Rule number one in cryptocurrency is if you don't control the private key, you don't own it.
A couple days ago when the price of STEEM mooned, I quickly transferred my SBD and STEEM to Poloniex with the goal of selling high and buying low. I've done this before with SBD, and it worked rather well. Things were humming along until I realized my STEEM transfer wasn't showing up in my Poloniex account.
Yep. I screwed up. I've been doing bitcoin transfers including exchange transfers since early 2013. You'd think I'd be proficient at it by now, right?
It turns out, I screwed up pasting in the memo field:
That's not the right memo. I must have accidentally pasted the account in both the memo and account fields. The STEEM made it to Poloniex, but not to my wallet there.
I promptly opened a support ticket.
Two days old with no response. :(
This was my own mistake and now I'm at the mercy of Poloniex to fix it. Every time you use an exchange, you're putting yourself at risk. I've watched so many exchanges get hacked over the years that I've lost count. I know the risks and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.
Always double and triple check the account and memo fields when transferring to an exchange.
And, if possible, avoid keeping cryptocurrency on an exchange as much as possible. Get in, make your trade, and get out. Back up your private keys securely in multiple places.
Will I eventually get my STEEM back? I think so. I hope so. It's all on the blockchain so I can prove ownership and Poloniex has been dealing with DDoS attacks and massive Ethereum losses lately, so my support ticket is probably really low on their priority list. Still a bummer though. I would have enjoyed selling STEEM high and buying it back low to increase my holdings. Now I'll just be happy to get back my STEEM.
Steemit should add a withdraw to exchange field that saves your deposit MEMO and exchange account name. It would probably take 1 day to implement and would save users tens of thousands of dollars over time.
Much easier to withdraw to an account selected from a list rather than having to enter a manual transfer every time.
I agreed. Bittrex recently added a similar feature with whitelisted withdrawal addresses/accounts and it works quite well. Makes a lot of sense. Would you envision this being stored on blockchain via the profile JSON or just as a browser storage feature?
Good Idea!
yes!
What's up? Did you receive help regarding this from Polo?
I actually got an email 3 days ago from them! I'm waiting to do a full post on it until they reactivate the Steem wallet. It's still listed as Temporarily Disabled.
Pfff I hope it works out for the best
Measure twice, cut once.
Exactly. I've done this so many times, triple checking the account name and memo. It's still shocking to think how easily I screwed this up. I was just going too fast, getting too cocky.
Very good advice
I Pray that you get your Steem back! God Bless!
There is a simple solution that allows you to store your funds on the exchange. It is called the DEX. Just sayin..
HAhah... I'm a big fan of the BitShares DEX and have blogged about it before. :)
Unfortunately, the volume simply isn't there yet. It's a chicken/egg problem, for sure, but for quick trades when the market is doing crazy stuff, it's hard to beat the big exchanges. That said, I completely missed the opportunity here, so even with the low volume and slippage, I might have done better on the DEX.
The DEX has the advantage of pairing with BTS. It is nervewrecking ;-)
Yeah... I made this mistake too.
It sucks. I got the first response 5 days after I opened my ticket, but so far it has been 22 days overall and I haven't gotten my money yet. There has been some forward progress in the process, so I am hopeful they will eventually do the right thing, but the response time is abysmally slow.
Wow, 22 days?!? I didn't expect to wait that long. Wow. Sorry to hear that.
It's so cool that you've been doing this since 2013! I just got involved a couple weeks ago and I'm still a bit lost. Do you have any favorite resources / websites to reference that delve deeper into what exactly blockchain technology is/cryptocurrenices, etc? Thank you and I hope all works out with this as well.
https://www.weusecoins.com/ is a good place to start. If you want more details on what a blockchain actually is, I love this video. I've written a lot of stuff on my old blog about bitcoin, but it's pretty dated. I'm thinking of doing some information videos on it, I just need to find the time.
Thank you for taking the time to respond & share this with me!
Cheers,
Aurora
Jenkies!! Sorry to hear that, Luke. I hope you get it resolved quickly. On the plus side, this post has already made some serious cash haha!
Hah! Thanks Jed. Yeah, kinda surprising. Almost reminds me of the early days of huge payouts. I expect the flag patrol to come along eventually and hit my recent posts with downvotes due to "disagreements about payouts."
Let's not mention them. Kinda like Bloody Mart or Beetlejuice. They don't exist if we don't acknowledge them by name. Shhh
Hahah. Some people let powerful accounts which control payouts dictate their actions. That leads to self-censorship (or worse, playing "agree-with-the-SP" game). I'm not a fan of that.
Jeez... Yeah.. Now that you mention it, I do agree that it's becoming more prevalent. That sheeple mentality.
Aww I'm So sorry this happened! I hope you get your money back. That is a really scary situation, and I feel like it's easy to mess up. I wonder if there will ever be away to simplify it.
It's so simple, maybe that's the issue. We just need to slow down, double check, and not be stupid like I was. :)
You should've consulted with Fred and the rest of the gang first. C'mon Scoob.
