Binance user gets drained on exchange, shares ‘strange’ experience

Update March 1, 9:47 am UTC: This article has been updated to add comments from DoomXBT. 

A crypto trader shared a troubling experience on the Binance exchange moments before losing $70,000 in digital assets to a hacker.

On Feb. 29, a pseudonymous trader with the username “DoomXBT” posted a thread on X sharing “strange” occurrences before losing funds on Binance. From putting up trade orders to taking out loans, the hacker fiddled with the account before finally withdrawing the crypto assets.

According to Doom, there were sudden sound notifications of orders filling on their Binance account, seemingly indicating that the account was compromised. While there were no withdrawals, the trader saw various trades performed and assets exchanged for BNB (BNB) tokens.

The trader claimed that the account seemed secure because two-factor authentication was active. However, the crypto user also saw that some loans were being processed within the account. When DoomXBT reached Binance support, the money converted into BNB was withdrawn.

The Binance user also believes the funds were transferred to another exchange called SideShift which they already contacted. The trader expressed frustration and dissatisfaction about how the Binance support agent handled the case. Binance’s social media and community leads replied to the trader, saying they had already escalated the case and were working on it.

Cointelegraph contacted Doom a day after the incident to see if the matter had been resolved. The trader said: 

“No, Binance have been ping ponging me between CS agents who basically shifted the blame over and over again to only Google account being hacked, although my Google was protected with Yubikey and I have 0 unrecognized ‘recent activity’ on it either except of my own IPs.”

The trader also mentioned that they have already filed a police report, as Binance had suggested. However, Doom expressed pessimism when involving the authorities. “From reading and talking to people around, German police force is notorious for having no competence in anything cybercrime related.” 

Related: Trader hits $2M jackpot after putting $62 into a Solana memecoin

Binance CEO Richard Teng also responded to the thread, saying that their security task force is already conducting an investigation. The executive apologized and promised to update the user once there was any development.

Meanwhile, community members criticized the exchange for how the customer service representative handled the matter. Many X users believe withdrawals should have been frozen before the funds were transferred. Another community member ridiculed the Binance CEO for posting the same response as the customer support representative.

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