A little ignorance and you can lose all your holdings

[stompix]

To answer some questions. My brother is law is over 50 years old. He originally got into Bitcoin through a younger work colleague at the time and said it was beyond his technical capability. Since then, that colleague sadly passed away.

The thumb drive with all the details was recently found in a residential move which sparked my B.I.L interest to what became of it, but, the thumb drive wouldn't register (I do believe this could even be a format issue) but yeah, he's been told by this "specialist" that it was hacked and split into 7 different wallets, which why would you lie about it at all?

So, he forgets about having 276 Bitcoins, even when all over the nest there were people talking about 69k for one, he finds the drive by accident, remembers what it was and doesn't realize it's  8 millions (at that time) and takes it to a complete stranger to get the millions out of it.
And then after he told him they were lost he waits another 5 months to tell their relatives.
Common! Btw the coins haven't move one bit after that so the thief just moved them and kept on his business not taking advantage of 14 million! Not to mention he paid roughly exactly what was need for the next block, I can't imagine a guy repairing thumb drives in some shop on probably just above minimum wage being that calculated.

[nakamura12]

So the reddit post is all about a guy who wanted his data to recovered by coming to a data recovery service am I right?. He shouldn't trust someone who he doesn't know to recover a data on his hard drive to get the wallet information because he is only getting scammed because of it where the data recovery guy told him that his bitcoin is stolen. By the way, you didn't mention anything about before the recovery if the address of the wallet did have that amount of bitcoin so, let's say that there is indeed a bitcoin in that wallet but if bitcoin is stolen after the recovery guy said that his bitcoin is stolen that means the recovery guy is the one who stole it. This guy should have downloaded a recovery tool online since it is available and then transfer recovery tool to the device that he will use the recovery tool and just to be safe then it shouldn't be connected to sn internet connection and when the wallet id found then he should use different device to import the wallet to transfer it in another bitcoin wallet.

[Asiska02]

I came across the post on Reddit about a guy that took this hard drive that he stored his bitcoin to a data recovery specialist to fix it, who told him that his 276 bitcoin has been stolen, wait a minute how, his hard drive was bad and gave it to you to fix it and then you told him it was stolen.
It's a shame how people would still act so unwise with their holdings, I know its not his fault that his hard drive got bad but at least he should have taken some measures to secure his holdings, and now there is no proff that the so called data recovery specialist was the one who stole it or not.

The data recovery specialist is the first suspect I would also point my fingers at. Prior to taken the hard drive for him to repair, if I was very sure that my bitcoin holding was intact and it was just after he repaired it that I found it missing, he will be the first suspect for it. 276 bitcoins is a large amount of money that must have been accumulated through hard work, patient and pains, losing such amount can even cause one paralysis and also mental problem especially if your total wealth savings is all there and your present holdings won’t beat that amount again. I feel so bad for what has happened to him and I hope this will serve as a lesson to others that carelessly handle their holdings in which they have big amount of bitcoins saved in.

I think people should get more educated about bitcoin even before teaching them to accumulate it cause if they are not careful they end up losing it and think about losing 8 years with of accumulated bitcoin just for a ignorant decision like this.

Getting acquainted with the right knowledge before holding bitcoin is the best thing for any investor in bitcoin should do. You will have accumulated and saved all your life and just by a little mistake, all of your hard earned money will go into the thin air. He is a victim of circumstance but still he should have been more careful. Seeing his age I won’t blame him much because a younger person would have thought about what if my bitcoin gets stolen, and would find a way to secure it proper before taken the hard drive to repair. No one can be trusted just like some people don’t even trust themselves. I hope he gets through this in the shortest possible time, indeed another big lesson learnt by him and others in the crypto space.

[stadus]

cyrpto currency by nature is so easy to steal if someone has access to the right things,

This is like saying your house by nature is easy to break into if you give someone the keys. That is not the nature of Bitcoin, it just means if you give up what signifies access to something, you've handed over that access to someone else.

