Basic conclusions
At Binance, we understand that having your account locked out is an extremely frustrating experience, and we strive to minimize this occurrence as much as possible, and our teams work directly with affected users to resolve these issues.
As a centralized trading platform, we must protect your funds, cooperate with regulators and law enforcement agencies, and maintain the ecosystem (other users). This article explains some of the reasons why your account may be locked, and how you can reopen it.
Your account may be locked for a number of reasons, including:
If a hacker gains access to your account, we will have to lock it to protect your funds.
If you've recently interacted with a known scammer, we'll have to protect you from that.
If you have a possible connection to a sanctioned individual or entity, or live in a sanctioned location.
If you travel to a sanctioned country or territory.
If you violate our Terms of Use.
In the absence of one of the documents required for identity authentication or anti-money laundering (AML) purposes.
If your funds are linked to a hack, fraud, or rip-off that occurred in the DeFi industry.
If you are a hacker or a user with malicious intentions
If your account has been locked at the request of a law enforcement agency (police).
We will discuss these reasons in more detail in the article and share with you the steps that will enable you to work with our team to get your account up and running again.
Background Information
Binance, like any bank and every other traditional financial institution with which you interact daily, must comply with local, state, and federal laws in order to maintain compliance and promote a safe trading environment for our users.
This is crucial to the growth of the blockchain ecosystem, however, there are strict rules in jurisdictions around the world that cryptocurrency exchanges and law enforcement must follow before freezing user accounts.
This ensures that law enforcement has the tools necessary to conduct investigations without potential abuse or abuse of power, and we do our best to clearly highlight this commitment in our Terms of Use, and throughout our ecosystem.
Having clear processes in place for receiving and responding to inquiries from regulators and law enforcement allows us to build a robust product ecosystem on Binance without fear of widespread outages resulting from sweeping regulatory actions.
Having these policies protects the interests of over 100 million users, prevents ill-intentioned people from exploiting users on our platform, and promotes a more stable trading environment.
A tool frequently used by law enforcement is the temporary locking of accounts flagged as not complying with our Terms of Use.
It is important to understand that law enforcement will often have to suspend a number of accounts to determine in their investigation which accounts are and are not involved, which unfortunately means that some innocent users may often be temporarily affected by these investigations.
We understand that any user may be extremely frustrated when they find their account locked out especially when the reason for the account lockout is not immediately clear, however, Binance is working hand in hand with regulators and law enforcement to ensure its investigations minimize potential account lockout periods for innocent users.
Below, we'll detail some of the general reasons why accounts may be reported for lock, provide some context for what this means for Binance and users, and outline procedures in place to resolve potential account lockout issues.
the reasons
An account is usually temporarily frozen on Binance for one of the main reasons below. These reasons are not exhaustive and there are always special exceptions that our team takes into account when evaluating these accounts, but they represent the most common cases.
Preserve users' money
If our system detects that your account may have been compromised, we will temporarily lock your account to ensure your funds are safe.
On January 1, 2019, our systems began detecting instances of users' SIM cards being replaced and their passwords stolen and proactively blocked affected accounts to prevent hackers from withdrawing assets.
In one incident, this proactive measure successfully prevented ill-intentioned people from stealing a user's altcoin wallet.
There are many ways in which your account can be hacked without your knowledge, any file you download or receive may carry a virus, any other trading platform you use may leak your email and password, you may be a victim of SIM swapping, etc.
As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, these methods will continue to evolve, but so will our ability to protect users' funds.
Hackers may often try to contact customer service to trick us into releasing funds so they can steal them, which is why we have strong identity authentication procedures and require thorough identification documents, etc.
We know this can be very annoying for you but it is essential to keep your money safe.
When you encounter these issues, the best thing you can do is work with our customer service team, provide them with the information they need, and be patient while we work to reopen your account.
Protect users from scammers
As a centralized trading platform, Binance offers a variety of ways for traders with supported local currencies to interact with the Binance ecosystem.
If our system detects that you have been the victim of a scammer or fraudster, we will lock your account to ensure that you do not lose control of the account and to ensure that you know how to identify and avoid fraud.
Two of the most popular ways to do this are peer-to-peer (P2P) trading and direct deposits in the approved local currency, and for the vast majority of users, this is a secure and seamless process that gives any authorized trader the opportunity to enjoy the full Binance experience.
