Scams are costing Montana residents millions of dollars, according to state officials.
One of the newer scams deals with cryptocurrency ATMs, which recently prompted the Billings Police Department to send out a warning, one echoed by Montana State Auditor James Brown.
“They can get hard cash through cryptocurrency scams, and so this is a growing area of concern,” said Brown, a Republican, in an interview with MTN News.
See the state auditor’s cryptocurrency ATM warning here:
n State Auditor warns about cryptocurrency ATM scams
Brown, who also has the role of commissioner of securities and insurance, says that cryptocurrency ATM money goes overseas, often to criminals in North Korea.
His office has seen $600,000 worth of fraud with cryptocurrency ATM machines since 2023.
“If you’re a first time using a Bitcoin ATM, please be aware that these payments are final,” Brown said. “Once you send Bitcoin to another person, you can not get your money back.”
It’s becoming such a big problem that the Billings police posted a scam alert on Facebook warning about fake investment opportunities, impersonation of officials, and a demand for payments using Bitcoin.
“We’ve seen, at least that I’m aware of two cases in the last couple weeks, with a significant amount of money, one was $35,000 and I believe one was $15,000,” said Lt. Samantha Puckett of the Billings Police Department.
Brown is in Billings and eastern Montana this week to talk about other issues and scams, including using artificial intelligence to impersonate a relative’s voice and romance scams.
“Romance scams, which is sort of the spin off of these cryptocurrency scams, it’s the same idea,” Brown said.“People will try to befriend particularly elderly people who are lonely and then steal their money, of course, try to gain their confidence.”
In a CBS News story, 80-year-old Joseph Buentello was cruising through retirement when he received a call saying his son was in jail.
The caller told him that if he wanted to get his son out of jail, he needed to send $5,000 through a Bitcoin ATM.
Buentello said he was told the money is lost.
“So they said there’s nothing we can do about it,” Buentello said. “That money’s already been distributed.”
Police and the state auditor’s office cannot do anything about the crypto ATM losses.
“I’ll probably have a conversation with the 2027 Montana Legislature. Give me the ability to regulate these ATMs,” Brown said.
Meanwhile, police will issue warnings hoping to prevent people from losing their hard-earned dollars.
“There are warnings and a lot of the employees, you know, because a lot of these victims are elderly,” so they actually try to stop them, have them read the warnings on some of these machines to try to keep them from depositing the funds,” Puckett said about those who work where cryptocurrency ATM’s are placed.
More information on cryptocurrency, insurance, securities, and more is available on the state auditor’s website.