After being scammed, an NFT collector sues OpenSea for locking his account

According to the lawyer leading the legal team, this is not an isolated incident, and OpenSea ignores some issues.

A nonfungible token (NFT) collector is suing OpenSea for several allegations, including being locked out of his account for more than three months after being phished.

Earlier this year, OpenSea user Robbie Acres told Cointelegraph that after his NFTs were stolen through a phishing scam, he immediately reported it to the NFT marketplace. However, the NFT collector claims to have encountered a lot of difficulties, including:

In prioritizing pace over value, they took over 48 hours to respond, by which time the stolen assets had already been sold.”

To prevent further damage, the NFT marketplace also locked his account. However, Acres did not find the solution he requested. “OpenSea held my assets ransom for over three months despite repeated requests to unlock my assets,” he added. Additionally, the investor claims OpenSea forced him to swear to perjure himself to unlock his account.

NFT investor Acres believes that OpenSea should be held accountable for the losses incurred during the time. Acres believes that OpenSea caused $500,000.

Due to his involvement in the Web3 community, Acres suffered significant financial losses as a result of OpenSea’s actions.

Acres’ legal team leader, Enrico Schaefer, confirmed that this is not an isolated case. Several people are dealing with the same issue, Schaefer said.

“I have spoken with and represented several people who had their NFTs stolen or their accounts compromised on the OpenSea marketplace. In some instances, OpenSea acknowledges its failures and makes the account owner whole. In others, OpenSea ignores the problem.”

Apart from this, the lawyer said that OpenSea should focus on its customers, the people buying and selling NFTs, rather than be blinded by growth and investor dollars.

An OpenSea spokesperson told Cointelegraph the following about Acres:

The items were sold before OpenSea became aware of the reported theft. Once we became aware, we disabled the items and the user’s account has since been unlocked.”

Additionally, the platform noted that it has invested in tools and personnel to prevent and detect theft and stop the resale of stolen items on its platform.

Theft occurs across many different digital surface areas and across many unique (and legitimate) communication channels, making it among the biggest and most challenging ecosystem issues to solve.”

After the NFT marketplace introduced a new stolen item policy on Aug. 11, 2022, some users took to Twitter to complain that OpenSea was unable to help them when their NFT was stolen.