What can you do after being scammed
Scams refer to scammers using illegal methods to steal your digital assets through phising, blackmail, Ponzi schemes, and fake exchanges etc.
After you have been scammed, you will probably feel devastated, blame yourself for falling for the scam and regret trusting the scammer. You will then try to search online to find ways to get your stolen virtual assets back. In this article, we will look at what kind of help, if any, the NFT marketplace and crypto exchange platform provides to users that got scammed and what can users do to increase their chances of getting their virtual assets back.
Let's look at the world’s current largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, and crypto exchange platform CoinBase’s policy for handling scams.
“All of your transactions are direct peer-to-peer payments between you and the merchant. As av result, Coinbase is unable to resolve any payment disputes as transactions on the blockchain are irreversible.”
– Coinbase Help Forum
“While we can prevent your items from being bought or sold using OpenSea’s services, your items remain on the blockchain and are not in the custody of OpenSea. As a result, we aren’t able to recover lost funds or NFTs that have been transferred out of your wallet.”
– OpenSea Help Forum
From Coinbase’s and OpenSea’s help forums, there seems to be no way for them to deal with retrieving stolen virtual assets. The reason behind this is that there are no financial institutions acting as intermediaries to settle such problems.
Don't be discouraged though!
Take note that Coinbase and OpenSea are just two out of the many crypto exchanges and NFT exchange platforms and are just used to set an example of what the industry standards are. Even though it seems very unlikely that you will get all your virtual assets back, you should still report the scam to local law enforcement authorities and the marketplace/platform you used. However, don’t just tell them you got scammed. Instead, prepare a detailed document about your scam which includes the following details:
1. All Transaction IDs
2. Text/email history between you and the scammer
3. How did the scam start
4. Amount of money involved
5. What exchange platform was involved
6. When did it happen
7. Any information that helps to identify the scammer
Not only will it make it easier for law enforcement authorities to track down the scammer and potentially increase the chance of you getting your virtual assets back, it also helps warn the exchange/platform that there is an active scammer.
After reporting to the law enforcement authorities, you should be ready to provide proof of ownership of the original source of funds to the law enforcement authorities as is usually required. You can do that by
1. signing a specified message using your private key, or
2. By sending a micro transaction to a designated crypto-address.
From there on, there isn’t much that you can do. You can only hope that law enforcement authorities are able to find the scammer and get all or some of your virtual assets back to you.
Good Luck!
Disclaimers: The information on this site is for general information purposes only. It is intended to be used by virtual assets investors, but it does not constitute professional advice, whether legal or otherwise, and does not purport to be comprehensive. You should seek legal or other professional advice before acting or relying on any of the content. LITELAB@HKU does not accept responsibility for any loss that may arise from accessing or relying upon the information contained on this site.