You are right then. Not your keys, not your coins. Bitcoin investors should not only focus on accumulating bitcoin but first and foremost, they should always ensure the security of their coins. If the guy in the story values much about privacy and not giving access to anyone relating to his bitcoins, then he should have hold them until now. But ignorance kills everything. Gone are the hard-earned bitcoins in just a single wrong decison.

This may serve a lesson not just for bitcoin investors but definitely for all those who are into different investments. If you can’t secure your investment 100%, then don’t bother investing in the first place.

[tabas]

Assuming that the story was real. A guy that has that can literally be a king of his own castle right now and don't have to work and when you have such amounts, are you really okay to let someone touch your PC where you've been holding your assets? your btc? I doubt it that we're even going to hand it over to a recovery specialists that way. He hasn't backed up and that's his problem when that tech guy or the recovery specialist has seen that opportunity to steal but then, is there a proof with that? What if the private keys have been handed over to another guy and culprit and it isn't the tech guy? There's not that enough proof when you just post addresses.

[FatFork]

But here comes the funny part how did the specialist know that they was a bitcoin key phrase or something related in the hard drive, unless the funky guy must have blabbed all about it to him. Making the story even looking more made up.

Since I am somewhat familiar with the way these data recovery services work, I can assume that the guy may have inadvertently disclosed that there are bitcoin private keys or wallet files on the damaged hard drive. Data recovery professionals routinely inquire about the specific data types users seek to recover from compromised media.  This information greatly aids the recovery process and improve success rates.

[The Cryptovator]

The truth is, people weren't so serious about Bitcoin when it was so cheap. They just bought it and left it as is. They forgot about their holdings; once Bitcoin reached a significant price, they recalled their holdings. They start finding out about their Bitcoin wallet data. A few people got their data perfectly, and a few lost their data. This is a mistake and the result of not being serious. So we have to learn the right way when we intend to invest in something. However, it would be traced if the recovery team stole the funds. The victim should know the address and check the transaction details. Hackers will definitely move the funds. 

[Franctoshi]

taking a closer look at the event there are some very few reasons to doubt the story if the coin being mined as at 2012 based on what someone unveiled in the comments[1] which is based on the tx time stamp and fees.

To me this story immediately sounded suspicious, because 276 coins is not a small amount, it was already quite a sum in 2017, surely the person who supposedly mined them in 2012 would check on their coins during a bull run? And then during the 2021 bull run?

Perhaps OP is trying to use community effort to doxx that transactions. There's a saying that if you want to get the right answer on the Internet, you should post a wrong one yourself and wait to be corrected, maybe it's something like that.

I kind of think this too, that this story seems not Real, how someone would be this reckless with such an amount of Bitcoin 276, well, if at all this is true, then the victim didn't take security seriously before investing in Bitcoin, is not a matter of owing any amount of Bitcoin, one thing is owing Bitcoin and the other thing is about the security, and if we don't take the security of investment in Bitcoin seriously, it is just as good as owing nothing in Bitcoin Because we could wake up one day and all our investment is gone just as this scenario by the OP, and we would lose everything.

[Sanitough]

The truth is, people weren't so serious about Bitcoin when it was so cheap. They just bought it and left it as is. They forgot about their holdings; once Bitcoin reached a significant price, they recalled their holdings. They start finding out about their Bitcoin wallet data. A few people got their data perfectly, and a few lost their data. This is a mistake and the result of not being serious. So we have to learn the right way when we intend to invest in something. However, it would be traced if the recovery team stole the funds. The victim should know the address and check the transaction details. Hackers will definitely move the funds.

I think majority of us here weren't really serious when bitcoin was still very cheap. We never speculate then that bitcoin price will reach this far until we finally come to witness how valuable bitcoin is. We just bought when other people are buying, probably to ride the trend as well.

However, it's already a different case when bitcoin today is very expensive. Buying even a portion of bitcoin is already a big struggle. With that, sufficient knowledge about bitcoin safety and security is a must. Otherwise, all our hard-earned investments will go into waste because we were never aware the possibility of hacking our bitcoin from our own wallet.

