DraftKing’s user details lose nearly thousands to hack

DraftKing’s ( DKNG ) shares fell nearly 11% on Monday after an Action Network report that customers had been hacked.

The hack came late on Sunday night, usually the busiest day of the week for sportsbooks, and just hours before the first US soccer World Cup match, an event expected to generate significant interest in gambling.

DraftKings did not respond to Yahoo Finance’s request for comment, however tweeted from the customer support page: “We are aware of reports of customers experiencing issues with their accounts and we are investigating.”

Josh Cooper, a 39-year-old who lives outside of Kansas City, Missouri, has been using the daily fantasy feature on DraftKings for several years. During Sunday night’s NFL game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, DraftKings emailed Cooper that a draft was being processed.

The first movement in the account that was not triggered by Cooper occurred at 8:21 p.m. CT, according to bank statements reviewed by Yahoo Finance. The hacker deposited $5.00. Six minutes later, nearly all of Cooper’s $19,439.00 had been withdrawn from the account.

“So I’m like, ‘Well, I haven’t withdrawn anything,'” Cooper told Yahoo Finance. “Since I was on my PC, I just quickly hit the account and hit ‘cancel withdrawal request’.”

Cooper, who was watching the game with his computer open to track his fantasy players, was able to quickly void the withdrawal. By 9:08 CT, the money was back in his account, but he still can’t access his account on other devices since the backup phone number to change the password had been changed.

“I was extremely lucky,” Cooper said. I think I was right there while it was happening, logging in, being able to hit the cancel button as soon as it appeared.”

Cooper emailed DraftKing’s support to report the issue at 9:21 a.m. CT.

“We understand how troubling it is to feel that someone else has access to your account,” wrote an attorney for the DraftKings player 19 minutes later. “We have restricted your account as a precaution while we investigate. We will follow up on your account status when we have an update.”

The story continues

By midday Monday, Cooper had heard nothing more about the status of his account.

“I mostly just try to keep track of any kind of notice that something is trying to be withdrawn,” Cooper said. “They say it’s on hold, so I hope I can trust them on that, but I don’t know.”

Jon Strini, who claims to have lost more than $500, also hasn’t heard about the status of his account, but had a similar experience to Cooper.

“I woke up this morning and checked my account because I had a bet on the Chiefs game last night but fell asleep before the game was over and I wanted to see if I won,” Strini recalled to Yahoo Finance. “I knew something was up right away because my balance showed a total of $0.59. When I tried to check my balance, I was prompted by the two-step verification code. The code wouldn’t be sent to my phone. Somehow the hackers changed the phone number, so I’m basically locked out of my account right now. They made a $5 deposit into the account and then withdrew everything.”

Since then, Strini has sent several email inquiries to DraftKings’ Helpdesk and left voicemails, but has yet to receive a response.

“I have yet to find a way to get a human on the phone or to respond in any way,” he said.

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Josh is a reporter and producer for Yahoo Finance.

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