On January 10, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an alert about a new cryptocurrency payment scam involving impersonators convincing consumers to send money obtained from a cryptocurrency automated teller machine (ATM) via a quick response (QR) code.
According to the FTC, this is a new twist on scammers pretending to be someone a person trusts (e.g., from the government, law enforcement, or a local utility company) to convince consumers to send the impersonator money. As in the usual impersonator scenario, someone calls pretending to be from the government, or maybe a romantic interest met online, or about winning the lottery or a prize. The scammer eventually asks consumers for money. Here is where the scam takes a new twist.
If a consumer believes the story the scammer tells and seems willing to engage, the scammer will stay on the phone to direct the consumer to withdraw money from his/her bank, investment, or retirement accounts. Then the impersonator will tell a consumer to go to a store with a cryptocurrency ATM (and they will stay on the phone with the consumer the whole time). Once at the crypto ATM, the scammer will direct the consumer to insert his/her money into the ATM and buy cryptocurrency. And then the QR code comes in: The impersonator sends the consumer a QR code with the scammer’s address embedded in it. Once the consumer buys the cryptocurrency, the impersonator has the consumer scan the QR code, so the money gets transferred to the…
