Arbitrating Crypto Theft Claims Against Crypto Exchanges

May 11, 2025  |   By: Max Dilendorf, Esq.
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Contact our team to discuss your case against a cryptocurrency exchange.  Email: info@dilendorf.com; Phone: 212.447.9797.

Arbitrating crypto theft claims in 2025 requires a clear understanding of the legal process, timing, and costs involved.

This page features a 10-part video series by Max Dilendorf, a crypto fraud lawyer based in New York, guiding victims of cryptocurrency theft through every critical stage of arbitration against U.S.-based exchanges.

Each episode is designed to help you take action, protect your rights, and pursue recovery in 2025’s evolving legal landscape.

Arbitrating Crypto Theft Claims: Video Series

What to Do in the First 24 Hours After Crypto Theft

Learn immediate actions to secure your accounts, enable two-factor authentication, check for SIM-swap attacks, and freeze your credit reports to protect your identity and assets.

How to File an IC3 Report After Crypto Theft

Understand the importance of filing a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and how it supports future legal actions and forensic investigations.

How to Hire a Blockchain Forensic Firm After Crypto Theft

Discover how to safely hire a blockchain forensic firm to trace stolen cryptocurrency and avoid falling victim to fraudulent recovery services.

Unlocking Arbitration with Your Exchange’s User Agreement

Navigate the arbitration clauses and liability waivers in your exchange’s User Agreement to understand your rights and the steps to preserve your ability to file a claim.

How to File an Arbitration Claim Against a Crypto Exchange

Get a step-by-step guide on filing an arbitration demand with the American Arbitration Association (AAA), including completing the necessary forms and avoiding procedural mistakes.

Understanding Liability Waivers in User Agreements

Learn how to interpret and challenge liability waivers in User Agreements, especially when an exchange denies responsibility for stolen funds.

Arbitrating Stolen Crypto Claims: Full Timeline & What Victims Should Know

Gain insights into the full lifecycle of a crypto arbitration case, from filing to final award, and learn how to plan ahead and avoid surprises.

How to Choose the Right Arbitrator for Your Crypto Theft Case

Understand the arbitrator selection process in crypto theft cases filed through the AAA and why selecting someone with crypto and cybersecurity expertise is critical.

Understanding Arbitration Fees for a Crypto Theft Claim Case

Get a detailed look at the true cost of arbitrating a crypto theft claim, including filing fees, expert witness retainers, and evidentiary hearing expenses.

What Happens at the Final Evidentiary Hearing for a Crypto Theft Claim

Learn what to expect during the final evidentiary hearing, how evidence is presented, the role of expert witnesses, and how the arbitrator evaluates the case.

For more information and to watch the full video series, visit the Crypto Theft Lawyer YouTube Playlist.

If you need personalized guidance, contact Max Dilendorf—a crypto fraud lawyer with extensive experience recovering stolen cryptocurrency from U.S.-based exchanges. Reach us at 212.457.9797 or email us at info@dilendorf.com.

Government Sim Swap Resources:

We stay up to date and track cases involving phishing attacks and sim swap affecting major cryptocurrency exchanges and mobile operators:

IRA Financial Trust, the crypto retirement account provider that in February lost $37 million to theft, sued Gemini – its custodian and trading partner – for allegedly sloppy security protocols that it claimed led to its customers’ accounts getting drained.

One of the largest cellphone carriers in the United States is facing yet another lawsuit by a digital currency investor over SIM swap fraud. T-Mobile failed in its duty to protect its users and resulted in the plaintiff’s loss of $55,000 worth of BTC, according to the lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania.

I am victim of a SIM Swap scam. Both T-Mobil and Coinbase.com where negligent and failed to protect me. I have all the evidence to prove my case.

An 84-year-old grandmother living in West Palm Beach started investing in cryptocurrency to help save up for her family’s future. Then, nearly all of the money she put into cryptocurrency vanished after she claims a hacker got into her accounts and drained it of about $800,000.

Coinbase users have filed 134 pages of complaints to the SEC alleging that their funds have been “stolen” by the exchange

Yesterday, Kevin Frye filed a complaint in the Southern District of Florida against T-Mobile USA, Inc. for allegedly conducting a “SIM-Swap” without his consent, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. The plaintiff claimed that “T-Mobile Representatives were either complicit with the theft or grossly negligent” since they have been on “notice for years that their security measures were not adequate.”

A Pennsylvania woman who lost the equivalent of $20,000 in cryptocurrency as part of a mobile fraud scheme says T-Mobile failed to protect her account in the face of a wave of similar incidents.

