REVEALED: Americans have paid $10million to fraudsters who call asking them to deposit money into a government Bitcoin account and threatening some with ARREST
- SSA and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have highlighted a phone scam
- In the automated voice scam, innocent party is met with threatening message
- The scam has cost 35,000 Americans $10,000,000 this year, rising since 2017
The Social Security office is warning Americans of scammers posing as them and phoning up innocent people in a bid to steal their money.
The SSA and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have highlighted a phone scam that asks people to deposit money into a government Bitcoin account.
There have been two types of scam in the past, one where an automated voice message threatens arrest while the other sees a fraudster purporting to be a Social Security worker asking to ‘verify details’.
Victims are told they are in danger of arrest and must deposit money into a Bitcoin account
In the automated voice scam, the innocent party is met with the message that their account ‘has been suspended for suspicion of illegal activity.’
The most recent scam is quite like this one, except the person is told to immediately go and deposit money into a Bitcoin account because the SSA has ‘received suspicious trails of information’ in their name.
One such example is that of Kris Hall who was told by an automated voice that: ‘We will have to issue an arrest warrant in your name and get you arrested’.
She was then connected to a man with a ‘foreign accent’ who told her that a drug cartel had stolen her details and she had to ‘act fast’.
Kris Hall deposited $1,500 into the ‘Government Bitcoin account’. The scam has cost 35,000 Americans $10,000,000 this year as opposed to $209,000 in 2017, lost by 3,268 victims
She was told that if she didn’t go to the bank immediately to deposit all of her money into an existing Bitcoin account for ‘safe keeping’, her own personal account would be frozen.
‘It sounded so real. That’s what bothers me, that they are so good,’ she told NBC news.
‘I should have stopped myself but I was scared to death, he really made everything sound legitimate,’ she added.
Kris deposited $1,500 into the account. The scam has cost 35,000 Americans $10,000,000 this year.
That total is up from $209,000 in 2017, lost by 3,268 victims.
Monica Vaca from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) told NBC: ‘The truth is, incredibly smart people fall for this scam every single day.’
The scammers even ghost their number’s to look like a real government agency.
The FTC says that if you get called, hang up, adding that the IRS and Social Security don’t call demanding money and threatening arrest.