Theft is not a joke as millions of people suffer every year. However, most stolen items have a chance to be recovered; in the crypto space, the situation is more complicated, especially when the victims experience theft multiple times.
“If you lose your crypto, it’s a very humbling and lonely experience,” said Aidan Larkin, CEO of investigation firm Asset Reality. “The amount of people who get scammed twice is huge.” Larkin’s comments refer to victims who are often the target of another scam as they seek help retrieving their crypto.
With the crime running even more rampant, Larkin decided to enter a partnership with crypto wallet MetaMask to aid victims in getting their crypto bank. On Thursday, the partnership was announced when MetaMask revealed its plans to help victims band together and collaborate with lawyers, forensic services, and law enforcement.
“Victims of scams often have difficulty getting sufficient resources and attention from law enforcement,” said MetaMask in a statement. “Asset Reality’s offering allows multiple victims of a scam operation to join forces and build a larger forensic investigation against a scam operation. They will take the heavy lifting off the users to build an investigation into each scam operation.”
The partnership was struck when MetaMask security expert Alex Herman grew frustrated with existing recovery services, something he found comprised mostly “vaporware” or outright scams.
“We wanted to provide a guiding light. MetaMask is paying for this as a service extended to our users. We’ll cover a first level investigation,” said Herman. He also added that the company had already increased customer service staff to assist fraud victims in the process.
A new section will be added to MetaMask’s website that invites users to report funds lost to hackers and supply details about how the hack occurred. Asset Reality will then contact the victims and help them take steps to recover the funds.
Although the partnership emphasizes the victim’s experience, it will also provide valuable data to help crypto owners marshal a response to a given hack. Larkin also said that the company would use the data to not only trace the stolen assets like NFTs but also warn marketplaces that their platforms are being used for fencing stolen goods.
