Des Moines, Iowa (RI) — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says she is suing the cryptocurrency ATM companies Bitcoin Depot and Coin Flip for allowing Iowans to be scammed out of 20 million dollars in three years. Hawarden native, former Lieutenant Governor, and current Iowa Bankers Association president Adam Gregg joined Bird in a news conference Wednesday to talk about scams.
Gregg says cryptocurrency machines are being used in the latest scam.
He says crypto ATM scammers are fooling a lot of people.
Attorney General Bird Bird says it’s almost impossible to recover the money once it is sent through one of these machines. Bird says the majority of scam victims were over the age of 60. A woman named Loree who is a retired nurse and widow, was a victim of a bitcoin scam told her story.
She says the woman told her several fraudulent accounts had been opened up in her name. Loree says she then got a call from someone who said he was a federal marshal.
Loree says the man told her to go to the federal marshal’s website and check for his name and there was someone with the name he gave her. The fake marshal then told her to take out 25 thousand dollars to help them create a secure account so they could catch the scammer. The money was put into the bitcoin machine and sent to various banks. Attorney General Bird says the lawsuits allege that both Bitcoin Depot and CoinFlip profit directly from Iowa scam victims by imposing excessive, and often hidden, transaction fees. It also alleges that Bitcoin Depot deceives Iowans about its refund policy. Her investigation found Bitcoin Depot takes a 23 percent cut of the money sent through the machines, and CoinFlip claims 21 percent. The Attorney General is suing both companies for violating the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The investigation into crypto ATM companies is ongoing.