Nine months before scammers stole $20,000 from Kesler’s Coinbase account, the suit argues, Jack Dorsey was the victim of another high profile SIM swap, in which outsiders seized control of the Twitter CEO’s information. Security journalist Brian Krebs also covered the issue in 2018, specifically reporting that a T-Mobile retail store employee was under investigation for making an unauthorized SIM swa

A man is suing Gemini, claiming it was negligent not to notice significant sums of money moved from his money market account to buy cryptocurrency on the exchange over seven days. While the trader was out of reach in the Australian outback, someone allegedly stole money from his CIT account and wired it to Gemini to purchase crypto. Later, he noticed fraudulent activity on his accounts with other banks, and is suing CIT in addition to Gemini, claiming it violated the Electronic Funds Transfer A

Hackers stole $21 million in Bitcoin and $15 million in Ethereum from retirement accounts held with IRA Financial Trust on February 8, according to a report from Bloomberg based on an anonymous source.

Interviews and thousands of complaints have revealed a pattern of account hacks where users have reported money vanishing from their accounts, reports CNBC. Once criminals gain access to an account, funds can be drained within minutes.

My account that my mom and I use together got hacked in June of this year. We lost $350,000.The hacker not only transferred out all of the crypto we owned, they used the bank accounts that were linked to purchase more. When we found out about the hack, we called our banks to stop the transfer of money. We also immediately contacted Coinbase to report the hack. However, Coinbase still let the purchase go through while the bank transactions were pending. Now, Coinbass is claiming that because we stopped our banks from transferring the money, we owe them $10,000 to reimburse them for the purchase.

California-headquartered crypto trading platform Coinbase—has been named in at least 115 complaints sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the California Department of Business Oversight

“I believe Coinbase has engaged in fraud by knowingly marketing a service it knows it cannot actually provide,” the filing from November last year read, adding: “Coinbase knows it does not have the infrastructure to timely and adequately meet customer needs.” At the time, bitcoin and other virtual currencies were rocketing in value, leading to an unprecedented interest from eager new investors.

It took only two minutes for the attacker to clean Sean Everett out of what was then a few thousand dollars’ worth of digital coins from his Coinbase wallet

Author Jeff Roberts said $250,000 was stolen from Coinbase in 2013/2014. Roberts claims Coinbase’s hot wallet was hacked just a year after the company’s inception in 2012, and that the hacker made away with $250,000 worth of Bitcoin

Olympia and Steve Kallman of Parma said they are dealing with some sleepless nights after police reported they had more than $22,000 taken by con artists from their Coinbase cryptocurrency virtual wallet back on Aug. 16.

T-Mobile is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit after hackers were able to gain unauthorized access to a client’s account. Using information provided by the cellular company, hackers successfully bypassed their two-factor authentication security measures enabling them to obtain a SIM card with the client’s personal and financial information. $8.7 million in cryptocurrency was ultimately transferred out of the customer’s account.

T-Mobile has been hit with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit after Reginald Middleton lost millions of dollars when hackers gained unauthorized access to his account. The hackers used information supplied by T-Mobile to successfully circumvent the two-factor authentication measure, which allowed them to obtain a SIM card containing all of Middleton’s financial and personal information. Ultimately, $8.7 million in cryptocurrency was transferred out of Middleton’s account.

Richard Harris, the customer and plaintiff, is alleging T-Mobile’s misconduct including its failure to adequately protect customer information, hire appropriate support staff and its violation of federal and state laws led to his loss of 1.63 bitcoin.

Last night while I was sleeping my account was logged into (web) from Russia…

The Vidovics lost nearly $170,000 in the blink of an eye when someone hacked their Coinbase account.

John said his accounts with Coinbase and Coinbase Pro were emptied as he watched his phone screen.

….an increasing number of users of the currently highly popular cryptocurrency exchange called Coinbase have suddenly found their accounts on the platform empty. This is after hackers have managed to gain access to them and thoroughly drain their cryptocurrency wallets.

League of Legends superstar has had $200,000 in cryptocurrency stolen from them – directly from their Coinbase account

…an unauthorized user had changed Ms. Maguian’a passwords for trading platforms… Coinbase and initiated transactions that emptied her accounts of crypto valued at around $80,000 at the time

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the class action against Coinbase…will be held in open court. The case in question alleges that Coinbase assisted in laundering around $8.2 mln of stolen Bitcoin (BTC) – valued at over $100 mln today.

The Vidovics lost nearly $170,000 in the blink of an eye when someone hacked their Coinbase account.

Dr. Anders Apgar, a Coinbase customer, said his account had a balance of more than $100,000 in crypto when it was hacked during a robocall.

I had $14,000+ USD in my coinbase pro account. The account was hacked at the money was switched over to crypto and sent to multiple people this occured several hours ago (05/14/2021). Case # 06082303

Tampa resident David Bryant knew something was wrong last October when he found Coinbase notifications deleted from his account and his login no longer worked. “I lost about $15,000 dollars worth of crypto,” David said.

