Lost Blood Echoes

I have had a problem with with losing my blood echoes. I notice it mostly in boss areas (more specifically the blood starved beast). After dying to him 5 or 6 times I decided to call it a night. Every time I had died during battle I was able retrieve my blood echoes (which was only like 10-12k, but at my low level thats quite a bit!) but when I went back the next morning they were gone! I was not able to find them anywhere. This is just one example of this happening to me. But it always seems to occur when I exit a session and come back to it later. So my question is, do you have to retrieve your blood echoes before exiting the game? If this is the case, that's kind of bullshit considering that means you would always have to beat a boss during that first initial session. I tried just putting my ps4 in rest mode but every time I come back from that I get an error message saying that I've lost connection to the server and it kicks me back to the main menu, which pretty much defeats the purpose of rest mode. Any advice/help? Anybody else having this issue? And while we're on the subject, any tips for beating the blood starved beast? He seems easy at first as he seems somewhat weak, but his poison is vicious!!

Thanks!

Upon exiting the game, your Blood Echoes are lost. You don't have to beat the boss though, just run in there, get your Echoes and use the Hunter's Mark to get out.

Also, using rest mode is asking for trouble. First, it disconnects you from the server, and doesn't connect you again until you've exited, and reloaded. Some items may also go missing. Don't do it.

As for Blood-Starved Beast, he has 3 phases of which the second and last are the same except he does more poison damage I believe. Just learn all his moves for each phase and know when to parry him. Then Visceral Attack. Worked well for me.

@slantedroom: Use the pillars to create distance, backing up and kiting him around. I beat him first try with that method and I suck at this game. Also get the church armor first as it has high poison resist.

Had a similar thing happen when I put my PS4 in rest. I was very sad. :(