A clerk at a carry-out in Westlake is being credited with trying to help a customer who was the target of a cryptocurrency scam, but the elderly victim still lost a load of cash because she did not believe she was being defrauded.

It was on April 25 when the employee at the Marathon station on Center Ridge Road noticed a woman depositing large amounts of cash into a cryptocurrency ATM while speaking with someone on her cell phone.

The clerk approached the woman and told her she was concerned that she was being scammed out of her money.

“Unfortunately, the victim didn’t believe the clerk, so the clerk did the next best thing than just immediately stopping her. She called the police,” Westlake Police Captain Jerry Vogel said.

When officers arrived, the victim was still stuffing $100 bills into the store’s Bitcoin machine, but she did not believe the officers when they told her that she was being victimized by a crypto con man.

On video from one of the officer’s body cameras, he is heard telling the woman, “ma’am, listen to your police department. We’re here to help you. They’re scamming you.”

“No, they are not, sir,” the woman responded.

“They are absolutely, 100% scamming you,” the officer said.

The woman was convinced that the man on the phone was with the Federal Trade Commission. She believed he was helping her solve a problem created by a virus that popped up on her computer.

“So she called the number provided by the pop-up and unfortunately it starts leading you down a rabbit hole, where first you’re talking to Microsoft supposedly, then they transfer you to the Federal Trade Commission, then they tell you you’re going to be in trouble unless you immediately do something. They try to scare you into immediately taking action and sending them cash,” said Captain Vogel.

The officers eventually had to physically stop the woman from putting more money into the machine.

They then spoke with the scam artist on the victim’s phone and attempted to get his name and callback number.

Police were eventually able to convince the woman that she had been taken to the cleaners, but not before she sent more than $10,000 to the scammer’s crypto account.

One of the officers asked the victim, “when have you ever sent money through Bitcoin for any purpose whatsoever in your entire life?”

Detectives said there is little hope that the victim’s money can be recovered because the scammers quickly transfer the funds to other accounts. They said that’s why everyone needs to be aware of the scams and how they work.

“If you receive an unexpected text, email, pop-up, think twice about what you’re doing. Start asking questions, don’t be scared into immediately putting cash into a scammer’s hands,” said Vogel.

Investigators said the story illustrates how scammers are using cryptocurrency ATMs as electronic tools of their trade to steal large amounts of money from victims all over the world.

Last year, Americans lost more than $9.3 billion in cryptocurrency scams.

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