BTC-E Experience

[rdnkjdi]

Wasn't real sure where to put this - but I wanted to relate my experience on BTC-E as a warning.

I signed up and transferred about $3,000 worth of bitcoins into the exchange thinking I'd get litecoins and pull them into a local wallet.  I was uber moron and didn't set up 2 factor authentication.  I woke up and my account was hacked.  Gmail alerted me - the hacker did the following (probably using a keylogger).

A - Accessed my email
B - De-activated my email
C - Changed my account email on BTC-E
E - Re-activated my email

Within six hours of this happening - I opened a BTC-E ticket.  I had had the same login at btc-e for nearly a year.  They told me they would freeze my funds then a week and a half went by with repeated posts and no responses.  I opened new tickets and they closed them.  At one point the perp tried to take over my support account - and I was able to get him out.  Using his email address - I am pretty sure I tracked him down - he wrote a white paper on security and is from china (long story) - guess he's worth his weight in gold.

I sent him a nasty email - then all hell broke loose.  He was monitoring my conversation on facebook (another secuity foopa on my part) with a chick I was talking to.  She got a friend request from a buff military guy from the state we were talking about moving to - and started asking if she lived alone.  Not sure how - but he managed to infect her computer and shut it down.  Within 3 min of her calling his broken Chinese bluff and blocking him.  He then started adding her friends.  I have had various other problems that I would not have believed possible after malware and virus scans. 

Anyway - back to BTC-E.  After a week and a half of repeated "I was hacked!!! Do not release funds - I received the following support ticket.

Code:

Name of sender: ALEXANDER PLATANISIOTIS

Bank Name: COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA

Intermediary Bank - CITIBANK - CITIUS33(SWIFT CODE) 

Ticket Details
Ticket ID: PEO-124-39672
Department: Wire Transfer
Type: Issue
Status: Open

After receiving this I logged back into my BTC-E account.  Every ticket - including the open one I had submitted were not closed.  They were deleted - vanished.  I have the emails to prove they were there.  As far as I know this has to be done on the BTC-e side (the hacker was able to close my tickets when he got in early on within the first few hours of me opening them.  But not since.)




Soooo - some words of wisdom

First - Use two factor authentication ON YOUR EMAIL and on your exchange.

Second - Be careful of BTC-E.  They probably won't help if something goes wrong.


P.S.  If BTC-e makes it right and gives me my account back - I'll post back here.

[Siegfried]

Were you using Windows?

[franky1]

your blaming BTC-E for your own stupidity.

firstly after knowing you got hacked. you continued using btc-e and their support ticket. DUDE someone had a trojan horse on your computer and you think changing your password would protect you?

im sorry but you should have backed up your personal files and wiped the computer to factory settings. but instead you thought you would complain to BTC-E and then blame them if funds were lost.

seriously!?
instead of talking to your girlfriend casually you should have said "sorry cant talk i need to reset my computer".

BTC-E MAY help by freezzing your account, but its not their rule or responsibility. you need to own up to your failures and secure your stuff.

now for the advice part. BTC-E also have a skype support. simply tell them your username/email to locate who you are in their exchange (they wont ask for passwords) and ask them if they can lock down your account. it also helps if you use google translate to put your request into russian. when i contact them i paste in both english and russian. and they normally respond quick.

skype: btc-e.support

and i would seriously wipe your computer back to day one. its not just a keylogger you got as how would he know your girlfriends name. unless you typed in FaceBook.com/HerName a keylogger would not know what page you were on, all it would see was the messages, so its most probably a screen capture/browser hack or both combined with a keylogger.

last thing
look at anything you downloaded in the last week that is bitcoin related. and reply with those things. others that may have been hacked may see some similarities. that way with a majority of peoples opinions on the software downloaded around the time of the hack, usually results in a confident final program which you all downloaded. and then warn others to avoid.

i personally never put programs on the PC i use to trade on. unless i compiled it myself. because in your case $3000 is at risk and in my case alot more. so secure yourself better. these exchanges are not federal banks with large insurance polices, and enforcement agencies backing them. you have to be your own security guard.

thats the whole point of bitcoins. their yours to own, manage and secure.

and lastly, if you have lost the $3000 im sorry to hear it. i hope you can take the hackers email to the police, although he maybe in china/australia or wherever. i just hope you have better luck in the future

[rdnkjdi]

your blaming BTC-E for your own stupidity.

firstly after knowing you got hacked. you continued using btc-e and their support ticket. DUDE someone had a trojan horse on your computer and you think changing your password would protect you?

im sorry but you should have backed up your personal files and wiped the computer to factory settings. but instead you thought you would complain to BTC-E and then blame them if funds were lost.

seriously!?
instead of talking to your girlfriend casually you should have said "sorry cant talk i need to reset my computer".

