82-year-old woman, grieving her dead husband, falls prey to Bitcoin ATM scam, loses $20,000

NEW SMYRNA BEACH - Shortly after her husband died, an 82-year-old woman, still grieving, transferred $20,000 into her checking account to pay insurance bills.

An 82-year-old woman from New Smyrna Beach is warning people about a Bitcoin scam that defrauded her out of $20,000.

The woman, who asked that her full name not be used because the scammers are still out there, said that shortly after her husband died, she was transferring money from his account to her checking account to pay insurance bills when her computer appeared to be malfunctioning.

It appeared she had been targeted by a scammer.

“I went to my computer, and when I opened it up all this red trash, or whatever it was, was on it. It said ‘if you are having problems call Apple, and it gave a number.”

The woman called the number.

“They answered and they said ‘Just close your computer and we'll take care of it.' So I closed the computer,” she recounted.

An hour later, around 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, she opened her laptop again and saw that the screen was clear. Right then her cell phone rang. A person claiming to be from the FBI in Washington, D.C., told her that a dozen hackers had broken into her checking account and were trying to get her $20,000 balance.

“I panicked. I was planning to pay insurance bills, and that's the only reason I had a large amount in my checking account.”

However, the fake FBI agent had a way to rescue her money from the digital thieves.

The fraudster told Barbara to go to her bank first thing in the morning, withdraw the money and deposit it into a Bitcoin machine from which it would be returned to her account thus preventing the hackers from stealing her cash.

At 8:20 a.m. on Jan. 30, the scammer pretending to be a federal agent called Barbara saying to avoid suspicion, she should tell the bank manager that she needed a big sum of cash because she was paying workers to repair her home.

“I was panicked, I was crying, I was beside myself,” said Barbara.

She went to the bank to get the money.

Barbara got the money and the scammer then directed her via phone, to the convenience store where the Bitcoin machine was located.

A crying and panicked Barbara drove eight miles from her home to the BP gas station on Sugar Mill Drive and Pioneer Trail where the Bitcoin machine was located.

“He said turn here, make a left here.”

As she drove, the scammer on the telephone told her to calm down and relax so she would not get into an accident. He kept reassuring her that depositing the $20,000 in the Bitcoin machine was the safe way to keep the thieves from getting it.

“He directed me to the gas station. He said go to the machine, you will see it there. And then step by step he told me how to use the machine,” a tearful Barbara recalled.

The scammer instructed Barbara not to talk to anybody and to just deposit the money, that “it will be alright, and "We'll get it (money) right back into your account."

“I thought I was protecting my money because when I took the money out I was preventing the bad guys from getting it,” Barbara said, breaking down again.

At the gas station, a distraught Barbara, as if in a dream she said, slipped hundred dollar bills into the machine.

She felt ill after she fed the machine $20,000.

“I felt dizzy. I felt like I was going to pass out, so I got a drink and went to my car, and put the air on,” the New Smyrna Beach resident said.

Barbara said she was worried that the store owner would call the police because she didn't pay for what she was drinking, so she went back into the store and gave the cashier $5.

But even as Barbara felt faint and weak, the "fake FBI man" was not done yet. He directed Barbara to go to another bank in Edgewater to withdraw $10,000 more. At the bank, employees got suspicious after they realized she had already taken out $20,000.

The caller then directed her to go to the drive-thru and get $5,000, which a bank employee overheard. They then told Barbara that a manager wanted her to come inside the bank. The manager did not have good news for her.

"The bank manager said to me 'You have been scammed, and I went hysterical again," Barbara said breaking into tears as she recalled the moment.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, thousands of victims like Barbara fell to online and telephone scams involving cryptocurrency that include Bitcoin, "ether crypto" or "tether crypto."

In a September report, the FBI said that in 2023 at least 69,000 Americans across the United States were