Monday, April 15, 2024

An older man came into the store I work at to deposit $10,000 into a bitcoin atm, and I decided not to intervene. Should I have?

Context: I’m a cashier at a small grocery store in texas and we have one of those bitcoin atms within eyeshot of the registers. I never really see anyone on it but I’ve heard lots of stories of older people coming in and getting scammed. I’ve heard they’re always on the phone and seem very panicked. Now I don’t know much about bitcoin which means I don’t know what kind of people actually use these or how much money they usually put in.

Now with that out of the way: I clock into work and as I’m walking in I see an older man probably mid 60s wearing a suit and depositing money into the machine. He’s not on the phone with anyone and he seems very calm and collected so I thought “oh look someone’s actually using the machine!” I clock in, talk to my manager, count my till, and realize he’s still depositing money. I’m thinking about saying something either to him or my manager but I don’t bc I’ve never even seen someone use this machine before and don’t know what to look out for.

He finally finishes up and leaves the store and I notice he left behind a $10,000 band from the bank and my jaw drops. Like I said though I don’t know if depositing that amount of money is a normal thing for these machines, or if that was 100% a scam. I’m writing this from my register minutes after the event took place feeling guilty and awful that I didn’t do or say anything to stop it.

I would love to hear anyone’s input and also any potential warning signs/ red flags for looking out for scams on this machine would be greatly appreciated.


No comments:

Post a Comment