Gas station worker in Idaho saves woman from Bitcoin ATM scam

An Idaho gas station clerk has been hailed as a hero after she saved a group of women from getting scammed at a Bitcoin ATM in Boise, Idaho. While one of the appeals of cryptocurrency remains that it is largely decentralized and slightly unregulated, it has been seen as a quick way for people to make money.

In several states, there has been a rise in Bitcoin ATM scams over the past few months due to the fact that there has been little or no legislation in place to tackle the menace. According to reports, the Idaho gas station clerk, Avalon Hardy, had to intervene at times without numbers to stop old ladies from getting scammed while using the station’s Bitcoin ATM. According to Hardy, she noticed some of the women entering the gas station, usually with bags of cash, to make transactions.

Idaho gas station clerk stops elderly women from getting scammed

In her statement, Hardy mentioned that these elderly women usually enter the gas station with the cash while tapping frantically on their phones on separate occasions. She noted that there is always someone at the other end barking instructions at them, making them suspicious and anxious before frantically moving to use the ATMs. For each time that they use the machine, there is always a conversion of dollar notes into crypto.

After noticing the pattern, the Idaho gas station clerk suspected that something fishy was happening. She mentioned that she prodded one of the old ladies making transactions at the Bitcoin ATM. “Do you know where you’re sending the money to?” Hardy asked. “You don’t have to be on the phone to send money, as long as you have the other person’s information.” She added that one of the elderly women, a 79-year-old, was hellbent on converting $15,000 using the Bitcoin ATM.

Hardy noted that when she realized that the women wouldn’t stop coming, she took a drastic step to safeguard them, unplugging the Bitcoin ATM from the wall. The Idaho gas station clerk mentioned that things returned to normal for a while before they ticked up again. She noted that she saved another 75-year-old from losing $19,000 to scammers. “It’s not super, super popular, that Bitcoin machine,” Hardy added.

She mentioned that out of all the customers that frequently come there to use the machine, fewer than two dozen customers use it for legitimate purposes in the past year. In her statement, the Idaho gas station worker mentioned that an enormous portion of the machine’s total business is implicated in defrauding the elderly. In all, Hardy mentioned that she has been able to stop about seven crypto scams targeting the elderly from happening at the Bitcoin ATM at her store.

Crypto scams on the rise amid use of sophisticated technologies

Crypto scams have grown over the last few years, with revenue from these scams jumping as high as $9.9 billion in 2024, according to data from Chainalysis. In the report, the company claimed that the figure represents a 40% uptick from 2023. In addition, an FBI report from 2023 also found that older adults were being targeted since they were more susceptible to crypto fraud. People aged 60 and above reportedly lost $1.6 billion in 2023, a bigger share compared to people of other age groups.

The scams also vary, with some scammers pretending to be government agencies or officials, convincing their victims that they are owed money. They use technologies like AI to impersonate relatives, claiming they are held hostage and they need to send money for their release. Other scams also involve pig butchering, where they establish a connection with their victims and form a close relationship with them before persuading them to make sham investments.

In addition, technologies like AI have also ticked up the success rate of these acts, especially when elderly people are targeted. “Scammers will email you an arrest warrant using ‘AI to enhance it,’ Matthew Hogan, a crypto crime specialist with the Connecticut State Police, said. “They’ll take the DOJ logo and throw it on there. They’ll manipulate signatures.”

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