Police issue warning about Bitcoin scams

SANDUSKY – The Perkins Township Police Department is warning the public about Bitcoin scams, after they received several reports of citizens losing money in these types of scams.

According to police, these scams encompass computer and bank account takeovers, blackmail, extortion, property rentals, foreign currency investment, online marketplace scams, and transactions based in cryptocurrency.

In theses scams, according to police, the scammer requests that the victim make payments or investments using Bitcoin or another type of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that can be used to buy goods and services. Bitcoin ATMs (pictured below) allow US Dollars to be exchanged for Bitcoin and also allow the transfer money from one Bitcoin wallet to another.

The victims in a new type of scam, according to police, are people who are interested in investing. The victims are directed to a website, which typically pose as a broker site. These websites are designed professionally and operationally functionally in order to deceive the victim. On the website, the victims are told to convert their US dollars to a cryptocurrency.

“The initial investments will be very successful, oftentimes causing the victims to invest more money,” a post by the Perkins Township Police Department states. “The goal of the scam is to display an unusually and abnormally large investment return to entice a victim to provide even more money for the investment.”

Police say that typically it is extremely difficult to recover money that was lost in one of these scams.

The Perkins Township Police Department says that they “are urging residents to exercise caution when considering interacting with individuals on the internet via an online marketplace, classified advertisement, investment pitch, or any other form of sale or purchase of service or goods.”