DeLand police are warning the public of a new scam that tricked a local victim into depositing $16,700 into a cryptocurrency automatic teller machine that was then withdrawn by scammers.
According to the DeLand Police Department, earlier this week, a resident was contacted by an individual posing as a governmental agency. The scammer informed the victim that she had been โhackedโ and convinced her to withdraw $16,700 from her bank.
He instructed the woman woman to take the money and deposit it into a cryptocurrency ATM. After she made the deposit, the victim provided access to the account to the scammer via a digital QR code.
โThe Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of this fraudulent scheme and others like it that leverage cryptocurrency ATMs and QR codes to receive money from victims,โ reads a statement from DPD.
In many cases, the scammers identify themselves as a familiar entity, including law enforcement, government, a legal office, or a utility company.
The FBI says that it is difficult to recover these types of scammed funds because of the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency.
For more information on this type of scam, visit the FBI Public Service Announcement on Cryptocurrency ATMs.
