An elderly Oklahoma woman stricken with Parkinson’s Disease lost $20,000 in a cryptocurrency ploy that was crafted as a scam within a scam, according to her daughter.
Jamie Moore, the daughter of 77-year-old scam victim Marsha, knew that a swindler had tried to reach out to her mother when she received an odd email about a Bitcoin transaction being finalized.
“I received a text from my mom that said, ‘Jamie, I think I’m being scammed’ and I said, ‘Don’t fall for it, I get those emails all the time,’” Moore told KFOR.
It was supposed to be smooth sailing from there since the duo had recognized the fraud.
Then Marsha, who has Parkinson’s and Multiple Myeloma, reached out to the number listed in the phony email, looking for some clarity.
She told the person on the other end that she had never made a Bitcoin purchase.
The scammer, pretending to be a federal agent, told Marsha that her identity had been stolen and that she needed to make a withdrawal from her bank account to protect her money. He also told her to keep the situation a secret, including her daughter.
“She was on the phone for probably five hours, he stayed on the phone with her,” Jamie said.
Marsha followed the grifter’s instructions and made her way to the bank, where she even lied to the teller in order to justify the hefty $20,000 withdrawal.
“She had been coached by this ‘FBI guy’ not to trust anybody and told the teller that she was having her house remodeled and she needed $20,000 — wiped out her entire savings account,” Jamie said.
From there, the scammer told her to go to a liquor store 45 minutes away in Ponca City, Okla. to deposit her savings into a Bitcoin ATM.
It wasn’t until Marsha had completed the transaction that she realized she had been duped.
“I never thought it would happen to us and she’s humiliated, she’s embarrassed, she’s doubting her choices and she’s a smart woman, she’s bright and so it’s heartbreaking,” Jamie said.
The family filed a police report, but there is little hope that Marsha will get her savings back.
The actual FBI has since reached out to the family and explained that the ploy was likely part of a larger operation out of Nigeria, Jamie said.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency imposter scams have been on the rise in recent years, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Consumers lost more than $1.4 billion in 2023, and over $1 billion in the first nine months of 2024.
