Coinbase lost its mandate to arbitration in a lawsuit over the theft of cryptocurrency worth more than $31,000 from users. Last year, Abraham Bielski was contacted by a scammer claiming to be a PayPal representative. Bielski gave the person remote access to his Coinbase account, which has assets worth $31,039.
The plaintiff alleges that Coinbase’s customer service was meager and ineffective after the money was withdrawn from his digital wallet. Bielski is attempting to pursue the case as a class action on behalf of individuals who have had similar experiences at Coinbase.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California found that the user agreement “imposed a onerous and unfair pre-arbitration dispute process on users and referred their complaints (rather than Coinbase’s) to binding arbitration.”