I wish I could blame scooby snacks or some fine beverage, but it was my own stupidity on this one. I don't think I even could have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those darned kids.
Have you tried checking with a moderator in the trollbox? They might not get it fixed, but they might give you an update as to your status.
Also, very sorry. I once sent 6 steem to @nep instead of @nepd and I felt terrible. Can't imagine the loss of 3k steem. Best of luck!
Oh, bummers. Yeah, getting the account name wrong is a whole order of magnitude worse.
Yep. I tend to triple check things now :)
Something similar happen to me too instead of Klye i send it to kyle 😒
Ouch :( Cmon polo don't be dicks , theres no excuse for them to keep the funds when its simple to figure out which transfer it was..
Hope this gets resolved for ya
Thanks. I think it'll be okay... eventually.
Luke, I hope you get your funds back. Thank you for sharing your story as it helps me as a new crypto user to consider what and how I make transfers.
I hope you get it back. Based on the troll box, I would say... they might be backlogged on support issues. Good Luck.
You're welcome. It's helpful to make fun of myself once in a while and point out how stupid I can be. They are probably swamped with support right now, given all the stuff they are dealing with.
Don't send too much steem each time. The transaction fee is little. Send less than 1000 steem each time to minimize the risk.
there is NO few on tx IIRC
No fee with STEEM :) :)
When you withdraw funds, exchanges usually take a cut though.
Or I could also just not be stupid. :) I've done this enough to know the risks involved. It was just a dumb mistake.
Wow... ouch! Unfortunately, Poloniex is probably knee deep in support tickets because exchange volume is running 10x normal, and I'm sure there are lots of newbies swimming the waters. Have patience... and be persistent.
Hope you get your Steem back.
Yeah, I'll just wait it out. They are probably swamped. Thanks.
I made that mistake on blocktrades once, but they refunded my money. I know how awful it feels.
It's a learning experience. Hopefully it will be resolved before too long.
Thanks for sharing. Yes, we need to be ultra careful
It's so simple to mess things up. It's still funny to me that I actually made this mistake after so many times doing this.
Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Mistakes are invaluable when we learn from them. You have been gracious to share this with us as a teaching tool and a steem builder. Thanks again and Best wishes. Keep educating us.
Thanks. :)
Sorry to hear that. Hope you get your funds back :)
Thanks. Me too. :)
Thanks for sharing what could go wrong if we don't check before submitting etc this may help someone from doing the same or similar
You're welcome, and I hope so. I've been doing this for a while now, and I still screwed it up. It's so easy to just move too fast.
We all do it at sum level - stage
I feel your pain, everybody seems to be getting very panicky and emotional about the price rises. You've just got to take a breath before you do anything and double check your addresses and so on, I forget how easy and convenient cryptocurrencies are and sometimes that means you fuck up.
It's one of those moments where you have to remember that you're dealing with real money. What's interesting though it also demonstrates just how damn secure cryptocurrencies are generally that you can get locked out of your own account for good if you don't make sure to record your pivate key as you say.
Yeah, for sure. I was pretty excited waking up in the morning and seeing those prices. I definitely should have slowed down and taken a breath. I've been around a bit though, so this isn't the first time I've tried to do things quickly by a long shot. I probably got a little cocky, a little over-confident. Every transaction should be slow, deliberate, and thought out, no matter how many times we've done it.
I made a similar error three months ago. I tried to withdraw some STEEM from my Poloniex account, but I have mistakenly copy-pasted my Gridcoin address instead of my STEEM address. The transaction ended in Complete:Error, but I was refunded within 24 hours.
Oh, wow. Gridcoin... isn't that a scam? Seems like one to me. I don't expect it will be around for long. Be careful with stuff like that. Again, if you don't own the private key, you don't own the coin. I fear a lot of people are going to get burned with that one.Edit: So sorry, I was confusing this with gladiacoin. IMO, people should stay away from that one.
Come on, are you kidding? Gridcoin has been around since 2013. And BOINC has been around since 2002. (Gridcoin is rewarding BOINC computations). Check Coingecko developer score - Gridcoin is rated 15th, across ALL coins.
For more details, here is a nice summary:
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/gridcoin-vs-iex-golem-sonm
Ah shoot! I meant gladiacoin which promises to double your Bitcoin in 90 days and looks like a pyramid ponzi scheme. So sorry about that. Will edit my comment. Last thing I want to do is spread FUD.
I am so sorry. I surely hope you will get your steem back. The exchange is probably just backed up due to all the flurry in the market.
Yeah, I think that's the case as well. Lots going on over there right now. Thanks for your comment.
Being quite new to all this, I will keep this in mind for sure!!! Thanks for sharing this mistake, and I hope you get your 3000 STEEM back!
Thanks. I hope I will also.
Hello, that's a bummer, hope it works out. I agree with you getting money off the exchange. I use a Trezor for cold storage for BTC and ETH. But, that does not help me for SJCX or FCT. Do you have any suggestions how/where to put these?
No, sorry, I'm not familiar with those. Most coins have a native wallet, but you often have to download the whole chain to use them. That's still the safest way to go (as long as your computer is secured). Always back up your keys.
