An unpleasant story involving the well-known crypto exchange HitBTC has surfaced on Reddit in the r/CryptoScams community. According to user artrover, the platform has found a convenient pretext for charging clients — fining them for "inactivity", even if it is physically impossible to log into the website due to regional blocks.

Over the past three months, $300 USDT has been deducted from the author's account — the exchange steadily withdrew $100 every month. According to user artrover, his inactivity was entirely forced. In Russia, the HitBTC website became inaccessible due to regional network restrictions, so he simply had no technical way to log into the platform to trade or withdraw his funds. The situation looks even more absurd considering the fact that the exchange did not send a single email warning before imposing the penalties.

When the defrauded client contacted customer support, they simply copied the text of clause 17.4 of the User Agreement back to him. According to user artrover, support completely ignored the fact that this is a classic case of force majeure, in which the user was cut off from his funds by external circumstances, not by his own will.

Moreover, the user notes that HitBTC is trying to hush up the negativity: their official subreddit is closed to new posts so that user complaints do not gain traction. He published his support ticket, number #1671626, publicly as proof. He urges the community to be extremely careful with this exchange, since they will find any pretext to take your money, and asks HitBTC representatives to review his case manually rather than relying on canned responses.