[teamsherry]

I don't know much if the story can be made up, I don't really know what to look at to see through and find if it's really fishy, but on other hand your topic made much sence to me, I've heard stories of many persons who has lost their bitcoin holdings because they had very little information about how to secure their bitcoin holdings, we can even add people who left their bitcoin on exchanges that crashed and went bankrupt as ignorant cause I know some of then knew to store their holdings in cold wallets or hardware wallet but didn't take action, so it's true that a little ignorance and we can lose our holdings.

[Troytech]

The truth is, people weren't so serious about Bitcoin when it was so cheap. They just bought it and left it as is. They forgot about their holdings; once Bitcoin reached a significant price, they recalled their holdings. They start finding out about their Bitcoin wallet data. A few people got their data perfectly, and a few lost their data. This is a mistake and the result of not being serious. So we have to learn the right way when we intend to invest in something. However, it would be traced if the recovery team stole the funds. The victim should know the address and check the transaction details. Hackers will definitely move the funds. 

Your right , most person never thought bitcoin would become this valuable and some didn't take it serious and forgot about it, but this guy had only remembered that he had such amount of Bitcoin after a very long time and it sounds some how to me, most people would have remembered about 3 years ago or even when it reached 20k and some 2k but this guy had to wait so long to remember, the story seems made up in a way, and even if it's true then the guy must have been very ill educated about how to store his bitcoin, he should have kept copies to the file or even have hard copy well hidden, but as you said he must have been very less concerned about it and didn't believe in bitcoin.

[teamsherry]

The data recovery specialist is the first suspect I would also point my fingers at. Prior to taken the hard drive for him to repair, if I was very sure that my bitcoin holding was intact and it was just after he repaired it that I found it missing, he will be the first suspect for it. 276 bitcoins is a large amount of money that must have been accumulated through hard work, patient and pains, losing such amount can even cause one paralysis and also mental problem especially if your total wealth savings is all there and your present holdings won’t beat that amount again. I feel so bad for what has happened to him and I hope this will serve as a lesson to others that carelessly handle their holdings in which they have big amount of bitcoins saved in.

Your right he is actually the first suspect to look at, but before we point fingers at him I sence a little carelessness from the owner of the bitcoin, for instance I can actually take my phone to a software engineer to fix a forgotten password or help me with an issue and in my phone was stored access to my money in my account if he has no idea he weould just fix my phone and give it back to me with no issues, but I think as OP said in one of his comments that the owner must have spilled some information about what Is contained in the hard drive to the data recovery guy and that must have triggered him, to be honest who would have access to 276 BTC and not be tempted, so if my speculation is true then I think the lesson learnt would be not to tell  people about your holdings for any reason.

[Natalim]

Ohh, we'd consistently hear people lose their money from investing in Bitcoin but not realizing that they are not doing it right.
Yes, we can do nothing for these innocent people because it was not our responsibility to take care of their wallets and spoon-feed them. In fact, the moment they are investing in Bitcoin they are also aware of the risk situation and then help themselves to learn how to secure their funds but unfortunately, they just ignore it until the time has come.

Anyways, this mistake will not be over, not because people have also learned but because hackers are also improving their strategies. We need to be more cautious about our actions and make extra efforts to keep our wallets/funds safe.

[Troytech]

Ohh, we'd consistently hear people lose their money from investing in Bitcoin but not realizing that they are not doing it right.
Yes, we can do nothing for these innocent people because it was not our responsibility to take care of their wallets and spoon-feed them. In fact, the moment they are investing in Bitcoin they are also aware of the risk situation and then help themselves to learn how to secure their funds but unfortunately, they just ignore it until the time has come.

Anyways, this mistake will not be over, not because people have also learned but because hackers are also improving their strategies. We need to be more cautious about our actions and make extra efforts to keep our wallets/funds safe.

No matter how scammers improve their strategy, they can't get access to anything unless we hand it over to them, if my seed phrase is well hidden and protected no hacker can get my bitcoin out of my wallet unless I tell them,  anyone who gets scammed is their faults they brought it upon themselves.

