HONOLULU — The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a nationwide warning Thursday about crooks impersonating cryptocurrency exchange employees to steal money from investors.
Criminals contact victims by posing as cryptocurrency exchange employees claiming there is an urgent issue with the mark’s cryptocurrency account, often saying they found evidence that the victim’s account was compromised, according to the FBI.
Next, the fake exchange employee urges the victim to protect their account “by providing log-in information, clicking on a link, and/or providing identification information.”
If the scammer gains access to the victim’s account, the cryptocurrency is stolen, and there is very little chance of getting it back, federal law enforcement officials have said.
The warning comes more than a month after the FBI alerted the public to a scam where fake attorneys prey on cryptocurrency fraud victims by claiming they can get the victims’ money back.
The Better Business Bureau’s 2023 Scam Tracker Risk Report shows a shift in its list of top 10 riskiest scams.
“Investment scams have frequently ranked in the top 10 riskiest scams,” the report read. “In 2019, we added a category for cryptocurrency scams, which have appeared consistently in the top three riskiest scams ever since.
“This year, we combined investment and cryptocurrency scams into one category because most cryptocurrency scams involved investment opportunities. The result was investment/cryptocurrency scams rising to the top of our list of riskiest scams, with a high percentage of people reporting a monetary loss (80.4 percent) and a high median dollar loss ($3,800).”
The Market Integrity and Major Frauds section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal division charged cryptocurrency fraud cases involving over $2 billion in intended financial losses to investors from around the world between 2019 and June 2022.
In 2023 for the first time, social media overcame websites as the top means of contact with a monetary loss, according to the BBB’s report. Credit cards remained the top payment method for scams with a monetary loss, followed by bank account debit and online payment system.
“Susceptibility for scams perpetrated by social media rose 23.8 percent from the previous year,” according to the report.
“We have seen similar scams here in Hawai‘i. While we cannot provide specifics, we ask the public to use caution, and report it to FBI IC3 at IC3.gov or call our local FBI number at 808-566-4300 if they believe they have been scammed,” the FBI’s Honolulu Division said in a statement.
Tips to protect yourself
The FBI requests victims report activity associated with this scam to the FBI IC3 at www.ic3.gov or call 808-566-4300.
•If you receive a call or message indicating any kind of account problem or compromise, do not respond, even if it appears official and indicates you must act immediately.
• Hang up. Call the cryptocurrency exchange’s official phone number to verify whether there is a problem. Do not use any phone number the caller provides.
• Do not go to any websites or click on links the caller sends you. Navigate to the official cryptocurrency exchange website separately.
• If anyone asks for your account log-in information at any point, do not provide it.
• Avoid clicking links, downloading files or opening attachments in unsolicited messages.
• Be cautious of services that claim they can recover any lost cryptocurrency funds.
