cryptowisser.com/wallets/)
[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum [Guide] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.0)

For all wallets, don't trust, verify. You have to verify wallets in order to know that it is a real wallet, not a phishing one. If you install a phishing wallet, and store Bitcoin in it, your Bitcoin will be stolen by scammers.

Electrum wallet is good because it is non-custodial, does not require big storage space, and it is available for desktop as well as android.

Why do you guys still use such wallets? When every bitcoin wallet is free of cost apart from hardware wallets. Even when the network is highly clogged it won't take more than a week or the transaction will be cancelled but for the last few months the fastest fee required remains 1 sat most of the time so you can go with Electrum like wallet.

This defeats the whole purpose of bitcoin! Bitcoin was created, and we use it because it doesn't need any third parties and middle men to be used. If we go back to using them through custodial wallets, then there is no reason to use bitcoin in first place.

In any case any bitcoin wallet should satisfy the following conditions:
1. Is 100% open source (even if a single component is closed source, the wallet should be avoided)
2. Is old (it has to have been around for a while)
3. Is popular so that it is reviewed by enough experts and most bugs are fixed

Open source is the whole essence of Bitcoin wallet the owner having 100% control over the operation of the wallet and in control of the private keys to secure the wallet security.

Ops I had a very bad experience with the wallet also but my mind was just delayed transaction for some days by it was later reflected on my balance, another bad feature of free Bitcoin wallet is the high fee charged on the transaction I don't know why mutant newbies always fall for that wallet thank goodness people like you are speaking out.

Just throwing this out here if its about wallets to avoid = coinomi (really really slow Exchange function compared to other wallets that have exchange function)

Is that an exchange service that Coinomi provides or do they use some third-party instant exchange? I think Coinomi has partnerships with Changelly, Simplex and maybe some other providers. If there is an issue with an exchange or a swap, Coinomi won't take responsibility for it. They will probably tell you to contact the exchange provider to find out what went wrong or they will do it for you because they aren't the ones offering the service.

You shouldn't avoid coinomi because of slowness of some third party service. You should avoid coinomi wallet because it is closed source and shady with a terrible history of doing things that have no reasonable explanations such as sending users' seed phrase to a remote server!

To spellcheck the seed words, no less. Back when that issue was discovered, I remember their forum representative saying they only did that with the desktop version, and the same way of handling your private data wasn't present in their mobile software. So they weren't putting all of their users coins at risk, just a bit of it. ::) But since the wallet is closed-source, who can verify that what they are claiming is true? No one. 

Exactly. And not just that, they could still be sending users' seed phrases to their own servers but encrypt it on your system before sending it out so that even if the user ran some sort of packet sniffer they couldn't figure out what is being sent to them and think it is the regular communication.

Than explain to me why are so many people still using ledger junk that is closed source, they leaked private customer information multiple times, their devices are full of bugs/issues and they have same third party exchanges?
I think coinomi was open source before, and this issue you are talking about it resolved, but I would still not recommend it.
People generally don't care, they use what is convenient for them, they buy what the herd is buying influenced by paid shillers commercials/youtuber advertising.

From my perspective, even the term "generally" is being used too wide sadly ... I'm still yet to find someone whom I have a discussion about Bitcoin with (in person) that has:

• Used a P2P exchange;
• Withdraw his/her money from a centralized exchange;
• Thought about the dangers of not knowing his/her private key;
• Know how BTC actually works and hasn't bought it due to the media waves from years past;

I think that a considerable part of people that do end up using hardware wallets - at least form the current era - most likely heard about them from some crypto influencer / youtube schiller, so they'll just buy whatever they tell them to buy. The danger of this kind of approach is that you end up being led to buy something that someone on the internet told you that  it's great, making you forfeit the stage where you should do your own investigation into the products that are being presented to you before making any blind purchase. I think that this % of users is still considerable because most of the Youtube audience blindly trust the information of whoever they follow, which may result in not so ... informative choices being made.

You nailed it. People generally don't care but the reason for lack of caring is lack of knowledge. They simply don't know the risks of doing that. The same way they don't fathom the risks of most of the things they do such as leaving their bitcoin on a shady centralized exchange or using a shady centralized stable altcoin that can be shut down any moment by the authorities.

When a newbie goes to Coinomi website it won't tell them of the risks or about the closed source shady history of it. Instead it toots its own horn by talking about the features and make it appear as the safest thing in existence!

