Hardware wallet with an unpleasant surprise

Hardware wallets are one of the most secure ways to store cryptocurrency, but they have their own set of problems which do not exist when one talks about online wallets. Bitnewstoday has already mentioned a story when a criminal decided to rob his friend of his hardware wallet, and now there’s another kind of robbery being described in the media: hardware wallet, seemingly in pristine condition, sold via eBay and later transferring the user money somewhere else.

As told on Reddit by the victim of this scam himself, he lost the sum of $34,000 which were his life savings he wanted to keep in cryptocurrencies, quite possibly, thinking they will only increase over time. But one day he found that his Ripple, Litecoin and Dash completely vanished and were transferred somewhere else.

Ledger, the company the device of which the malefactors successfully copied, expressed its support for the victim and told he should report all this to police. Even if he doesn’t get his money back, one might assume some generous Redditors are going to donate him at least a part of the sum.

This story illustrates the danger that devices sold on online marketplaces akin to eBay pose: they can be hacked by the one who sells them. Obvious advice here is buy hardware wallets only from trustworthy dealers.