However, in some cases, ill-intentioned people will try to take advantage of these systems to deceive users, and thanks to our advanced monitoring systems, and with the help of user feedback, we are able to detect most of these attempts and immediately lock the accounts in question for a detailed investigation.
Our customer service team will then work with affected users to ensure they are aware of this situation and to provide assistance, and those found guilty will be removed from Binance and reported to the relevant authorities.
Penalties
If you live in a country or territory subject to comprehensive sanctions, we will be forced to lock and cancel your account, and most of the time, you will simply not be able to sign up or pass identity verification, but new rules may emerge, especially given the ever-changing geopolitical environment.
Please understand that we do not create penalty laws, but we must follow them, and we have no other choice. In most cases, your account will be placed in withdrawal-only mode, and you must withdraw your assets. For users affected by these restrictions, we will send them advance notice to allow them By taking the necessary action.
In order to meet international regulations, even if you are not a sanctioned individual or entity, you may be considered to have a potential connection to a sanctioned individual or entity and therefore not permitted to trade on our platform.
We maintain working groups with most of these global institutions and work to promote the adoption of digital currencies as part of the international rule of law.
Banned countries
If you travel to a restricted country, your account may also be at risk of being locked.
For example, if you travel to the United States and access your account, our system will lock your account and ask you to verify that you are not a US citizen and do not live in the United States.
This is to ensure that US citizens or residents do not use Binance.com (they can instead use Binance.US).
Violation of terms of use
If we detect any violation by you of our Terms of Use, we may lock your account for a period of time or until the issue is resolved. There are several examples of this, but the most common are submitting a false document, engaging in abusive behavior, and showing signs of being a hacker.
In most cases, our customer service team will tell you the specific action that caused your violation of our Terms of Use so you can take action. For larger matters, we may have to involve law enforcement, and we may not be able to tell you the actual reason right away.
Our teams are keen to provide the user with as much information as possible to speed up this process.
However, we may not be able to do this in some of the following few cases.
Hackers and those with malicious intent
If we have strong reason to believe that you have been hacked or have malicious intent, we may involve law enforcement agencies and may not be able to immediately disclose the reasons to you.
Unfortunately, we don't always get this right, but we usually only do so when we have solid evidence, especially for longer account lockouts.
Binance does not take the assets seized during these proceedings, but hands them over to the appropriate authorities in response to a court order or confiscation order.
Law enforcement requests
Committed to creating the most secure and compliant cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world, Binance closely cooperates with global law enforcement agencies and regulators.
Our compliance and security teams are key to this relationship, working to investigate accounts and wallets flagged by law enforcement as being involved in potential criminal activity.
We take these requests seriously and have previously worked together to thwart the efforts of international cybercrime organizations.
One such collaboration was our work against Lazarus, which was responsible for the Ronin hack, where we were instrumental in recovering $5.8 million stolen from users.
A tool frequently used by law enforcement is the temporary locking of accounts flagged as potentially violating our Terms of Use.
It is important to understand that law enforcement will often have to suspend a number of accounts to determine in their investigation which accounts are and are not involved, which unfortunately means that some innocent users may often be temporarily affected by these investigations.
Furthermore, certain Law Enforcement (LE) requests allow us to disclose to the user the nature of the investigation and even direct the user to contact the relevant authorities themselves.
We understand from our interactions with affected users that this is the preferred method, but more often than not, authorities ask us not to share the nature of the request with the affected user, and in this case, we cannot provide the user with any information other than that they may be violating our Terms of Use.
What do I do if my account is locked?
We understand your frustration when you try to log in to your Binance account only to find that it has been locked, but we would like to reassure you that the necessary measures are in place to recover your account and resolve outstanding issues.
The best thing you can do is contact our customer service team to get more information about the lock and take the necessary steps to reopen your account. You can also go to Support Center to learn more about this procedure.
Often times, an account lock can be lifted by providing our team with additional information or verification documents. Additionally, law enforcement in most jurisdictions are required to contact users directly if funds are officially seized from their accounts to give them an opportunity to claim those funds through legal means.
Occasionally, an account may be frozen that is completely outside of Binance's control, all we ask is that you be patient and understanding while we work with the third parties initiating the ban to reactivate your account as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
Binance puts the safety of its customers first, and we have continued to invest in the best people and technology in the market to ensure we keep pace with the ever-changing ecosystem.
We will continue to implement measures that protect our users from ill-intentioned users and build our threat investigation and assessment capabilities.