A Texas man is suing Coinbase, the cryptocurrency trading platform. The man alleges his Coinbase account was breached to make a $50,000 unauthorized transaction. He says at least 1,000 other Coinbase accounts have also been breached.

A new report finds that Russia was linked to the majority of crypto ransomware invasions, siphoning the equivalent of $400 million in stolen funds to illicit addresses in that country. It appears Russia has strong ties to the majority of crypto hacks and cybercrimes, especially when you consider that 74% of ransomware revenue in 2021 — over $400 million worth of  cyptocurrency — went to accounts affiliated with the country in some way, according to a new report from cryptocurrency tracking and analytics firm, Chainalysis.

Case #05530638, #05542432. This all happened 4/15/21-4/16/21. How can I talk with someone from coinbase? I am so frustrated that someone stole my Bitcoin, ETH, and transferred $500 from my bank account and stole that too from my coinbase… Total almost $12,000. I am trying to understand what is going on and now I am completely blocked out of coinbase. I want answers!

An increasing number of users of the highly popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have found their accounts on the platform empty after hackers managed to gain access to them and drain their cryptocurrency wallets.

Raza says Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange where he was robbed, has not been able to provide a solution and he thinks they need to step up security protocols.

 In four minutes, cyber looters pilfered $34,123 worth of virtual currency from a Virginia resident’s Coinbase (COIN) account, the 38-year-old told Yahoo Finance.

I received several txts last night sending me a 2fa code. I woke up and my bitcoin was transferred at 230am to some address. Any idea what happened? Was it my cell phone provider? Seems fishy to me since I could not detect any threats my phone. No idea how the culprit read my txt messages but oh well.

I am an active user of CoinBase and somehow my account was breached even with 2FA enabled. The hackers stole all of the coins in my account by converting them to BTC and sending them to their wallet. They then deposited $1k USD and purchased BTC using my debit card and stole it before I could lock my account down.

Taking my case to reddit. My account was hacked approximately 3 weeks ago and .50 BTC (approximately $23k USD) was stolen from my account. In summary, I decided to log into my account one day to check in on the balance. A hacker had locked my account out.

…hackers managed to get into the accounts and move funds off the platform, draining some accounts dry. Thousands of customers had already begun to complain to Coinbase that funds had vanished from their accounts…Coinbase did not disclose how much cryptocurrency was stolen in the attack.

CNBC interviewed Coinbase users across the country. The interviews and complaints revealed a pattern of account takeovers, where users see money suddenly vanish from their account, followed by poor customer service from the company. Since 2016, Coinbase users have filed more than 11,000 complaints against Coinbase with the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, mostly related to customer service.

An increasing number of users of the highly popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have found their accounts on the platform empty after hackers managed to gain access to them and drain their cryptocurrency wallets.

Loads of scams out there. Remember Coinbase does not support chat. You will never speak with a Coinbase employee.

I have been trying to contact Coinbase support since Thursday when I saw $25k BTC sold from my wallet without my consent and could not receive any assistance at all from Coinbase to protect my investment.

It was 10.6 bitcoins held in the wallet service Coinbase, the most well-funded and widely implemented service on the market.

All your money is gone. Whoops! Sorry for your loss. Some Coinbase account holders are losing their shit today as they look to their bank statements to find that the exchange has withdrawn excessive amounts of money from their accounts.

California-headquartered crypto trading platform Coinbase—has been named in at least 115 complaints sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the California Department of Business Oversight

“I believe Coinbase has engaged in fraud by knowingly marketing a service it knows it cannot actually provide,” the filing from November last year read, adding: “Coinbase knows it does not have the infrastructure to timely and adequately meet customer needs.” At the time, bitcoin and other virtual currencies were rocketing in value, leading to an unprecedented interest from eager new investors

Yesterday, Kevin Frye filed a complaint in the Southern District of Florida against T-Mobile USA, Inc. for allegedly conducting a “SIM-Swap” without his consent, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. The plaintiff claimed that “T-Mobile Representatives were either complicit with the theft or grossly negligent” since they have been on “notice for years that their security measures were not adequate.”

A Pennsylvania woman who lost the equivalent of $20,000 in cryptocurrency as part of a mobile fraud scheme says T-Mobile failed to protect her account in the face of a wave of similar incidents.

Nine months before scammers stole $20,000 from Kesler’s Coinbase account, the suit argues, Jack Dorsey was the victim of another high profile SIM swap, in which outsiders seized control of the Twitter CEO’s information. Security journalist Brian Krebs also covered the issue in 2018, specifically reporting that a T-Mobile retail store employee was under investigation for making an unauthorized SIM swap.

