Scams · The golden rule
Why nobody legitimate asks for your full phrase
Your recovery phrase isn’t a password: it is the entire wallet. Whoever has it gets in from anywhere on earth, without your computer, without your phone and without your permission. That is why there is no legitimate situation in which anyone needs the complete phrase.
What is genuinely needed to assess a case
This is what I ask, and what anyone who knows their job should ask you:
- How many words are missing and in which positions, if it is a phrase.
- Which app created the wallet and roughly what year.
- What you remember about the password: length, style, whether it had numbers.
- What you still have: the file, the device, the app installed.
- One of your addresses or something that lets ownership be verified.
Notice that the list contains no secrets. All that information describes your case without letting anyone open anything. With it, one can say whether there is a way out — and say it for free.
The excuses used to ask for it
| What they tell you | What it is |
|---|---|
| «Just to verify it’s valid» | Theft |
| «I need the 11 words to compute the missing one» | Theft: the phrase isn’t needed for that |
| «Send it encrypted, it’s safe» | Theft |
| «I’m official support, it’s the procedure» | Theft |
| «Only the first six, not the other six» | Theft with half the work done for them |
| «Type it on this site to check it» | Automated theft |
The short version you can repeat
If someone needs your complete phrase to help you, they aren’t helping you. There are no exceptions, no special procedures and nobody official enough to skip this. Not wallet companies, not exchanges, not me.