Maple Grove senior loses $22,000 to Bitcoin scammer

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — Phone scams targeting seniors are common enough that many people won’t answer a call from an unknown number.

A Maple Grove senior tells KARE 11 the tables were turned earlier this year when he called scammers by accident.

“It was a 1-800 number, but I accidentally did 1-888,” the senior said. “That’s probably how it got me to the bad guy.”

The senior, who asked not to be identified by name, called what he thought was an Xfinity customer service line for help with his email. Not realizing he’d dialed the wrong number, the senior said he was transferred several times during the call, which took place in March.

When he finally reached a human being on the other end, it began the most expensive phone call of the senior’s life.

“He tells me that someone within two to three hours was going to take all this money out of your account,” the senior said.

Now convinced that his email and bank accounts were hacked, the senior went to the bank and withdrew $25,000 dollars. The scammer told the senior his bank was part of the hack.

“You know, the guy told me to lie. So I did,” the senior said, telling the bank employees he needed the large sum to pay a contractor. “I can’t explain what it’s like to have this much cash, $25,000 in cash in your coat pocket.”

The senior said the scammer told him to take the money to a Minnoco gas station on Lakeland Ave N in Brooklyn Park. He was told to deposit it into a Bitcoin ATM and send the money to a QR coded “digital wallet” provided by the scammer.

Promised it would be safe from the hackers there, the senior deposited the first $20,000 in two transactions of $10,000.

“He had me convinced people were watching me,” he said. “It’s like being verbally hypnotized.”

Mid-way through depositing the last $5,000, the clerk at the Minnoco realized what was happening and jumped in to help. KARE 11 spoke to the clerk, who declined to be interviewed, but provided a video he recorded while trying to stop the senior from sending more money.

“Ask him to send the money back,” the clerk is heard saying in the roughly 13-minute video. The clerk and the senior can be heard asking the scammer to send the funds back. The caller tried to encourage the senior to leave the Minnoco and find another Bitcoin ATM.

“So in other words, get away from the manager,” the senior said, recalling the incident. “Well, that’s when I finally hit me that I  just got scammed.”

“Disconnect the call and call the cops,” the clerk in the video said to the senior.

The senior said he contacted police, but hasn’t had a cent returned.

“That’s rare in these cases,” Elliot Faust with the Brooklyn Park Police Department said.

Faust said investigators can occasionally freeze Bitcoin transactions before they go through. However, if the payment reaches another Bitcoin wallet, he said it is nearly impossible to get back. 

In scams like these, Faust said the stolen money is transferred between multiple digital wallets, making it harder to trace. And scams like these aren’t uncommon in Brooklyn Park.

“Believe it or not, this this theft of $22,000 is actually on the low end for for what we’re seeing,” Faust said. 

According to Faust, Brooklyn Park residents have lost more than one million dollars in cryptocurrency scams in 2024 alone, with only $55,000 of the stolen money getting returned to victims.

 “We’ve found almost all of these cases originate overseas, so prosecution is just not even realistic,” Faust said.

Avoiding these scams is an exercise in steeling the nerves.

“We need to remember is that hackers and cyber criminals, they need our help. And they can’t do what they do without our help,” said Mark Lanterman, Chief Technology Officer at Computer Forensic Services.

Lanterman said seniors should listen for a two-pronged approach from any unknown caller: a call to action coupled with a sense of urgency that pressures the listener to act without thinking.

“Things like go to the bank, don’t tell anyone. All of your devices are hacked,” Lanterman said. “When they hear those comments, they should be careful and maybe talk to a trusted family member.”

But the Maple Grove senior’s most expensive phone call is also his closest-kept secret.

“I haven’t told a single person, my family or friends,” the senior said. “I’ve never been more humiliated in my life.”

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