STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) – The Stevens Point police are warning residents about a recent surge in scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs.
Last week, investigators were made aware of a case in which someone looked to be duped out of a considerable quantity of money. The victim told officers that they received an email from PayPal stating that their account had been compromised.
When detectives managed to get in touch with the victim, they learned that the victim had received an email from PayPal warning them that there had been fraudulent activity on their account. The victim was informed of a $899 false transaction on their account when they called the number provided.
The caller urged the victim to submit a compensation request online with their business. The victim was led to believe that they should have never requested to be reimbursed for so much money and that they now had to pay this company back.
The victim was told to take the money out of their account and transmit it via a Bitcoin Automated Teller Machine, but this didn’t work out. The scammer then instructed the victim to send the money to PayPal and provided a Texas address.
Because a UPS employee informed the victim they were being defrauded and had alerted law enforcement, this attempt to ship the money was unsuccessful. The con artist urged the victim over the phone once more to send the money via a Bitcoin Automated Teller Machine at a store in Stevens Point after the victim picked up their money from UPS.
On August 4, 2023, two additional people showed up at the same place to put huge sums of money into the same Bitcoin Automated Teller Machine while detectives were looking into this case. Law enforcement informed these people of the scam, so they didn’t lose any money.
The Portage County District Attorney’s Office was contacted and helped secure a warrant so that the lost money and the machine could be retrieved. The $16,000 was retrieved with assistance from the Stevens Point Fire Department when the machine was opened.
These scams appear to mostly include computer or text messages that appear at random and prompt victims to call staff due to their machine being hacked or something similar. After establishing contact with the scammers through phone calls, the victims are informed that fraudulent charges have happened.
The victims are informed of their current bank account balances, which are correct and aid in convincing them that this was not a hoax. The victims are instructed to remove all available funds from their accounts and transport the cash to a Bitcoin ATM where it can be placed and thus secure.
In other circumstances, victims are told to buy gift cards to pay the fraudster, mail cash, or meet someone to pick up the cash.
The suspects giving these directions appear to be at a contact center, with background noises consistent with other phone calls taking place in the same room. The suspects appeared to have a foreign accent, implying that they were from India.
If you have been the victim of a scam, please alert your local law enforcement if you wish, and we urge that everyone assist educate each other about potential fraud risks and specific things that should make you doubt the legitimacy of the situation at hand, to avoid future scams.
