Blockchain.info support HAS SAVED MY ASS (januar 2016 SOLVED)

[sowwhite]

----UPDATE AS OF 22.02.2016 ---

I HAVE ACCESS TO MY BITCOIN WALLET AGAIN ! THE NEW CODE TO FIND SPECIAL CHARACTERS HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED AT BLOCKCHAIN

NOT ONLY GOT I MY 1500 EURO WORTH OF BITCOINS BACK - BUT I GET A COOL TSHIRT TOO !

the original message below - the resolve in the comments! (as usual with screenshots)

[spoiler]
i thank the whole blockchain team for their combined effort to again give me my access to my coins. you guys truly rock
[/spoiler]

hi everyone.

first of all - this is my very first post here and i basically just want to give you guys insight on my experience with the blockchain support which is currently doing its best to help me recover my lost wallet identifier.

if you are only interested in the pw advise scroll down to the bottom but i would really appreciate if you read through all of this these guys deserve some thanks every once in a while!

a special shoutout goes to alyson from the blockchain fb support and jade from the support desk! im happy you guys gave me the allowance to make our conversations public ! (if you recognise a crying teenager losing its shit: thats most likely me)

now: the issue is not yet resolved ! so while i feel calmed and in good hands, the hopefully good result has yet to come

but after googling about my problem and hearing a lot about slow support or ignored messages i just feel the need to give you an example of a "good" support from blockchain which is currently all i am looking for.

here is the initial problem:

i created 2 wallet on january 23rd. both with the same password. the first sometime around noon to which i received almost 6 bitcoins. the second some hours later in a different browser session.

after creating the second wallet i logged off and logged in the first wallet to transfer funds via bitmixer to the second.

everything went perfect. all my funds were now in my second wallet and i transferred them to my exchanger to cash them out !
unfortunately blockchain was down some time at that time. 4 bitcoins were still remaining. and while i got sleepy (it was 2am already at my place) i sloppily closed both, my tor browser and my editor

WITHOUT SAVING THE IDENTIFIER

the second i closed the tab i knew i royally fucked up.

i felt like i had to vomit. thats above 1500 euros i just flushed down the toilet. didnt i?

i had a very very very bad night in which i got almost no sleep. quick googling gave me the impression, asking the helpdesk will not change anything

at sunday morning at 9 o clock i still wrote the support, explaining my situation

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565486/jade1.png.html

since i created the first wallet previous to the second, i still had all the informations to it from a previous safe point.

i did not set up  an email, an alias, an sms or had the IP i created the second wallet with. ONLY THE PASSWORD AND THE DATE.

and just 20 minutes later! i already got a receive from jade, asking me for my details to test it against every identifier (yes, including the password) on a fucking sunday!

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565487/jade2.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565488/jade3.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565489/jade4.png.html

i also wrote to the blockchain facebook support, asking for advice -  at that time i was shaky and trembling all over the place.

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565480/alyson1.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565481/alyson2.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565482/alyson3.png.html


however alyson made an incredible job at calming me down, telling me there is a great chance to restore my lost identifier

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565483/alyson4.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565484/alyson5.png.html


---

a day passed and i got a reply from jade again who searched through every wallet created from 20th january to now: neither of my 2 wallets could have been found !the password i gave him was apparently not matching any wallet at all!

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565490/jade5.png.html

i was shocked and instantly began to tremble again. but wait: why could it not be found?

i tried to logg in the first wallet i created and which login-infos i still have and...it worked PERFECTLY

i immediately wrote to jade, firstly to thank him for all his effort and secondly to give him the complete login
informations (identifier and password) from that wallet

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565491/jade6.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565492/jade7.png.html


at the same time i was writing with alyson again, telling her about jades result.

since i am from germany i created my password with german letters (ü and ß) and my guess was, that blockchain can not find these characters, when testing them against identifiers

and apparently i was right: alyson told me, she talked with jade and mandrik and it seems german letters are not supported in their backend. they are running some testings and will keep in touch with me. which was on monday

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565485/alyson6.png.html


which leads us to this experience i am currently writing: not only does the blockchain support is currently helping me retrieving my lost identifier, but we apparently also discovered a possible improvement to be made for their backend to succesfully support people with a similar problem as mine

as of now: if you create a password for your wallet DO NOT USE GERMAN LETTERS (or maybe even other "non regular" letters)
since your identifier can not be found this way!!

so:

while i still do not have my identifier and bitcoins back, i am just RELIVED by the way the support and especially alyson managed
to calm me down when i was about to lose my mind and suffer a mental breakdown !

i will update this with every piece of new information i get: but for no i just want to say a big

THANK YOU JADE, ALYSON, MANDRIK, DEVELOPER WHO MAYBE HAS UGLY WORK TO DO BECAUSE OF ME BEING DUMB and THANK YOU BLOCKCHAIN

[OROBTC]

...

