ComplaintsforgoLance

• Initial Complaint

  03/15/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I used goLance to find and hire freelancers to work for me. Over the past 2 weeks, I'v been a victim of cyber attacks. These hackers hijacked my cell phone number to intercept two-step authorization that most banks and secure sites use after a password has been entered, they broke into my ****************ort.com email address to impersonate me to gain funds from goLance, hacked in to my goLance account to hire themselves and get paid, stole money from my Venmo account, and basically have everything they need to impersonate me including my SSN, DOB, home address history, photos of my Driver's License, and a photo of me holding my Drivers License that I used to open up an online bank account. goLance originally credited me for the $458 dollars that the hackers took from me but put it into goWallet — a feature I’ve never used before and is used like a virtual wallet that I can take from to pay my freelancers. They did this despite knowing that I’m already under cyber attack. This happened around Feb. 28. The hackers see this money sitting in goWallet and take the money, moving it into a cryptocurrency. goLance writes to me at [email protected] to confirm the authorization of this transaction — this email never gets to me and is intercepted by the hackers. The hackers reply, “move forward with the transaction.” Now my money is gone and goLance has refused to reimburse me for the money they helped the hackers get away with. My major gripe with goLance is that they should have credited the the card I have on file and not goWallet. It makes absolute sense that if I make payment from my credit card, all refunds should go there as well. They already knew I was under attack and they still put it in a place where the hackers could get it…and the hackers did. I want my $485 back from goLance. Venmo, my online banks, and every institute where my money was taken from returned my money within 72 hours of my filing a dispute.

  Business response

  03/28/2022

  Hello,

  The case described by this user is correct, I wanted to underline a few points that are incorrect.

  - A few weeks before the user was hacked, we have sent a general message to all our users (via email and within our application) to promote 2 factor authentication. This user hasn't enabled it before he was hacked (he has enabled it after the money was gone).
  

  - We weren't aware that our user account was hacked when we have processed the refund to his account.
  

   

  As explained by this user, his email, account and phones have been hacked and the fraudsters managed to get into his account, we have noticed an unusual payment and have manually contacted him by email to get a confirmation that this payment was approved. We have received the confirmation that this payment was authorized but because his email was hacked, we have learned after that it was the fraudster who answered to us.

  The funds have been withdrawn by the fraudster and we don't have them anymore, that is why we cannot refund this user.
  

  As explained in our terms that have been approved by our user, he is responsible for any action done from his account: "Please be advised that it is your entire responsibility to ensure proper safeguarding and maintaining of your Account's confidentiality for both e-mail and password. You hereby give Us the authorization to assume that any person or persons who is/are accessing and using the Website with your e-mail/password is You. This also means that another person is fully authorized to act on your behalf. If this is not the case, you accept hereby that you will be obliged to let us know as soon as possible you become aware or suspect that someone is using Your account without your authorization. You are strongly advised to create and use a unique password for accessing our Website."

  Let me know if you have any questions.

   

  Regards,

  goLance risk Manager
  

   

  Customer response

  03/29/2022

  Better Business Bureau:

  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to my complaint and have determined that this does not resolve my  issue.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

  **In order for the bureau to continue to assist you, you MUST provide your view on the matter or your complaint will be closed as answered.
  
  

   

  Hi,

   

  The response from goLance is incorrect: As explained in our terms that have been approved by our user, he is responsible for any action done from his account.  The "hiring" of the hacker was not done from my account.  The hacker used their goLance account to hire themselves.  I repeat, the hacker was not hired from my account and no one was using my account without my authorization.

   

  When goLance was made aware of this, they acknowledged this by returning my stolen money and placing it into goWallet -- which made it accessible to the hackers.  If goLance would have returned my money to the credit card on file, we would not be in this situation.  They put my money in an unsafe place after they acknowledged my account had already been compromised.  

   

  Thank you, 

   

  Complaint ID: 16892128
  

    

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