Thiago Prudencio | LightRocket | Getty Images
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, acknowledged that it erroneously told some 125,000 customers that its security settings had changed.
The company, which is listed on the Nasdaq, told CNBC on Monday that it was the result of an internal error.
Coinbase has spent “most of the weekend working with customers to make sure we can answer their questions,” company spokesman Andrew Schmitt told CNBC. “We believe the only way to build trust with our customers is to be transparent when we spoil.”
The incident comes as a result of a CNBC story a week ago detailing widespread complaints from Coinbase customers whose accounts were hacked and then unable to reach anyone in the company to help them. Coinbase then said it would improve its customer service by deploying voice assistance this month for customers whose accounts had been taken over by a third party, and live chat later this year. .
The company sent the security setup email to customers at 1:45 p.m. Friday. It said, “The two-step verification settings have been changed.” This caused confusion and alarm among investors who thought their account had been hacked.
Coinbase then sent a second email with which the notification “was sent in error”. The company said in a tweet that it “experienced a problem delivering notifications that sent SMS text messages and email notifications alerting customers that 2FA account settings had changed.”
“Our team immediately began working to identify the problem and stop these erroneous notifications. We were able to stop these erroneous notifications before 15:07 PST. However, we recognize that this caused confusion to some,” he said. tweet.
The company said it will “continue to work to regain the trust of all our customers who were affected by these notifications.”
The problem was the result of an internal error and not a hack, said Schmitt, the company’s spokesman. “Suddenly, the system started sending things like a bug to the system, but it wasn’t a malicious or third-party bug.”
Don Pirtle, a 53-year-old retired police officer, told CNBC he was alarmed when he received the company’s email Friday that his two-factor authentication had been changed. He said he feared a hacker would try to take over his Coinbase account.
“I was scared to death. I contacted my daughter and her boyfriend. I asked them, ‘Should I sell my cipher? Pirtle said. “I thought, ‘I have to sell this before I lose the money.’
That day, he said he sold $ 60,298 in cryptography, an investment he made for his grandson. Now one wonders if this is a safe investment.
Coinbase, which went public in April, has more than 68 million users, more than 2,100 full-time employees and $ 223 million in assets, according to the company.