A New Scam Targets People who Use Bitcoin ATMs

If you haven’t heard about the scam involving cryptocurrency, where victims were robbed of tens of thousands of dollars from a Bitcoin ATM, then brace yourself. Today, we will talk in detail about scammers who stole from four people as much as $50,000.

The victims in this fraud were forced to use a Bitcoin ATM under the false pretext that they are conducting tax fraud and will be sentenced to jail if they don’t pay up. The police are under the idea that the scammers are targeting immigrants who are new to Melbourne, Australia.

All the four victims were from Melbourne and they were convinced by the scammers that they owed a tax debt. The victims, to stay on the safe side of the law, did as they were asked and ended up losing a total of $50,000. They were asked to deposit the cash in an ATM in Braybrook, which is one among the few Bitcoin ATMs in the city.

All the victims are immigrants and to avoid further scams, detective sergeant Katherine Lehpamer asked people to stay alert. She went ahead to make a statement saying how no one should pay any heed to such threats and in case they have some doubts about their taxes, it is always advisable to call the government authorities.

Similar incidents regarding cryptocurrency fraud were reported in the southern regions of Australia. However, this scam is nothing new. According to the reports, submitted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, there were 1,289 such cases of fraud in 2017, where victims were robbed a total of $1,218,206. With the increasing value of cryptocurrencies, the value of money lost in this scam also increased.

Currently, there are a total of fifty-five Bitcoin ATMs in Australia. Melbourne is the only city with the highest number of Bitcoin ATMs. Though incidents regarding Bitcoin fraud has been conducted all throughout Australia, all the current cases center around Melbourne.

Scammers go ahead and adopt different ways of exploiting the popular trends. With each passing day, the amount of loss related to the cryptocurrency scam is rising, and it is worrisome to the officials and citizens. The authorities want to make themselves very clear about how they will never ask any immigrant or citizen to deposit money in a Bitcoin ATM. In case you have any information about the cryptocurrency scam, call or file a report with the officials as soon as possible.