While Fran Bates, who is 85, walked into a Fort Worth neighborhood gas station in June 2024, she believed she was taking an action her bank instructed her to take in order to protect her life savings. The phone woman had promised her that her account would be compromised and she needed to send over $23,000 to a Bitcoin ATM to recover it. Instructions and the caller were not legitimate. Bates herself was seconds away from being a victim of a sophisticated scam that has swindled almost $250 million from Americans in 2024 alone.
How the scam unfolds
Within the span of two days, a scammer who impersonated a Chase Bank security officer coerced Bates into making in excess of $40,000 withdrawals from her account. The scamball even facilitated ride-share services to take her from her retirement facility to the bank for withdrawal, then to a Chevron gas station where a Bitcoin ATM was placed. Throughout the ordeal, the scammer stayed on the phone with Bates on FaceTime, walking her step by step through inserting $100 bills into the machine.
“It’s a horrible, horrible experience,” Bates told ABC News. “They’ve got you right where they want you.” By the time help arrived, she had already deposited $23,900 into the Bitcoin ATM and was one click from completing the transaction that would have locked her money irretrievably into the scammer’s digital wallet.
A guardian angel stepped in
Myndi Jordan, 38, just so happened to be at the same gas station when she witnessed something amiss. Jordan observed the older woman hunched over the Bitcoin ATM, obviously tired and sweating, shoving thousands of dollars into the ATM while on the phone. Having herself previously been a victim of identity theft, Jordan knew precisely what was transpiring and instantly recognized it as a scam.
“I don’t like it when someone tries to take advantage of someone who can’t protect themselves,” Jordan said. “And I think they were trying to take advantage of you. And I was like, ‘No, we’re not doing this today.'” Jordan walked over to where Bates was and tried to intervene, but Bates told her she knew what she was doing and that bank security was helping her to correct someone else’s mistake. Jordan made an instantaneous 911 call.
White Settlement Police Department Lieutenant James Stewart came to Jordan’s rescue. When Stewart arrived at the scene, he found Bates still standing next to the machine with the scammer on the phone instructing her what to do. Stewart’s bodycam captured the dramatic scene when Stewart seized Bates’ phone and confronted the fraudster in person.
“‘Ma’am, just you click on ‘I’m done,'” the imposter is heard frantically instructing on the tape, attempting to make Bates complete the transfer. Stewart intervened immediately. “No, don’t click ‘I’m done.’ Don’t click anything,” he instructed Bates, steering her away from the machine before she could complete the transaction.
The officer then called the scammer out in person over the phone. “You still don’t get her name right, you freaking moron,” Stewart said to the caller, his irritation evident. “I was reasonably brusque and nasty. I was upset not only as a police officer but as a human being,” Stewart later told reporters, explaining that he had pictured his own mother in the same situation.
Days later, Stewart worked with the Bitcoin ATM vendor and personally brought Bates the cashier’s check for the $23,900 she had originally deposited. He even escorted her to the bank to deposit it back into her account. During the ABC News interview, Bates called Jordan her “guardian angel” and Stewart her “knight in shining armor.”
The $250 million warning all Americans need to hear
Bates’ story represents just one case in an epidemic of cryptocurrency ATM fraud sweeping the nation. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 10,956 reports concerning crypto ATM fraud in 2024, with losses totaling $246.7 million, more than double the losses from the previous year. The average loss per victim is approximately $10,000, though many lose far more.
American senior citizens are particularly vulnerable to such fraud. According to FBI statistics, victims who were 60 and older were more than three times more likely to report losses in Bitcoin ATM scams compared to other age brackets. Older victims reported more than $2.8 billion in losses tied to cryptocurrency based schemes of all kinds in 2024, with the typical loss being $83,000.
Amy Nofziger, the director of fraud victim support for AARP, explained to ABC News that demanding cryptocurrency has now become “the No. 1 preferred method of criminals,” describing it as a “significant issue.” AARP has also been cautioning its 38 million members that Bitcoin ATMs, which total more than 45,000 across the United States, have increasingly been used by scammers as very popular means of robbing unsuspecting Americans.
How the scam works
All these scams begin with an unsolicited phone call, message, or email from an impersonator claiming to be a trustworthy institution such as a bank, government agency, or tech company. The scammer creates fear and a sense of urgency, claiming the victim’s bank account has been compromised, they owe a tax debt from the IRS, or they are a suspect in fraud.
The scammer instructs the victim to cash out large amounts of money and load it into a Bitcoin ATM, which will keep their money safe or solve the problem. Throughout the process, scammers usually stay on the phone with the victims, walking them through step by step and encouraging them to be quick before they can think clearly. They always insist that victims do not inform their bank or the individuals they reside with about the transaction.
The advantage of Bitcoin ATMs to criminals is the untraceability of such transactions and that once a transaction is completed, it usually cannot be undone. In contrast to other ATMs, which are regulated more and are better guarded, most Bitcoin ATMs have minimal regulation and take more than 20% as transaction fees.
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