How I lost my 0.6 BTC - buy a hardware wallet guys. Don't rely on software wallets.

Well I had an electrum wallet on my Laptop. It appears I visited a website (or clicked a link) that somehow breached my anti-virus. It installed ransomware and encrypted all my files. They asked me to send Bitcoin to decrypt the files. Their email was [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

I DID NOT send them anything. I re-installed Windows on the whole hard drive - and then proceeded to install Electrum and tried to restore my wallet. The moment I entered my private key on the PC the coins (0.599 after transaction fees) were sent to the hacker's address (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/16Myr9GVhwRF6YKxLnQod5jZZgiXULbAYx)

I had accumulated 0.6 using 0.1 increments after selling most of my stuff on eBay!

NOW, the same address then sent their bitcoins to another address in January 2020 (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qw509mgwxy0trsws0254854fpdyux9sxqywguxj)

I called the police, called action fraud UK. Sent them all the details. They said they couldn't help, although they had tracked the foxmail address to China with an IP possibly in China or Russia, their words, not mine.

I then emailed the [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) many times literally begging them to return my Bitcoin. Obviously, I was naive.

I then proceeded to report these two addresses as scam on most sites who monitor crypto scams.

I then bought a new laptop (jeez, they are expensive!), as apparently even a deep rooted residual infection on the laptop can result in your soft wallet getting wiped. I could format the whole hard drive - but it was too much of a loss to tolerate should anything happen again.

Then I bought a Ledger device.

Then I sold off myself as a slave on eBay to buy my first 0.01 Bitcoin.

OK, that last line isn't true! LOL

But you know what - they haven't broken my spirit.

Peace!