My husband had a similar mistake for a long time, only on bittrex. Then the husband wrote to the bittrex support service and he was returned to the STEEM
That's my hope. Based on @arhag's experience mentioned above, it may take some time though.
Some times we have to have big mistakes to learn big lessons. I wish you the best and hope you can recover some of your funds. Thank you for posting this as a lesson to others.
All the best
Thank you. I'll just wait it out and see what happens.
I remember losing my BTC wallet years ago when BTC was just a few bucks :(
Thanks for posting such an instructive post for a beginner in the crypto game such as myself. It's much appreciated.
Skrt
Anchorage,AK
I hope it helps some people realize this is digital cash. If you lose it, it's gone.
wel hopefully you make some new SBD with this post...
Sure is nice to have built a solid following. They seem to be voting up my posts nicely lately for which I am very grateful.
Clickbait title :P but I'm sure you will receive it back, they might just ask you to send a specific amount again from your wallet so they know that its really you. That's what happened to me at least when I had 1 letter wrong in the Memo once when I had to type it out and couldn't copy-paste.
I hope you're right. They are pretty clear about it on their deposit screen:
As you know, exchanges are not to be trusted.
Either way, I've lost the opportunity to sell at the high. Maybe the price will spring back up by the time I do get it back. :)
but yeah, fishy stuff happens everywhere and it sucks relying on hope instead of your own keys. ^^
lol, not sure how I missed that, now I feel annoying. :P
You are annoying.
So am I.
People love us anyway. It's all good. :)
(chuckles)
:0
Ouch my friend! That is my biggest fear every time i make a transfer to polo. The DDoS attacks are relentless and there is even a class action suit building at poloniexlawsuit.com in response. Good luck with support!
Heh. Funny redirect there. It just goes to poloniex's website. Thanks for the luck, I may need it.
Oh wow, it didn't before..thats super fishy
Maybe they already settled with whoever was putting that together.
Wow, sorry to hear bout this faux pas ... :O
Ouch, it hurts!
Best wishes for full recovery...
😄😇😄
Haha! A "full recovery" sounds like I have cancer. Luckily it's just some STEEM. :)
LOL! Agreed! Thank God, it's only money... :D
Best of luck. :o
Thanks
Congratulations @lukestokes!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following category:
S**t , dude i feel with you , sorry for that
Hi!
Did you manage to get our steem back? I have the same issue as you and no response yet from Poloniex. How long did it take for them to answer?
Thank you!
If i help you recover it can i keep 20%? lol JK
It can happen because many of them are transferring SBD and Steem continuously to their poloniex account at the time Steem market is on the rise.
Poliniex can be said to be a system created by man, if his capacity exceeds that required it will be difficult to accept.
Therefore, it can be said that your SBD and Steem are being processed by poloniex.
Did you ever get your money back? I just did the same thing for a smaller amount '-(
Nope. Sorry to hear you did the same thing. My hope in posting this was to raise awareness and help others avoid the same mistake. I keep bumping the support ticket, but it's now over a month old, completely ignored so far.
Unfortunately I think you only search for this after you find the mistake!
I will suggest they add a warning after step 2 here - it's the most prominent guide that pops up in google https://steemit.com/steemit/@ninjace/how-to-transfer-steem-dollars-from-steemit-account-to-poloniex
Unfortunately, archived posts can't currently be edited on Steemit.com right now.
Thanks Luke for making us all aware. Please give us an update when you know the outcome!!!!
This happened a few months back with a transfer to my Bittrex account from another user it was fixed after 3 weeks. The other user contacted Bittrex customer service. I hope Poloniex will do the same.
I'm really new to all of this so thanks for the warning, when i get to that point i will be really careful...hope it gets fixed for you........................................
Ouch... It happens...
Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope you get your funds back. God Bless !
I did a similar thing with almost 5000 XEM. I forgot to type my unique code in the memo field. I opened a ticket 2 weeks ago. It took 1 week to get a reply. I was asked to confirm the transaction id and to make a small transaction from the original sending account into my account, but using the proper code this time. I did. It has now been a full week since that happened and nothing. Poloniex support is heinous. Ever go into their Trollbox? Half the people are begging admins to check the status of their support tickets. Good luck to you, please be sure to post a follow up to let us know the results. Check out my post about this experience here: https://steemit.com/poloniex/@infinite-monkey/what-s-your-poloniex-horror-story-share-it-here
If poloniex has it, very likely they can get your funds back. I generally have had success with their support tickets in the past, just takes time when there is high traffic like recently. Most crypto mistakes like this, have almost zero chance of recovery... bitcoin address typo? It's gone, no one has it, it's lost.
Thank you for the warning from an alt-coin and Steem newbie.
i just lost 81$ usd that i send to my blockchain wallet when @blockchain is an user that earn my money and there is nothing i can do to redo this...... right?
It's like taking cash and throwing it out the window of a moving car. Unless that person logs in and happens to see the mistake and is nice enough to return it to you, it's gone.
yeah sure.... dream is for free haha i feel like an idiot
I got my STEEM back! Full details here.