by Darren Rovell, Action Network
- DraftKings’ stock tumbled over 10% after this story originally published.
- The company sent the Action Network a statement on Monday afternoon saying that about $300K of funds had been stolen.
- The news reduced consumer confidence in the company, especially on the backs of FTX’s collapse, which has kept about $1 billion in frozen consumer capital stuck in the fledgling crypto platform.
Justin White was on vacation in New York on Sunday night when his wife Lisa noticed something was happening with the couple’s bank account. On the bank’s app, she saw five consecutive withdrawals of $500.
White, a 40-year-old from Tennessee, was flabbergasted. It was coming from “DRAFTKINGS INC. BOSTON, MA.”
“It was withdrawing it from my bank card that I used for my deposits,” White said.
White panicked.
He went to his DraftKings account. He tried his login three times. It locked him out. He requested a new password. DraftKings said it sent him a text to the number on file.
And that’s when he realized he was definitely hacked. They changed his phone number so that he couldn’t get back in.
He searched for a customer service number for DraftKings.
He couldn’t find one. There was a link to click for a live chat. It said it took him to another page that wasn’t a live chat. He was asked to fill out a form that promised to get back to him.
He went to DK_Assist on Twitter, a customer service page and saw this message. At least one of the replies appeared to be from a hacker, telling people how to do it and exclaiming “free money!”
“Not only could I not get to anyone, but you have the hackers gloating,” White said.
When White went to his email to see if he could see evidence of the withdrawal; his email he gave to DraftKings was filled with spam.
“They had 500 to 600 emails in there to disguise their withdrawals,” White said.
DraftKings’ co-founder Paul Liberman told the Action Network in a statement that roughly $300K in customer funds were affected, but that they intend to “make whole any customer that was impacted.”
“We currently believe that the login information of these customers was compromised on other websites and then used to access their DraftKings accounts where they used the same login information,” Liberman said. “We have seen no evidence that DraftKings’ systems were breached to obtain this information.”
Rest is here…
