Bitcoin ATM fraudsters scam seniors out of $110M: report
By Lauren Elkies Schram,
2024-08-31
Bitcoin ATM scammers successfully targeted senior citizens last year, walking away with $110 million in schemes that often start out with a “concerned” customer service phone call.
Victims reported the hefty losses to fraud cases involving money sent through bitcoin ATMs — an electronic crypto kiosk where you can buy and sell bitcoin — a nearly tenfold increase from 2020, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data provided to NBC News.
And Americans over 60 were more than three times as likely to be victimized than younger adults, the data showed.
Americans over 60 were more than three times as likely to fall victim to a bitcoin ATM scam than younger adults. Bloomberg via Getty Images
“These bitcoin ATMs seem to have opened up sort of a gateway for scammers who are after cryptocurrency to target older adults,” Emma Fletcher, a senior data researcher at the FTC, told NBC News.
FTC spokespersons didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for information.
The scam typically involves the fraudster contacting a victim and claiming to be a customer service rep or official notifying them about attempted identity theft or an account breach, the FTC found.
The perpetrator texts a QR code linked to a digital wallet.
Thinking they are protecting their assets, the victim scans the code and deposits money into the bitcoin ATM , which ends up in the perpetrator’s hands.
Marilyn LoCascio, 76, lost $31,500 to a fraud group that posed as an Apple tech support specialist, a bank representative and two government officials.
The scheme kicked off when she received what looked like a security alert on her iPad.
Bitcoin ATMs look and function like typical ATMs but involve cryptocurrencies. REUTERS
“I just called the number without thinking. … it would be anything other than Apple,” LoCascio, who lives in Indiana, told NBC News.
“A gentlemen answered the phone who was supposedly a tech, and he even gave me a case ID, and then it just sort of mushroomed from there.”
Older adults tend to be more vulnerable to financial exploitation than younger people as their cognitive and low-memory functions are not as sharp, according to the University of Florida.
They also have a lack of support and loneliness as well as a decreased ability to hone in on their “gut feeling.”
There are nearly 40,000 bitcoin ATMs worldwide, although they are banned in countries like the UK and Singapore.
Legal in the US, bitcoin ATMs look and function like typical ATMs, but the deposits and withdrawals involve cryptocurrencies instead of cash.
They can be found in places like convenience stores, gas stations and laundromats.
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