DraftKings Users Hacked, Money In Account ‘Cashed Out’

Justin White was on vacation in New York on Sunday night when his wife Lisa noticed something was happening with the couple's bank account. On the bank's app, she saw five consecutive withdrawals of $500.

White, a 40-year-old from Tennessee, was flabbergasted. It was coming from "DRAFTKINGS INC. BOSTON, MA."

"It was withdrawing it from my bank card that I used for my deposits," White said.

White panicked.

He went to his DraftKings account. He tried his login three times. It locked him out. He requested a new password. DraftKings said it sent him a text to the number on file.

And that's when he realized he was definitely hacked. They changed his phone number so that he couldn't get back in.

He searched for a customer service number for DraftKings.

He couldn't find one. There was a link to click for a live chat. It said it took him to another page that wasn't a live chat. He was asked to fill out a form that promised to get back to him.

He went to DK_Assist on Twitter, a customer service page and saw this message. At least one of the replies appeared to be from a hacker, telling people how to do it and exclaiming "free money!"

"Not only could I not get to anyone, but you have the hackers gloating," White said.

When White went to his email to see if he could see evidence of the withdrawal; his email he gave to DraftKings was filled with spam.

"They had 500 to 600 emails in there to disguise their withdrawals," White said.

DraftKings' co-founder Paul Liberman told the Action Network in a statement that roughly $300K in customer funds were affected, but that they intend to "make whole any customer that was impacted."

"We currently believe that the login information of these customers was compromised on other websites and then used to access their DraftKings accounts where they used the same login information," Liberman said. "We have seen no evidence that DraftKings' systems were breached to obtain this information."

Rocky Anderson, a 35-year-old commercial real estate lender from Kansas, was watching his beloved Chiefs on Sunday Night Football when he saw the email come in: $437 was being withdrawn from his DraftKings account.

He was mortified when he saw that a hacker tried to get a check cut to an apartment in Houston, but the check was in Anderson's name. Anderson took to Twitter and sent details of the transaction to the Houston Police.

"I've been to Houston twice in my life, and the third time might be to meet this guy," Anderson said half-jokingly.

On Sunday night, Alvin Byers, a 31-year-old bank consultant in Colorado, was informed that he made a $5 deposit in his DraftKings account. A minute later, he said he received an email wiping out his entire account.

Byers went to his account and entered in his email and password and two-factor authentication.

"They said they sent a code to a number ending in 8687, which is not my number," Byers said. "So while my password wasn't changed, my phone number was."

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Byers was able to send an e-mail to DraftKings, and the company acknowledged his account had been frozen.

White, Anderson and Byers say that the episode will force them to give their business to someone else.

"I feel like I'm the exact person that DraftKings targets," Anderson said. "I do every boost and long shot parlay hoping to make a little money on the weekends. As soon as this is over, I'm withdrawing everything."

For White, it's also about principle.

"I just can't do business with a company that doesn't have a clear customer service hotline," White said. "I didn't think it was possible with a company that size."