I have had two "things go wrong" when working w/ blockchain.info.  Both were resolved just fine after back & forth with their support team (some of whom are individuals you mentioned above).  Both incidents happened over a year ago.

1)  I had a SharedCoin mixing go wrong, they suggested a remedy, and it worked.

2)  I had a wallet protected by 2FA, yet the BTC disappeared (about $400 IIRC), after back & forth, I got the BTC back.

So, just keep at it with them, be courteous.  As long as they CAN do something about it, they probably will.

[sowwhite]

...

I have had two "things go wrong" when working w/ blockchain.info.  Both were resolved just fine after back & forth with their support team (some of whom are individuals you mentioned above).  Both incidents happened over a year ago.

1)  I had a SharedCoin mixing go wrong, they suggested a remedy, and it worked.

2)  I had a wallet protected by 2FA, yet the BTC disappeared (about $400 IIRC), after back & forth, I got the BTC back.

So, just keep at it with them, be courteous.  As long as they CAN do something about it, they probably will.

hey, yeha its incredible. im used to stock-stiff customer support from all the companies i used to be in contact with. especially here in germany. it feels weird. i know i dont have access to my bitcoins but somehow i am not as much worried as i actually should be. the whole atmoshphere is...friendly, calm. and helpfull

i thank you for your input. its good to hear from stories where things have taken a good end.

i will definetly keep you and everyone else interested updated for sure !

[bitbaby]

Well this is interesting, so you provided them your PASSWORD and the time when you think you created the wallet and right now they're running that password against ALL the wallets created on that day? I don't know how I feel about that.

I was under the impression that Blockchain.info NEVER asks for your password.

https://blockchain.info/wallet/security-recommendations


Although, I understand that this is a special case where you don't remember the identifier of your-OWN-wallet?? It is your own right? You're not trying to find the identifier of your brother/friend/etc's wallet of which you happen to know the password?

since i am from germany i created my password with german letters (ü and ß) and my guess was, that blockchain can not find these characters, when testing them against identifiers

and apparently i was right: alyson told me, she talked with jade and mandrik and it seems german letters are not supported in their backend. they are running some testings and will keep in touch with me. which was on monday




which leads us to this experience i am currently writing: not only does the blockchain support is currently helping me retrieving my lost identifier, but we apparently also discovered a possible improvement to be made for their backend to succesfully support people with a similar problem as mine

as of now: if you create a password for your wallet DO NOT USE GERMAN LETTERS (or maybe even other "non regular" letters)
since your identifier can not be found this way!!

And this same password works well with the other wallet you created, which you mentioned have the same password.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. No offense but it looks like social engineering spoofing to me. Which again solidifies my stance of not using web wallets at all.

[sowwhite]

Well this is interesting, so you provided them your PASSWORD and the time when you think you created the wallet and right now they're running that password against ALL the wallets created on that day? I don't know how I feel about that.

I was under the impression that Blockchain.info NEVER asks for your password.

https://blockchain.info/wallet/security-recommendations
https://i.imgur.com/yMM1RG2.png

Although, I understand that this is a special case where you don't remember the identifier of your-OWN-wallet?? It is your own right? You're not trying to find the identifier of your brother/friend/etc's wallet of which you happen to know the password?

since i am from germany i created my password with german letters (ü and ß) and my guess was, that blockchain can not find these characters, when testing them against identifiers

and apparently i was right: alyson told me, she talked with jade and mandrik and it seems german letters are not supported in their backend. they are running some testings and will keep in touch with me. which was on monday

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29565485/alyson6.png.html


which leads us to this experience i am currently writing: not only does the blockchain support is currently helping me retrieving my lost identifier, but we apparently also discovered a possible improvement to be made for their backend to succesfully support people with a similar problem as mine

as of now: if you create a password for your wallet DO NOT USE GERMAN LETTERS (or maybe even other "non regular" letters)
since your identifier can not be found this way!!

