#crypto-presale

Wallet drained after connecting to a fake crypto 'launchpad' site, is my ETH and BNB gone?

I really messed up badly. I saw an ad on X (Twitter) for a new crypto project's token presale, it looked super legit, really professional website, lots of buzz around it. They claimed to be a new launchpad for DeFi projects. I connected my MetaMask wallet, thinking I was just checking it out, but then it asked me to 'approve' a small transaction to verify my wallet for the presale allocation. I clicked approve and literally within minutes, my entire wallet was drained. Like, all my ETH and BNB, gone. Poof. I saw the transactions immediately on Etherscan and BSCScan straight to some random addresses. I reported it to my local police here in Abu Dhabi and also to the exchange I used to buy the crypto initially (Coinbase), but they just said they can't do anything once it's off their platform. Is there any way at all to trace this or get it back? I feel so stupid and embarrassed. My wife is going to kill me.