If you wanna play it safe, I advise to go with those that already have a good standing in the community. This exchange is pretty new with barely any user reviews so you will be playing the risky game.

Just read your edited post and uh... are you suggesting we should talk about him less? cause that's what the man wants the most right now -- for people to forget his atrocities. Honestly, stuff like this should be talked more for awareness.

Anyway, it's weird that you didn't get anything about the man/the scandal when you looked up SBF even for the first time 

I'd say it still counts as phishing since the new owner of the domain still rides on the previous owner's name/brand.



As pointed out, your chances are low but I would still check if the scammers are dumb enough to send it directly to centralized exchanges. Can you share the address with us?

...

Did you use google? because google searches could be personalized which is probably why there's a SBF when you looked up SMF. In my case, not a single SBF showed up when I looked up SMF on google.

But whether SBF shows up when people search for SMF, SPF, and whatnot doesn't mean he becomes popular in a good way). Most people will probably ignore it because it's not what they searched for and those who become interested will see the shit show he made. I wouldn't worry about this.

Escrows must have good standing/reputation before I trust them. The marketplace is pretty new in the game and just started building their reputation so if we're talking about playing it safe, I'd say not yet, at least not with significant items/amounts.

As OSS pointed out, check your email! once you submit a support request, there should be an automated reply from coinbase that your request was received which should include your case number. If you can't find the email, try searching the keyword 'coinbase' in your account or check your spam folder otherwise you may have to do some fiddling like adding coinbase domain in your contact list as sometimes the spam filters block their emails.

The slow replies/poor support is also a common problem lol. I can only suggest to escalate your case number through their social media such as: reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/) and twitter (https://twitter.com/CoinbaseSupport). Do be careful with scammers impersonating coinbase, they’re pretty rampant especially in the subreddit.

You may also try your luck in one of the live support from here: Coinbase Support contact information

You can double check this if you're really worried, by initiating a forgot password! you should receive an error if you don't have an account associated with the said email.


Do you mean their platform buying service? afaik it's not available in indonesia (or was this country because of your vpn or something?). Was this an unsolicited email?

Could help you on this: Personal Security Checklist (note: treat it as a guide, you don't need to do everything and double check first)

It gets easier once it becomes a habit (kinda like muscle memory.) You could also use what happened today as a motivation whenever you hit a roadblock.

In case you missed it, the forum has an unofficial discord server, see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5247383.0

I know it's not telegram, but at least in discord you can block DMs from strangers. I say it's a must feature since scams DMs from crypto communities are a lot more prevalent in my experience.


If you want the opinion of bitcointalk people, taking the discussions here is still a hundred times better. One, more people will see it. Two, you'll have less worries about scammers/trollers impersonating a member from here.

I'm assuming it's self managed judging from your situation. I did make a test account to be sure and was asked to setup a 2fa. It's kinda weird that there seems to be no way to decrypt the cloud backup unless you're logged in to your account. This is the only way I found, see: https://youtu.be/XhGIMGqyUlI

I suggest informing the customer support about this and see what they can do for you since coinbase commerce hold the decryption key.


Here's a bit of hope for you op: I found a thread with a similar situation and they were able to recover the account after talking it out with the support.

It doesn't look like everyone is losing judging from their ANN thread. In any case, You could let them know about your situation in detail by posting there, they're pretty active, see: Metaspins.com - Crypto casino - Up to 60% Rakeback Wagerfree. And if eventually you think you're being scammed as well as have enough proof to back it, you could start a scam accusation about them, see: scam report format

For the other websites, you could try searching if they also have an ANN thread/account in here by attaching "site:bitcointalk.org" when you search in your search engine.

I'd do a fresh install of the OS as a lot of things are not picked up by AVs. (EDIT: I was talking about the aftermath here, when you have to get rid of the malware.)

Storing sensitive information in a notepad is also insecure. I suggest using a better authenticator app like aegis (https://getaegis.app/) which allows you to encrypt your tokens/backup files and an offline password manager that also has encryption like keepass (https://keepass.info/). They're open source and feature-packed, visit their websites to see a full list of features.

If you're not from the said region, it could've been for an entirely different reason. Are you sure the email mentioned it's aligned with anything about EU compliance? can you share a screenshot?

For alternative centralized exchange with no mandatory KYC, also see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5414539.0
Note that they can at any time request for you to verify your account. They're are also likely to get stricter over time.


I'd say it depends on the overall situation

People from the EEA needs to undergo the new verification and refusing to do so will restrict the account, see: Why Do I Need to Re-verify My Binance Account (EEA Countries)

As for holding it off, binance will give you notices before your account becomes restricted, you may refer to that. You may also check this thread for ppl's personal experiences: Binance asking for KYC, again

I doubt there's anything that could make you immune to this. In fact if these mind tricks suppresses your emotions for a prolonged period, you'll be increasing the risks to mental health issues.

That said, if you’re under extreme stress and/or is generally more vulnerable than others, you don’t really have to push yourself. Don’t get the hustle culture get into your brain so much, it’s not okay to grind until your soul get sucked out.

I don't think so. If op weren't able to connect with the live customer support, the bot will just assume one of the auto-responses solved their query. It would be best to get a confirmation from binance itself that the case has been escalated (or whatever solution they route op to).

If you don't need it, you can close your DMs from non-friends! you have the option to whitelist servers you trust as well, see: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/217916488-Blocking-Privacy-Settings-


Don't forget to also hit the "report spam" button on discord. When I can, I report to mods of mutual servers as well. Sometimes they do mass kicking of dm scammers and/or publish "be careful" announcements.

Can you try to boot from a flash drive and backup your files?

Delays in verification is something I see a lot unfortunately. To escalate your case, you would need to reach out to support. Note that the bot will try to suggest related articles first and if that doesn't solve it, you'll have the option to be redirected to a support agent, see: https://www.binance.com/en/support/faq/how-to-use-binance-support-7b0fd3ccb821483a99ff8f5cda374ee9