Coinberry crypto exchange sues customers for buying Bitcoin for free during software glitch
Canadian crypto exchange platform Coinberry has reportedly sued its customers who took leverage of its software glitch and obtained bitcoin without any payments.
Coinberry, a regulated digital currency trading platform, is owned by Vancouver-based WonderFi Technologies Inc., a company backed by Canadian Shark Tank star Kevin OLeary.
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The lawsuit, filed in Ontario in June ‘22, describes that during a software upgrade in 2020, Coinberry Exchange accidentally let customer buy Bitcoin with Canadian dollars that had not properly transferred to customer accounts.
The Cryptocurrency Exchange further detailed that during the software glitch, users could initiate an Interac e-transfer, get the amount credited to their Coinberry Exchange Accounts, buy Bitcoin, transfer the coins out, and cancel the original e-transfer. By doing so, they kept their funds whilst getting Bitcoin for free.
According to Coinberry Exchange, 546 customers were able to acquire a total of about 120 Bitcoins altogether without paying anything for them before the software issue was fixed. The lawsuit states:
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Coinberry connected with all of the said 546 affected registered customers by email and commanded return of the misappropriated bitcoins.
“Coinberry exchange was able to safeguard the return of approximately 37 of the misappropriated Bitcoins from 270 of the affected registered customers,” the lawsuit continues.
Some users transferred their ill-gotten Bitcoin to Binance Exchange, the Canadian Exchange further noted, adding: “Coinberry exchange also immediately contacted Binance.” The lawsuit detailed:
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Binance exchange acknowledged that it had identified a quantity of the misappropriated Bitcoin and undertook to restrict any access to the customer accounts.
The Canadian cryptocurrency exchange platform said it has yet to recover two-thirds of the lost Bitcoin from 50 customers.
The lawsuit seeks the return of 63 bitcoins from 50 customers, including 9.48 Bitcoin that were transferred to Binance exchange. Coinberry exchange said its list of misappropriated bitcoins provided in the lawsuit does not include customer who have taken and not yet returned amounts under $5,000, as valued in May 2020.
The crypto exchange firm further mentioned that the largest amount embezzled and not returned was $385,722.31 by two customer accounts under the names Jordan Steifuk and Connor Heffernan, which the Canadian crypto exchange platform said are actually the same person.
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