Your right most people get into bitcoin without learning about security and end up losing their holdings, I believe as we learn to invest, learning to secure your holdings should come next. Ignorance is no longer an excuse, everyone must prioritize learning if he doesn't want to be a victim in this times.

[Rockstarguy]

I think people should get more educated about bitcoin even before teaching them to accumulate it cause if they are not careful they end up losing it and think about losing 8 years with of accumulated bitcoin just for a ignorant decision like this.

That is why knowledge in Bitcoin should never taken for granted because the things we fit to understand can make us to loss something very big that warm we regret. There is no end in  learning Bitcoin because Bitcoin is very Broad and one don't need to to relax with small understanding they have in bitcoin.  As a full time investor or trader it is important to take it as a challenge to gain more knowledge about Bitcoin because their is no limit in learning Bitcoin.
 
The reason why many people do have problems with bitcoin is because they fail to have more knowledge and when they eventually make mistakes just because of ignorance they have no choice than to learn the hard way.

[Kelward]

I think people should get more educated about bitcoin even before teaching them to accumulate it cause if they are not careful they end up losing it and think about losing 8 years with of accumulated bitcoin just for a ignorant decision like this.

Here Is a link to the post on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1as7agq/bitcoin_core/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Ignorance is a plague that people should purge themselves from, because it's really sad and foolish when people make avoidable mistakes, something that what it takes to learn is not far fetched, it's a pity that the guy in the story had to lose all his Bitcoin because he trusted so easily, now he doesn't know if it's the recovery guy that stole it or not. Lesson from this story is that it's not even safe to store our sensitive information online, because hackers are devicing means everyday to gain access into people's private information.

Fact is that wallet seed phrase that is stored offline is the best because there'd be no chances of your device being hacked and the information in it to be stolen, imagine the guy losing all the Bitcoin that he's been hodling for years because he didn't do the right thing. It's important that newbie investors in cryptocurrency should learn simple tips on how to protect their coins from hackers.

[Bushdark]

We need to keep learning and know what we are doing. Many things are happening and if we are not wise we could end up becoming a victim of little mistakes like this. It is not advisable for us to store our private key in electronics devices, it is wrong but many might not understand why and the reason behind it. This is because there had been many victims that indulge in saving theie Bitcoin seed phrase on electronic devices and the outcome was, they were not able to retrieve their wallet seed phrase again because it was hacked.

[kentrolla]

It's high time we need to secure our holding and understand the risk in exposing our data or seed phrase or even clicking on the so called airdrop links or even connecting our wallet to random link shared in telegram groups as there are numerous way we can be scammed but if we stick to basics of securing our data and sensitive information then no one can scan us. Unfortunately the person mentioned in OP has learnt his lesson the hard way.

[Maslate]

Assuming that the story was real. A guy that has that can literally be a king of his own castle right now and don't have to work and when you have such amounts, are you really okay to let someone touch your PC where you've been holding your assets? your btc? I doubt it that we're even going to hand it over to a recovery specialists that way. He hasn't backed up and that's his problem when that tech guy or the recovery specialist has seen that opportunity to steal but then, is there a proof with that? What if the private keys have been handed over to another guy and culprit and it isn't the tech guy? There's not that enough proof when you just post addresses.

I don’t think this guy literally do not know that handling his PC to someone stranger might put his assets into risk. He wouldn’t reached that amazing amount of bitcoin if he was not protecting his bitcoin wallet in the first place. Most probably, there’s another reason that all his bitcoins have ended up vanishing. I believe he might have handed his private keys to some bad guy without his consciousness. He might be drunk that time that made him create a stupid decision, and now all of a sudden he’s  giving all the blame to this recovery specialist which I think is actually innocent. I don’t know what’s the owner’s thinking but if this story is real, he might be living in mess right now totally upset and depressed.

[boyptc]

That guy should have just said that he's trying to recover his data and not his bitcoins. You don't have to be vulgar if your holdings is involved with these recovery.

You don't trust anyone even your friends and relatives with these matters because if you're too vulgar and vocal, your tongue might slip and said somethings that you'll never like that will end up to something like this.