LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A Lancaster County woman lost $10,000 in a bitcoin scam, authorities said.
On Tuesday night, a deputy was sent to a rural home on a report of a fraud, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.
A 73-year-old woman told the deputy that a message popped up on her computer that looked like an Apple security alert.
It instructed her to call the number listed, and she did, the sheriff’s office said.
The person on the other end of the line said foreign hackers were going to connect her to a child pornography ring.
They told her that the only way to stop it was to pay $25,000, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said.
The woman withdrew $10,000 from her account, Houchin said. The bank would not let her take out any more than that.
She deposited the $10,000 into a bitcoin ATM.
The scammer told her she would need to go back to the bank the next day and send the remaining $15,000.
At that point, she called law enforcement.
“Sadly, we continue to report on these,” Houchin said. “Again, anybody telling you to do anything with a BitATM and deposit money to give them, it is a fraud.