I also like to listen what some youtubers have to say about about specific hardware wallet, and I like to read reviews about them, but I will always make a final decision if I will buy that wallet or not.
If anyone want's to do more deeper research and testing of some wallet they would need to actually test and use it for some time, but that is not likely to happen for most people.
I can't really speak bad things about something that I never used, and I can't make full picture of something without testing.

Maybe they have some superficial knowledge they picked up from yotube, but only minority of people is honest with reviewing wallets, maybe because majority is paid to be dishonest.

The first and last experience I have been using wallets without private keys most especially from the exchange and since only centralized exchanges like binance and the rest are the available means of doing p2p trading we used to rely on them.

Centralized p2p are just only convenient means of making p2p transactions but not the only means, there are decentralized p2p as well.

Some decentralized exchanges
https://localcryptos.com/
https://hodlhodl.com/
https://bisq.network/

Centralized exchanges can be hacked, customers do not have full control. It is not customers key it is not customers' coin on blockchain. Exchanges are better for frequently trading, but noncustododial wallet for holding. Any inactive coins on centralized exchange accounts is safer to be moved to noncustododial wallet for safety reasons.

Thank you for sharing those links of decentralized exchanges, I was not aware of such decentralized exchange that offers p2p trading, decentralized p2p exchange is safer because transaction remains anonymous. I have been skeptical about using centralized exchange p2p trading because of the risk of not just losing my coin but also illegal money being traced to my account from a scammer through p2p transactions.

Do you mean money that centralized exchanges could freeze and ask you about its origins because they suspect it's a matter of money laundering or other illegal activities? The problem doesn't disappear with decentralized exchanges. It's still there. It's just that there is no staff that will make background checks on the history of the coins. But you could still end up buying bitcoins that stem from illegal activities, hacks, etc. Tainted (although it's a very unpopular word) in one way or the other. It would even be logical to think that the risk is even greater with decentralized platforms because they are anonymous, and hence both parties don't need to identify themselves.   

Just be careful of scammers and do not involve yourself in scam activities, you can also use centralized exchange if you want. Decentralized exchanges are recommended if you are privacy conscious.

The main problem of centralized exchanges is that some people have the mentality of keeping coins on the exchange, centralized exchanges are often hacked.

Another problem is that you will not have privacy, the exchange you will be using knows almost everything about you. Even if the exchange was hacked and no coin was stolen, users' data (KYC) can be stolen which scammers can later indirectly used against the victim in fraudulent attempts.

Another big problem is that your account can be freezed at anytime, but if you are not involve in any illegal activity, you can challenge the exchange, but even if your account is gotten back, what about the inconveniences during when it was freezed. You do not have the total control of your coins because the coins are not even yours on the blockchain.

Thanks for the in-depth explanation and advice, I have been skeptical of the centralized exchange most especially in regard to users' privacy protection. I guess my choice of using a free wallet was an amateur decision and now that I know I can't make such a mistake of trusting centralized wallets anymore.

I wouldn't say that using a free wallet was an amateur decision; in fact, I don't think I've ever paid for Bitcoin wallet software. It should all be free and open-source. I do know that there exist scammers trying to sell people Electrum and sometimes those copies can even be infected; stay away from paid wallets.

Of course, if you want a hardware device it will cost money, but the software should be free.
Just get something that is open-source and verifiable (you can check a wallet's on https://walletscrutiny.com/); as second factor make sure it's at least a little bit popular. Open code doesn't help if nobody's audited it. Then as a third factor look at the features you want and need.

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Edit: I just noticed that you apparently used a wallet called 'FreeWallet'. As I said, Bitcoin wallets are always free; but since people tend to look online for stuff like 'best free Bitcoin wallet' or 'free music site' and such, these scammers chose that name so they rank high. When I say that I recommend free wallets (2 words), I mean that I recommend wallets that cost nothing to download. I would never recommend 'FreeWallet'. There's a distinction to make between the two terms; please use words carefully so it's clear what you mean.

Thanks, I got your point, I shouldn't have used the word free wallets in its entirety but should have differentiated my words, curse there are free wallets that are open source but in this case, my reference was on the official free wallet that is a close source which was a bad idea and the close source was a way to control the user in a centralized manner.

Just like the experience I hard recently with a centralized exchange where almost half of my funding wallet was wioed off simply because of a routine security check that made me unable to make transactions from the wallet until I contacted support for help.

Free wallet is a no go area for any one who value decentralization and freedom to you funds.