Wood County Sheriff's Department Warns of Widespread Fraud Scheme

Monday, April 3rd, 2023 -- 2:00 PM

The Wood County Sheriff’s Department is warning the public of a widespread fraud scheme in which scammers portray themselves as a local bank representative or a representative from an online store to extort money.

No bank, business or government agency will ever contact you and tell you to come withdraw funds from your account or tell you to put those funds into a cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) machine. These machines are often found in gas stations or convenience stores throughout our community and country. 

Cryptocurrency machines allow customers to purchase cryptocurrency like Bitcoin for a fee by inserting U.S. currency into the machine and receiving cryptocurrency in a digital wallet.

Please note that cryptocurrency transactions are not protected or regulated like those conducted through a bank making both cryptocurrency and these style ATM’s very appealing to scammers.

There are legitimate purposes for consumers to purchase cryptocurrency through the machines but individuals should use caution like with any financial transaction. If you are called by someone claiming you are the victim of a fraud be very wary as this is almost always a scam.

The caller will represent themselves as a representative of a company or organization and will pressure you to make payment to them in some form. They will often ask you to let them access your computer remotely and the end result is them wanting to stay on the phone with you while you go pick up a form of payment to send them, whether that be gift card, money transfer or cryptocurrency transfer.

The caller will pressure and threaten you to keep you on the phone with them, this is always a sign of a scam. On March 29, 2023 the Wood County Sheriff’s Department was contacted by an individual who had just recently been scammed by an individual claiming to be from their local bank who stated they were working with the FBI.

A sum of $9,000 dollars was withdrawn from the victim’s bank account and then entered into a cryptocurrency machine in the City of Wisconsin Rapids, Wood County, Wisconsin.

On March 30, 2023 the Wood County Sheriff’s Department executed a search warrant on the cryptocurrency machine the money was placed into evidence and will be returned to our local victim.

Luckily for these victims the $9,000 in cash was retrieved by the quick actions of the Wood County Sheriff’s Department investigative team. Sadly this often is not the case and victims can lose substantial amounts of money because these funds/transactions are not federally insured.

If you have been victimized by one of these scams please contact your local law enforcement as soon as possible. There are numerous resources available online with information on common scams and don’t hesitate to contact your local law enforcement if there are concerns you are being scammed.

We would always rather spend a few minutes on the phone with you answering your questions than to hear that you’ve become a victim of a scam.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.