BTC-E MAY help by freezzing your account, but its not their rule or responsibility. you need to own up to your failures and secure your stuff.

now for the advice part. BTC-E also have a skype support. simply tell them your username/email to locate who you are in their exchange (they wont ask for passwords) and ask them if they can lock down your account. it also helps if you use google translate to put your request into russian. when i contact them i paste in both english and russian. and they normally respond quick.

skype: btc-e.support

and i would seriously wipe your computer back to day one. its not just a keylogger you got as how would he know your girlfriends name. unless you typed in FaceBook.com/HerName a keylogger would not know what page you were on, all it would see was the messages, so its most probably a screen capture/browser hack or both combined with a keylogger.

last thing
look at anything you downloaded in the last week that is bitcoin related. and reply with those things. others that may have been hacked may see some similarities. that way with a majority of peoples opinions on the software downloaded around the time of the hack, usually results in a confident final program which you all downloaded. and then warn others to avoid.

i personally never put programs on the PC i use to trade on. unless i compiled it myself. because in your case $3000 is at risk and in my case alot more. so secure yourself better. these exchanges are not federal banks with large insurance polices, and enforcement agencies backing them. you have to be your own security guard.

thats the whole point of bitcoins. their yours to own, manage and secure.

and lastly, if you have lost the $3000 im sorry to hear it. i hope you can take the hackers email to the police, although he maybe in china/australia or wherever. i just hope you have better luck in the future

Hey - I agree with the "Your own stupidity" thing.  Wholeheartedly.  Computer is no longer in use.  Tried the skype thing a few times - no answer on IM's or calls.

The point is - BTC-E freezing my account with no response.  And then continuing to release funds.  It feels like they shouldn't have a support ticket if they are going to refuse to respond.  I failed at many intervals to lock things down.  

BTC-e is NOT responsible for my account loss.  I do feel they are responsible for pretending to provide support tickets at this point.

[franky1]

BTC-e support is not a 24/7 emergency support team with a 2 minute response time. they are like most other support company with something like a 48 hour response.

i personally have use the support and in ALL instances they have solved the issue.

but when the issue is a hacker having a keylogger on your system or a backdoor trojan from a download you done. still allowing the hacker access to your personal info for as stated by you over a week and a half..

i think you should be advising people not to trust all the downloads that are crypto related unless verified by well known and trusted sources. i bet you even still have the trojan on your system now, or did you finally reset your computer to factory settings?

[rdnkjdi]

BTC-e support is not a 24/7 emergency support team with a 2 minute response time. they are like most other support company with something like a 48 hour response.

i personally have use the support and in ALL instances they have solved the issue.

but when the issue is a hacker having a keylogger on your system or a backdoor trojan from a download you done. still allowing the hacker access to your personal info for as stated by you over a week and a half..

i think you should be advising people not to trust all the downloads that are crypto related unless verified by well known and trusted sources. i bet you even still have the trojan on your system now, or did you finally reset your computer to factory settings?

No, I am not using that computer.  It is shut off.  & I am using double authentication with gmail.  And it will be reset to factory settings before it connects to a network\internet again.

I never said anything about expecting a 15 minute response time.

There is a middleground between 15 minutes and 10 days that is appropriate to say "Sorry bub - we released your funds" or "Here is your account back" or "Please provide us with more information."

They have deleted multiple tickets and forced me to open new ones.  I have no clue what is going on.  A completely closed black box.

[rdnkjdi]

I said I would reply if BTC-e ever got back with me.  Here is what happened that finally seemed to get a response.

I put a ticket in for "I need to change my email" - in addition to the "I've been hacked".  They told me I would need to provide original finance amounts, IP Address activity.  I did all this and more.  When I woke up this morning - they said "Done" and I have my email back.

For anybody who runs into this here is what I provided

IP Addresses where most transactions happened.
Screenshot of BTC transfers in from source
List of BTC transfers in with dates
Username
Email to change to
Link back to this thread

[raspcoin]

Do not use an unsecure operating system when dealing with money. I hope this experience will be a valuable lesson for the future. Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

[rdnkjdi]

Do not use an unsecure operating system when dealing with money. I hope this experience will be a valuable lesson for the future. Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

I use windows on a day to day basis for business.  Is a clean linux virtual machine with a firewall as good as a dedicated mac or linux laptop?

[raspcoin]

Do not use an unsecure operating system when dealing with money. I hope this experience will be a valuable lesson for the future. Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

I use windows on a day to day basis for business.  Is a clean linux virtual machine with a firewall as good as a dedicated mac or linux laptop?

For offline wallets, it is generally recommended to create a completely isolated working environment by booting a distribution of you choice from a liveCD. However, a clean virtual machine should suffice for online trading.