US man sues T-Mobile after his bitcoins were hacked

US telecom T-Mobile is facing a lawsuit filed by a man who claims he lost thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.

Carlos Tapang of Washington has alleged that T-Mobile allowed hackers to take control of his phone account and transfer the number to AT&T. Tapang believes that T-Mobile did not provide sufficient virus protection.

According to the Verge, Tapang's suit states: "T-Mobile was unable to contain this security breach until the next day. After the incident, BTC price reached more than $17,000 per coin. The lengthy breach involved transferring 1,000 OmiseGo tokens and 19.6 BitConnect coins out of Tapang's account to buy 2.875 bitcoins."

Tapang said T-Mobile promised to attach a pin code to his account but failed to do so. He also claimed that anyone could access a T-Mobile account if they were willing to pester phone staff for long enough.

If the hackers cashed the bitcoins at the maximum price, they would have pocketed more than $50,000 (£36,000). Tapang has demanded compensation for "expending time, energy and expense" and for suffering "emotional distress".

Lloyds Banking Group, along with several large US banks, recently banned the purchase of cryptocurrency with a credit card because of the risk involved. Customers of Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and MNBA can only use debit cards for crypto purchases.