You may have never heard of a cryptocurrency kiosk, but there’s a good chance you’ve walked past one without realizing what it was.
“The presence of these kiosks is kind of exploded all over the state. There's like 700 or more in the state of Wisconsin right now, and they're all over. It's not just in cities. These machines are in gas stations, bars, grocery stores,” said Courtney Anclam. She’s the Senior Program Specialist for AARP Wisconsin.
They look and work similar to an ATM. People deposit cash into them that gets converted into cryptocurrency.
Anclam says as these machines become more popular, scammers are using them to their advantage.
A scammer will call someone maybe saying they’re being fined for missing jury duty, or their bank account is being hacked and to resolve this issue scammers tell the person they need to send money through one of these machines.
“They're not saying go to a cryptocurrency kiosk in your local gas station. They're saying go to the “Federal locker” or the “secure lock box”, so a lot of victims aren't even aware they're dealing in cryptocurrency until after the fact,” said Anclam.
To help better protect people from these kinds of scams, AARP Wisconsin wants state lawmakers to pass a bill.
They want it include various protections including, limiting daily transactions to no more than $2,000 per user, capping the fees that kiosk operators can charge, allowing scam victims to received refunds from kiosk operators, and requiring receipts for kiosk users.
“The reason that's important is if you are the victim of a scam and you try to go to law enforcement, they're going to need as much information as they can possibly get about that transaction, and having the mandated receipt gives them a good starting point,” said Anclam.
Seventeen other states including Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota have passed similar legislation.
Anclam would like to see Wisconsin pass a bill on the issue next month.
“I think a lot of legislators that hear about this understand the gravity of the situation, so we're really hopeful that we can get really wide bipartisan support,” said Anclam.
You can learn more about cryptocurrency kiosk scams on the AARP Wisconsin website.
