Coinbase Users Lost $46 Million to Social Engineering Scams in March

Scammers are targeting the exchange’s user base with a long track record of success. Coinbase customers should be on alert for social engineering attempts

Coinbase Scams are Growing Out of Control

Despite being one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase has been under scrutiny as its users are increasingly falling victim to scams. For over a year, sophisticated social engineering operations have been responsible for massive thefts.

According to ZachXBT, these scammers are showing no signs of stopping:

“It is suspected a Coinbase user was scammed yesterday for $34.9 million. After uncovering this theft, I noticed multiple other suspected thefts from Coinbase users in the past two weeks bringing the total stolen this month to $46 million+. Coinbase has not flagged any of the theft addresses from these victims in compliance tools,” he said via Telegram.

ZachXBT, a prominent crypto sleuth, has been persistently tracking scams against Coinbase users. Over the last few months, he’s identified several big crimes that relied on social engineering instead of outright hacks.

For example, last November, criminals posing as Coinbase Support managed to steal over $6.5 million.

This has reached the point where he claims that Coinbase is in a crisis of fraud and scams. Last month, ZachXBT estimated $150 million in annual losses, and he has now upgraded this to $300 million.

He hasn’t named any of his theories about the culprit or culprits. It could be an organized group, multiple independent actors, or other possibilities.

However, the exchange’s response to these events has been rather underwhelming. ZachXBT claimed that Coinbase has been downright passive about these huge scams, failing to warn users or cooperate with investigators.

In a recent social media post, he accused Coinbase of apathy towards these incidents:

“I have yet to see an incident where Coinbase flagged theft addresses. They are part of the problem, it shows they are not taking care of users,” he claimed.

Overall, given the increasing rate of these scams and the staggering amount of funds lost, Coinbase’s users should certainly be cautious about social engineering threats.