I've been emailed for the longest time by Bittrex saying they're shutting my account or whatever they're doing with everyone else too.
I didn't think much of it since I haven't actually used Bittrex since about 2014.
That is until the final warnings started coming in which actually informed me I had $200 in there!!
But I only had week or so left by that point and, alas, I obviously didn't have my 2-factor authentication anymore since I've switched phones about 7 times since then. No bother, I thought, I'll just turn it off.
But you need your passport for that and their security insists you have to do it via your phone camera live, rather than upload a picture. This was a problem because I DIDN'T HAVE MY PASSPORT.
Bureaucracy costing me money again
It was being held at ransom by the CCP as they insisted the address I registered with the police (yeah you have to do that here) was wrong and I actually moved out already. I double checked my surroundings to make sure I was in fact still living where I said I was, but apparently I needed to get proof anyway.
The HR was absolutely useless, sending just one message to me per day (still vacation time at this point). Most messages were just 'are you SURE you are in the same place?' 'Why did they say it's wrong if it's not wrong?'
Several days and multiple visits to multiple police stations later, it was actually my fiancé in the end who kicked them into gear by herself while I went to my first day back at work, and she somehow got it all sorted.
I sent the NEW document of proof to the HR, who ignored me for several more days, at which point my hopes of getting the precious $200 from Bittrex was now dwindling. I asked each day, and at best I got 'I don't know when'.
The Final Countdown
The deadline was the 31st August, and it was fast approaching. 4 days left, 2 days... On the 30TH! - but thankfully different time zones - right before I clocked out of work, I could pick up my passport and start the stupid Bittrex 2FA cancellation process.
Success! Time to withdraw...
404, you have no such permission, fool
Argh. Turns out you need to wait 24 HOURS after cancelling the 2FA. Thankfully since the US is like 12 hours behind, I just managed to complete the whole process withing three hours of the deadline, by converting BTC to Hive and lob that into my Hive wallet here.
I'm in the money!
It was quite a hassle, but I realized that in 2014, bitcoin was about $600, so I actually made roughly 50x profit from a leftover $4 lol.
Pretty neat.
Stupid Bittrex
Addendum
I actually messaged Bittrex-supportl on twitter about this at first, and their help service account got back to me providing me with a link where I can send the money direct to my wallet. I just had to provide my Hive private key into the box.
Yeah it wasn't a typo above. Turns out the scammers write very similar usernames with a subtle little letter like L at the end, or something else barely noticeable on a quick glance.
For some reason they didn't reply. Not very helpful.
lol damn I didn't know you were deep in crypto in 2014. Good job actually finding about about Bitcoin and investing when nobody else was early on. Yeah Bittrex had become really strict and weird about their KYC process but congrats on getting your $200 lol
Oh hi!
Yeah it was back when I was living in Vietnam, my sister introduced me, also to Steem, as a matter of fact a bit later!
I was only into it a little until I got super butthurt when this shitty platform plus500 kicked BTC off because they said it was too unstable. So they force-removed my investment, and meanwhile it multiplied in value like 10-fold or something. Too annoyed to remember the exact numbers but I'd have been rich by now -__-
wtf lol yeah that's a real bummer.
Congrats on the engagement btw!! :D
Cheers! Old news now though =P
Wow, what an adventure! It's incredible how bureaucracy and a series of unfortunate events can turn a seemingly straightforward task into a real odyssey. Kudos to your fiancé for helping resolve the passport issue.
And congrats on successfully recovering your crypto funds, even if it was a bit of a nail-biter with the looming deadline. It's a good reminder to everyone to keep their 2FA and account recovery details up to date, as you never know when you might need them.
As for the scammers, they seem to be getting sneakier by the day. Stay vigilant out there!
For real, the fiance almost applied for a commission that was emailed to her. I only spotted it because she isn't a native english speaker so sent it to me to help construct a reply.
I didn't notice at all at first, I just noticed some rather odd things, like contradictory request details, strange name (thomas jefferson lol), and such.
In the end it was unusual enough to google it, and there we have it. Eventually they'd ask to send cash in a dodgy way (paypal not working etc). So much more subtle than the Nigerian Prince days!
Anyway thanks for stopping by! Glad you enjoyed the read
Haha, that's a good story you can talk about in friend's meetup and more.
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