And this same password works well with the other wallet you created, which you mentioned have the same password.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. No offense but it looks like social engineering spoofing to me. Which again solidifies my stance of not using web wallets at all.

hey

yeha at first i was wondering as well. i even checked the URL and everything to see if jade is the "real" jade and its not some faked email or something who just tries to get my data.

i then googled and apparently this was used some year ago when blockchain suffered from hacking attacks where many people lost bitcoins. i found some entries from people wondering why blockchain asks for their password but the fact, that i found something at all was actually enough for me to belive its valid. i also asked alyson and she explained the concept to me again, which was pretty much the same i found in some old forum entries.

yeha the wallets i created were all mine. since i managed to do some transfers before i closed everything i even have the confirmations from bitmixer (letter of guarantee) and the receiving confirmations from my exchanger.

what you mean with social engineering spoofing?

[sowwhite]

hi everyone ! as promised here is an update on the current state of events:

alyson confirmed that the initial guess of using german characters for the password are indeed the problem, since they re-created the problem themselfses.

she will have a talk with her colleagues about how to solve my issue and will then come back to me

while it takes longer than i initially expected i am still happy about the way the dialogue commences ! she also gave me a little more insight on the whole "provide your password" thing which is around for some years now already and is used as a last resort to recover wallets

and lets be real: if you have lost every information about your wallet - would you not take the chance to recover it, even if it includes sending the company the password? i mean its the company, not some shady third party person.

but maybe i just have too little experience with bitcoins in general. but this does not attract my suspicion

here is the conversation as promised via screenshot!

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29591639/alyson7.png.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29591640/alyson8.png.html

i will keep all of you updated as soon as i have new informations !

[sowwhite]

a little update:

until now my problem is not yet resolved. i tried to contact george mandrik via facebook but he apparently blocked me after my initial message (if you read this, was it because a fb message is to personal?)

anyway

the last time i have heard something of jade was the 25th of january

the last time alyson replied to me was last thursday where she told me there is no solution yet

---

i am really starting to feel nervous again

[Kprawn]

I wonder if this is a problem with other languages too? Like Fin / Chinese with their unique character sets. They do support the Deutsch language as a option, but why

would it not accept German passwords? Point 10.3 in their https://blockchain.info/Resources/TermsofServicePolicy.pdf clearly state that they do not store any passwords

on their site. In any way, keep us updated on your progress with this, it might come in handy some day. 

[sowwhite]

I wonder if this is a problem with other languages too? Like Fin / Chinese with their unique character sets. They do support the Deutsch language as a option, but why

would it not accept German passwords? Point 10.3 in their https://blockchain.info/Resources/TermsofServicePolicy.pdf clearly state that they do not store any passwords

on their site. In any way, keep us updated on your progress with this, it might come in handy some day. 

alright here i am back with the update...

and i GOT EVERYTHING BACK

----

it took almost an entire month with constant but very friendly and competent customer support between me, alyson and jade.

then at the 20th and 16th of february alyson and jade messaged me - saying they will implement a new code in their system which will do exactly what was lacking before: searching for passwords even when they were created with special letters !

http://imgur.com/AElJHWr

https://i.imgur.com/vl5Mw3j.png

and finally, at the 22rd of february i got this message in my inbox !

---

http://imgur.com/tNygmm8

I GOT MY WALLET BACK - WITH COINS WORTH OF 1500+EURO

i will not bother you with my reply to that message since you can guess i went a LITTLE BIT overboard with my happiness but the good news didnt stop there

AFTER the whole thing was actually done already alyson messaged me again....since the whole issue took almost a complete monthly circle i will get some free blockchain swag ! YAY

http://imgur.com/tvUMq10


and right now i am trying to evaluate if i prefer a hoodi or a tshirt ! but i am sure that is a problem no one can help me with 


--

to summarize things:

i created a wallet
i lost my identifier. pneumnonic (whatever) phrase. no email setup. no alias. nothing
aside from my password and the time created i had nothing to retrieve it
BLOCKCHAIN could not retrieve my identifier since they had no means to search for special characters from the german alphabet i created my password with

instead of saying "sorry, nothing we can do" they developed and implemented a whole new code just so i could get access back to my freakin wallet

and they delivered. i was nervous during the time but they made it happen.

great thanks to ALYSON and also great thanks to JADE who accompanied me through all this time

OH AND I GET A FREE SWAG SHIRT - YAY !!!!

my final note for the support: A+ with sugar on top. never before met a company who will work on their code for one user being to dumb to lose his entire wallet informations

way to go!