Coinbase does not call customers to warn them that their accounts may have been compromised. It is a common scam. Still, someone tried it on me.
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The story
Last weekend an unknown California number called me. A helpful gentleman informed me that my Coinbase account had been compromised during its recent violation of data and that he was there to help me not to lose my assets.
Oh no, horror!
Why it matters
Okay, so obviously this is a scam. Right after hanging up with this supposed Helpdesk -Agent, I texted a coinbase -speaker to verify that the exchange would at no time the exchange would Ring A customer to tell them their account was compromised. It’s Fidus 101 – If you get a phone call that informs you that your account has been compromised, whether it is by a crypto exchange, a bank, IRS, what, it’s a scam. Do not share your personal details and do not give any passwords if you get a call like this.
There were a few shortcomings in trying to get me to, presumably to move my funds from my allegedly compromised Coinbase account to another address. But I hope this can be a useful teaching moment for the nearly 70,000 people who have been influenced by Coinbas’s recent infringement information, as well as anyone else receiving a phone call claiming their information has been compromised. That’s how it went down.
Breaks down it
Let’s start from the start. On Saturday, May 24, I received a call from a number that I did not recognize for my personal phone, not my public turned work number. It was a weekend when I was actually visiting family in another state I didn’t pick up. Then the same number called back and I still didn’t pick up (yes I know nitting, but it’s 2025 and you can leave a voicemail or text).
Ten minutes later, I received a third call from another number that I picked up because at that time I was curious.
A fast-talking gentleman who called himself Riccardo told me he was part of Coinbas’s actions and protection department and that he reached out because my Coinbase account information had been compromised and a new email had just been added to my account.
I was pretty confused for reasons I’m coming below. But I was also fascinated because there were four red flags immediately. For simplicity, I refer to the one who calls as the “agent” from here and out, but to be completely clear, I doubt he is an actual customer service, representative or other coin base employee, and he certainly did not reach me as an authorized representative of the Exchange.
First, the phone call itself is a large red flag. Coinbase will never call a customer about a violation, but rather contact customers via E email, it said earlier in a tweet.
This is actually standard. The Federal Trade Commission website notes that there are a large number of scams where someone will call you, and several other companies have warnings that their employees will never proactively call a customer of account problems.
The agent I was talking to said they would freeze my account for 24 hours to make sure no means could be stolen (thank you, I assume?) And that a supervisor would reach out to me (I continue to wait for this supervisor to call). This supposed freezer on my account can be expanded to three months if there are multiple failed login attempts.
To wrap the call, he said he would send me an e email summarizing all the details we had discussed. Saturday night I received an E email with the subject line “Your case is under review.”
Follow-up e-mail This very helpful customer service representative sent was extremely informative.
First, the e-mail address they had associated with my account is a public-turning address, but is not the email address associated with my actual Coinbase account (in justice, I forgot that part until I tried to find my login information a few days later).
Gmail was originally (correctly) marked this E -mail as spam. I moved it to my inbox, where Gmail then showed me that the sender ([email protected]) was not the actual sender-e-mail arrived via Learninonesian.online. Even the info-Coinbase.com part is outlined-for the first is Coinbase’s Website Coinbase.com, although it sends emails from [email protected] would not expect a hyphen in a support email domain. For another, the info-coinbase domain was first established in November 2024 (according to an ICANN lookup) and is not a real site.
The E -Mail headers were also not super useful in providing any kind of identifying information, but they confirmed that the sender seemed to have tried to obscure their information.
Oddly enough, the link “Visit Coinbase” at the bottom seemed to link to the actual coinbase site, and there seems to be no hidden embedded images or other attachments IE mail at all. I’m not quite sure what’s going on there. A real scammer could have embedded a virus of some kind IE email or even a tracking pixel. Another common tool scammers can use is putting a phishing link instead of a legitimate work in an e -mail that fools the user to go to a site aimed at stealing their login information (this is not legal, technical or any other form of advice; if you decide to try to scam someone using information you gather from this newsletter, you have to stop it).
While scammers sometimes know how much their intended victims have on a wallet or account, the person who called me did not seem to have this information (as I have zero crypto in my Coinbase account).
I called the number back on Friday to see what could happen. No one picked up. I assume my account should be safe now.
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- SEC TASK FORCE CHIEF says crypto traders should be growing, not cry to government: SEC commissioner Hester Peirce told Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas audience that investing in speculative assets is fine, especially if there is no federal regulator with close supervision, but these investors cannot ask for a rescue when prices are sinking.
- US House Republicans officially introduces crypto -market structure bill: House Republicans have formally introduced the digital asset market clarity law, its bill for the market structure, only weeks after circulating a draft discussion.
- Crypto efforts are not contrary to US securities law, SEC says: SEC’s latest staff statement looks at efforts and how the securities regulator can evaluate that part of the crypto ecosystem.
- SEC files for rejection of prolonged trial against binance: SEC and Binance filed a common provision to drop the regulator’s case against binance.
- Suspects in Manhattan Crypto Kidnapping, Torture Case does not ask guilty as the investigation is extended: News broke out over the weekend that a cryptoinvestor had been kidnapped and tortured for his Bitcoin Keys. Two suspects accused of committing the kidnapping have been arrested and declared not guilty.
- Trump’s Memecoin -dinner questioned by Top Democrat On House Judiciary Committee: Jamie Raskin, the supreme Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump, who encouraged him to publish the names of his guests at last week’s Memecoin dinner.
Friday
- 15:00 UTC (11:00 A) A Federal Judge held a telephone hearing to assess Roman Storm’s defense argument that the Ministry of Justice may have withheld information. The judge gave up that, in her opinion, DOJ did not have to review his materials and had not withheld information that increased to the level of influencing the procedure.
- (The Washington Post) The White House published a “Make America Healthy Again” report that quoted non -existent studies and references -with narrative signs that AI may have been used to generate at least some parts of the report.
- (Federal Reserve) Fed said that 8% of adults responding to a study said they kept cryptocurrency in the United States down from 12% four years ago.
If you have thoughts or questions about what to discuss next week or any other feedback you would like to share, feel free to e -mail me at [email protected] or find me at bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
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See you next week!
