Formal claim for loss of funds due to use of tool recommended on NEAR’s official channel

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Dear NEAR Foundation team,

I am writing to submit a formal claim regarding the loss of 25,509.28 NEAR, which occurred during a mass token distribution to 91 wallets—most of which belong to co-investors who entrusted me with the management of these funds.

The platform https://airdrop.noear.xyz was directly recommended in NEAR’s official Telegram channel, without any warning about its limitations or clarification that it was not officially affiliated. Furthermore, it had been used previously by NEAR’s community team in events and campaigns, which generated legitimate trust from users.

Key facts:

The multi-send transaction was executed successfully, with the platform accepting implicit addresses without any error or warning.

I was later informed that such addresses were incompatible, and the funds were considered unrecoverable.

This lack of input validation and warnings represents a serious user experience (UX) design flaw.

You have since confirmed that there will be no recovery program or compensation, placing full responsibility on the user.

However, considering the tacit endorsement implied by its promotion in official channels, and the fact that the tool allowed irreversible actions without error handling, I believe there is a degree of shared responsibility in the loss of these funds.

Therefore, I respectfully request:

A technical recovery solution, should the funds remain in unclaimed implicit addresses.

Partial compensation via grant or any ecosystem support mechanism.

A public statement addressing this case, to clarify responsibilities and prevent similar situations for other users.

This claim is submitted in good faith, seeking an amicable resolution. However, should I receive no response within 15 days, I reserve the right to pursue legal action, individually or collectively, through civil proceedings or consumer protection channels related to technological risk.

Attached:

Screenshots of the official Telegram channel.

NEARBlocks transaction records.

Correspondence with the Noear team.

I remain available to collaborate toward a resolution and hope for a response in line with the values of responsibility, transparency, and user protection that NEAR promotes as a blockchain ecosystem.

Sincerely,
Armando Romano
Wallet: 980968bbf9827214c4f7389e2e3a2dc9728cc97f706bd3417d1c5e3a3768ba6d
Email: omgsobrao@gmail.com

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1 Like
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Hi @SobraoBoY22

It’s really unfortunate but there’s honestly no way for anyone (including the NEAR Foundation) to recover those funds.

I’ll defer to the NEAR Foundation to comment on this matter :folded_hands:

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Yes, I know, but they could take some responsibility by compensating me for at least part of the tokens, because I was only following instructions from a verified official member.

From a perspective of responsibility and user protection, they should take action to compensate for the lost funds.

This could potentially damage the trust of the NEAR community if this type of error is not corrected.

:warning: Who is responsible?

  1. Noear

It is partially responsible for not correctly validating the inputs before proceeding with the transfer.

Also for not clearly stating that implicit accounts and wallets outside of Meteor are not accepted.

  1. NEAR Protocol

If the link was shared by a moderator or official team, even if it was on Telegram, this can be considered implicit validation of the use of that dApp.

By not warning that use was at the user’s own risk and that the dApp was from a third party, there is a lack of minimum diligence.