The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase by mistake sent emails to users with information about changes to their two-factor authentication (2FA) settings. About 125,000 customers received such notifications, the company said.
Yesterday, from 1:45pm PST to 3:07pm PST, Coinbase sent roughly 125,000 customers erroneous notifications that their 2FA settings had changed.
— Coinbase (@coinbase) August 28, 2021
The incident occurred on Friday, August 27. Some users thought their accounts had been hacked, prompting withdrawals or changes to security settings.
I got the reply and panicked someone accessed my account or made withdrawals. Immediately logged in and reset my password after verifying nothing happened.
— AJ 👨🏽💻🐕⚾️🎮l👨🚀🚀 (@AgedMcNugget) August 29, 2021
On August 29, Coinbase representatives said it was a mistake. In the support subreddit, the help desk clarified that those affected by the incident ‘will receive Bitcoin worth $100’.
In the comments, some group members complained that they did not receive the promised funds and threatened to switch to competing platforms. Others thanked Coinbase for the ability to quickly lock their account when facing threats to change 2FA settings.
There were customers who reported problems accessing the platform’s app. According to one of them, users who did not receive the erroneous notification did not experience such problems.
Same here. the app still says “we’re having connection issues” while other Coinbase users I know, who didn’t get the SMS yesterday, can still log in.
— Dr. Andrevius Barnaby II (@AndreviusB) August 28, 2021
CNBC surveyed Coinbase users and found “thousands of complaints” about hacks, missing funds and other problems. The piece states that those affected have difficulty contacting support, which communicates only by email.
In March 2018, the company faced two class-action lawsuits — for insider trading tied to the listing of Bitcoin Cash and for violating California’s unclaimed property law.
In the summer of that year, Mashable published a 134-page list of complaints about the trading platform to the California Department of Business Oversight and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
From June 2020 to June 2021, the number of user complaints about how Bitcoin exchanges operate rose in the United States. Coinbase became the anti-leader, where the figure rose from 241 to 1,060.
Later, the trading platform said that it increased the size of its customer-support staff fivefold after numerous customer complaints.
Earlier, a Dogecoin holder accused Coinbase of unfair competition and misleading advertising. He sought more than $5 million from the defendants.
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