Angry OpenSea Users Unconvinced Of Marketplace's New Stolen Item Policy

OpenSea, one of the world's largest Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace, heightened its measures against NFT theft by adjusting elements of how it implements its stolen items policy.

One of the obstinate issues plaguing the emerging industry of Non-Fungible Token is NFT theft and while many marketplaces have already implemented several measures, digital asset thieves still thrive. On Thursday, the official Twitter account of OpenSea shared a thread centered on its stolen item policy.

The marketplace noted that its policies were designed with U.S. laws in mind, where knowingly enabling the sale of stolen items is illegal. Admittedly, OpenSea said there were instances where buyers who unknowingly purchased a stolen asset were penalized.

As a result, the firm has "made the call to adjust elements of how we implement our policy." This includes "expanding the ways we use police reports" and "making it easier for users who reported an item stolen to re-enable buying and selling when they recover the item OR determine they should withdraw their stolen item report."

OpenSea also shared its vision concerning its stolen items policy, noting, "in the long term, our key focus areas continue to be on finding solutions that tackle this problem at its root. Efforts are underway to better automate threat and theft detection, such as blocking suspect URLs earlier."

It also assured users that it has started "collaborating closely with ecosystem partners to help prevent and disincentivize theft, and building better education resources to help users stay safe in web3." However, several Twitter users undermined the latest move from OpenSea and hurled snide comments about the marketplace, its policies and its customer support service.

"Your policies are terrible. Customer service [is] impossible to get a hold of. I froze my Coinbase account. Transferred NFTs out of my Coinbase wallet while the account was frozen and now they are marked suspicious. The wallet that transferred them was connected to my Coinbase account," a Twitter user who goes by the name mike dispenzieri said.

"No, it isn't. Full stop. You're already lying. Your policy is to cover your ass from liability and we all know it. Try again," a user who goes by the username @kylasbitch commented.

"You are scum and you don't care about your consumers. I had my wallet drained back in January because you verified a malicious NFT collection. You have no regard for the safety of your customers and you've only released this statement because you are threatened by @MagicEden," Twitter user @PeachyMorse wrote on the thread.

Another user who goes by the name Ken said, "Opensea hosts fake screenshotted nfts from other blockchains and does NOTHING to stop, prevent these scams, they won't reimburse your money, they won't respond to support requests, they won't address these scams at all. I won't EVER use opensea for anything ever again!"

Twitter handle @COMPASSIONTENFT insulted the marketplace and said, "That's funny because when my NFT was stolen, both Opensea and the NFT company that created it pretty much told me to go to hell. What a change in attitude. I guess it only matters when 1000s of people are complaining."

Twitter handle @MarleyThunder slammed OpenSea and revealed, "I purchased a stolen NFT, had no idea it was stolen and felt bad about it. I tried to make good on it and return it. The Discord was no help, so I asked you. Your support staff literally told me to sell it on Looksrare. This was before you laid off 20%+ of staff. Make it better pls."

In another tweet Thursday, OpenSea, seemingly responding to hostile responses from users, said, "We know it's not perfect, but we came to the conclusion that the fairest approach is to change this policy on a go-forward basis only."