Anna Lee, Mason, and every SoFi employee whoâs ever taken calls before you... thank you. My wife and I went through the most terrifying financial moment of our lives, and your team kept us steady when everything felt like it was collapsing. Even when the calls dropped, which happens with overseas centers, you called back within minutes. That alone kept us grounded.
We still donât know exactly how the breach happened. About two and a half weeks ago, I received a text asking if I had attempted to sign in, along with a twoâfactor authentication code. I typed âN,â but a âYâ appeared on the screen just before my response.
That was the moment I knew I just got hacked.
I immediately called SoFi, but the attackers were already in motion. They drained everything that wasnât locked in vaults, converted my checking and savings into Bitcoin, and moved it out. They took my small amount of Solana. They queued a sixâfigure stock sale for the next morning. They even used my SoFi credit card on a gaming site. All of this happened within five minutes. I canceled the stock trade, and SoFi stopped the credit card charge. Oddly, the stock sale still executed the next morning, but I bought everything back at a nice profit. At the time, that felt like the only bright spot.
How did this happen? We have a theory, and it is only a theory. I had just switched from Xfinity cable internet to Kinetic fiber internet. I have an enterprise TPâLink Deco Mesh system, and one of the Decos acts as the router/firewall with Norton HomeShield. I believe HomeShield failed. The attackers accessed my laptop, logged into my SoFi account, and because I had Authenticator set to âremember device,â they bypassed it. I also had Phone Link enabled, which meant they could see incoming text messages and respond to the twoâfactor prompts instantly. They moved incredibly fast.
After countless calls, escalations, and retelling the entire story to multiple fraud teams, everything is finally resolved. All of my money is back in my checking and savings accounts. A new credit card is on the way. My investment accounts have stabilized and somehow I ended up ahead. The only thing still pending is the three Solana coins.
Iâve since reformatted both laptops and my Surface, changed passwords repeatedly, disabled saved passwords and trusted devices, and limited Phone Link to my Surface only. I also installed a separate router/firewall appliance.
I truly appreciate the hard work everyone at SoFi put into turning what could have been a catastrophic financial disaster into a frightening but ultimately educational experience.
If you think it canât happen to you, youâre probably relying on a false sense of security.
Thank you, everyone. Happy, happy, happy.
And if youâre on the fence about switching to SoFi, just do it. Stop thinking about it, open the accounts, and learn from what happened to me.
One more thing, can I please get a hoodie?