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Coinbase Wallets Class Action Overview:
- Who: A pair of Coinbase wallet holders locked out of their crypto accounts filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday.
- Why: The cryptocurrency exchange company allegedly froze them and other account holders out of their Coinbase wallets or allowed them to be hacked.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was launched against Coinbase Global, Inc and Coinbase, Inc in California federal court.
A pair of cryptocurrency users say their Coinbase wallets were either hacked or frozen without warning and their pleas to release their accounts so they could access funds went unheeded by Coinbase Global, Inc and Coinbase, Inc, in a class action lawsuit lodged against the companies in California federal court Tuesday.
Lead plaintiffs, Cristian Kelly and Kenneth Thall, want to represent others who lost access to their Coinbase wallets. They say Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, misled them about the security of its services and “real-time” access to funds stored with the company.
Coinbase users can store their cryptocurrencies in a digital “wallet,” as well as buy, sell, spend, and trade cryptocurrency.
Coinbase Wallets Hacked, Frozen Without Warning
Kelly claims that his Coinbase wallet — containing approximately $18,000 in Ethereum cryptocurrency — was potentially hacked when he called the company to add a feature to his account. He says that instead of helping him get to the bottom of the situation, Coinbase froze him out of his account for months.
Thall alleges that he was alerted by his bank that his Coinbase wallet containing about $8,000 in Bitcoin may have been hacked. Thall says that when he brought up his concerns to Coinbase, he was similarly locked out of his account for an extended period of time.
Kelly and Thall say that they decided to store their cryptocurrency in Coinbase wallets based on the companies’ promise to provide “customers a secure way to purchase, store, and transact in crypto assets” and provided “24/7/365” access to their funds.
Instead, the plaintiffs say that they were locked out of their Coinbase wallets for extended periods of time.
“Because of the extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies’ value – with freefalls of 40% within 24 hours not unheard of – the inability to access an account to sell, buy, or trade cryptocurrency leads to severe financial loss,” alleges the class action lawsuit. “Making matters worse, Coinbase fails to timely respond to customer pleas for support and help, and also fails to preserve and safeguard customer funds as it promises.”
Indeed, Kelly and Thall each claim that the crypto company ignored their repeated requests to unfreeze their Coinbase wallets. They want to represent consumers nationwide who signed on with the rapidly growing crypto exchange company.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages on behalf of Coinbase wallet holders, along with a court order forcing the company to unfreeze accounts.
Coinbase has found itself in legal hot water recently, with another group of Coinbase wallet holders lodging a class action lawsuit in California federal court in June. Last year, the company paid out nearly $1 million to settle claims that they aided and abetted the theft of Cryptsy cryptocurrency.
Do you have a Coinbase wallet? Have you ever been hacked or locked out of that account for no reason? Tell us about your experience in the comments section!
The plaintiffs are represented by Timothy G. Blood, Thomas J. O’Reardon II, and James M. Davis fo Blood Hurst & O’Reardon, LLP and James M. Evangelista, David J. Worley, Kristi Stahnke McGregor, and Leslie G. Toran of Evangelista Worely, LLC.
The Coinbase Wallets Class Action Lawsuit is Kelly, et al. v. Coinbase Global, Inc., et al., Case No. 3:21-cv-06010 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California San Francisco Division.
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168 thoughts onCoinbase Wallets Hacked, Frozen Without Warning, Claims Class Action Lawsuit
On Sept 12th 2021 I was the victim of a sim swap and my coinbase account was compromised. My password changed and I was locked out of my account for 10 days. I changed my password and gained access to my account only to find my account drained of my $6000.00 crypto investment.
Add me to this class action.
I was hacked in my Coinbase wallet for 160k on Aug 23. I will be suing Coinbase for negligence
Please add me!
My Coinbase and Coinbase Pro accounts were hacked on August 27th, I began to receive txt messages from my bank account as well as Coinbase and that my account was having fraudulent activity. Coinbase immediately locked my account, it took me over 2 weeks and hours and hours to finally get Coinbase to give me access back into my account, the hackers made off with roughly $21,000. Since then I have been emailing Coinbase daily looking for a resolution and my funds to be replaced. Today they sent this email:
Thanks for your response. We understand how important this issue is and we appreciate your patience.
Remote computer takeovers come in many forms. Remote access malware, physical compromises, session cloning, and social engineering are all possible scenarios where a user’s computer system is compromised physically or remotely. When a device is compromised, we can assume your email was logged in and the attacker had access to your Coinbase account through a logged in session or stored password. Some users may insecurely store their TOTP seed or be socially engineered into providing their 2-factor codes however we can only speculate on cause in some cases.
Section 7.12 of the User Agreement specifically states that users are responsible for creating strong passwords and maintaining adequate security and control of any and all access methods and codes used to access Coinbase. Additionally, Coinbase is not responsible for any loss suffered due to compromise of account login credentials due to no fault of Coinbase.
We cannot protect your email account, devices, or passwords/2FA codes for you. We cannot take responsibility for any activity on your account that happens as a result of the breach of one or more of these items.
Therefore, while we are sympathetic to your situation, Coinbase is unable to reimburse you for your loss nor are we able to reverse this transaction.
We hope this information is helpful to you in showing why Coinbase came to this decision.
Hello my name is Jose I was hacked for 3291 xrp coins when it happened coinbase froze xrp so I kept trying to message them till 1 one I get a call I thought it was coinbase of course it was not them so I lost and they took 4k from my bank account just trying to find help.
I lost SHIB from my Coinbase wallet, had $450 worth of crypto, i had in my account untill yesterday and today its 0.
$4,500 disappeared from my wallet please let me know who to contact to file a lawsuit
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$2200 mysteriously disappeared while I was sleeping 2 nights ago.
No recourse, no action. Sign me up.
My account with Coinbase has been “Under Review” for more than three weeks without explanation. I’ve emailed Coinbase’s customer support and do get prompt reply albeit completely useless replies. I’ve been told they are dealing with larger then expected volume of tickets to deal with and will get to mine when they get to it. I’ve asked them if they can reply to my email that they should also be able to review my account and release the hold but my concern was falling on deaf ears.
Add me to the class action please! Enough with Coinbase and their unethical hold of users fund. Completely unacceptable.
Please add me. I had $1000+ stolen.
My coinbase account was hacked in February 2021. I lost over $12,000 in Bitcoin. I was told there was nothing they could do and file a report. They said they’d lock my account after the hack. Customer service is horrendous. I spent hours on the phone and sending emails that were never answered.