Mr. Harris sued T-Mobile in July, alleging the company’s practices didn’t meet federal standards and allowed a hacker to take over his phone number in 2020 and steal bitcoin worth nearly $15,000 at the time, and more now.

T-Mobile declined to comment on the suit but motioned to move the case to arbitration. Like Verizon and AT&T, the company requires arbitration to resolve disputes in its terms of service, often leading to closed-door settlements.

Hackers stole the personal identification data for millions of past, present and prospective T-Mobile customers, leading to a huge class-action lawsuit.

Losing cellphone service is inconvenient. But in some cases, it also might mean you’re getting hacked.

“It’s a whole new wave of crime,” said Erin West, the deputy district attorney of Santa Clara County. “It’s a new way of stealing of money: They target people that they believe to have cryptocurrency,” she told CNBC.

Just when you think the massive T-Mobile hack can’t get any worse, on Friday the carrier announced that over 50 million people, including current and former customers as well as prepaid customers, were affected by the breach. Information like Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and account PINs were exposed.

Cellphone carrier T-Mobile is being sued over allegations it failed to safeguard against a SIM swap scam that cost one customer $55,000 in lost.

The CEO of a crypto firm that recently settled with the SEC over its 2017 ICO is suing T-Mobile over a series of SIM-swaps that resulted in the loss of $8.7 million worth of crypto.

The suit accuses T-Mobile of having “abjectly failed” in its responsibility to protect the personal and financial information of its customers.

A victim of a crypto theft using SIM-swap attack has filed a lawsuit against T-Mobile, alleging the failure and negligence on the part of the US cell phone carrier in preventing these scams.

“This action arises out of T-Mobile’s systemic and repeated failures to protect and safeguard its customers’ highly sensitive personal and financial information against common, widely reported, and foreseeable attempts to illegally obtain such information,” the lawsuit alleged.

T-Mobile is currently facing a complaint against one of the victims of SIM swapping, a type of fraud.

Cheng believed that the attack would not have happened if not for “T-Mobile‘s negligent practices and its repeated failure to adhere to federal and state law.”

T-Mobile is facing yet another SIM swapping complaint involving cryptocurrency theft. Last week, a Philadelphia man named Richard Harris filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the wireless giant alleging he lost approximately $55,000 worth of Bitcoin due to the company’s failure to safeguard his account

The sim was successfully swapped which means that either it was done without the pin or the person knew the pin. Again, this is only possible if it was a T-Mobile employee and most likely one of the employees that help a month prior during the line add and upgrade.

When it comes to security or whatever it is leave T-Mobile. It is insider job someone is doing sim swaps.

T-Mobile confirmed this week that it was hit by a “highly sophisticated cyberattack” that exposed names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver’s license information for more than 40 million consumers who had applied for credit with T-Mobile.

After a crazy week where T-Mobile handed over my phone number to a hacker twice, I now have my T-Mobile, Google, and Twitter accounts back under my control. However, the weak link in this situation remains and I’m wary of what could happen in the future.

American telecommunications provider T-Mobile has disclosed a data breach after an unknown number of customers were apparently affected by SIM swap attacks. SIM swap fraud (or SIM hijacking) allows scammers to take control of targets’ phone numbers after porting them using social engineering or after bribing mobile operator employees to a SIM controlled by the fraudsters.

Yesterday, someone went into a T-Mobile retail store used a fake California Drivers License to buy a copy of my SIM card.

And now for the crazy chain of events, where T-mobile allowed a complete stranger to do a SIM swap on me, and Coinbase allowed a complete stranger to change my Coinbase identity with no questions asked.

Silver Miller said that “with little more than a persuasive plea for assistance, a willing telecommunications carrier representative, and an electronic impersonation of the victim,” criminals can manage to steal millions of dollars targeting unsuspecting victims.

Hackers swapped my T-Mobile SIM card without my approval and methodically shut down access to most of my accounts and began reaching out to my Facebook friends asking to borrow crypto.

Coinbase has admitted that hackers stole crypto from thousands of its users’ accounts over a three-month period.

Bad actors were able to infiltrate the accounts of and steal cryptocurrency from around 6,000 Coinbase customers by exploiting a multi-factor authentication flaw.

Matthew doesn’t know how the hackers were able to access his Coinbase account, but he remembered that when he signed up with Coinbase, they advertised they had insurance.

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This article is provided for your convenience and does not constitute legal advice. The information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

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Max Dilendorf, Esq.

Max (Maksim) Dilendorf’s legal practice is laser-focused on digital assets and cyber-crime cases, a domain he has passionately pursued since 2017. Over the past 8 years, Max built a distinct digital asset law practice, dedicating tens of thousands of hours to managing diverse client cases, research and engaging ...

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