Western Springs Man Lured Into Bitcoin Scam: Cops

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL – A Western Springs man lost $27,000 in a scam earlier this month involving imposters posing as representatives of Apple, his bank and the Federal Reserve, police said.

Patch obtained the police report through a public records request.

On Feb. 11, the 65-year-old from the 4100 block of Lawn Avenue received a text message that he thought was from Apple.

He was informed of multiple unauthorized transactions using his Apple Pay, police said. He was given a phone number; a man answered claiming he was with Apple tech support.

The suspect brought a woman into the conversation. She was purportedly from Huntington Bank, the resident's bank, police said.

She told the resident he had lost $27,000 because of the unauthorized transactions and that he needed to withdraw that amount from his account and deposit it into a bitcoin machine, police said.

While still speaking with the suspects, the man withdrew the money. The other people left the conversation, and a man claiming he was from the Federal Reserve got on, police said.

With instructions from the new suspect, the resident deposited the money in 15 separate transactions into an Athena Bitcoin machine at Shell gas station, 5500 Wolf Road.

The next morning, he got a call from a suspect to "check in" with him, police said. The resident said he was fine, and the call ended.

The man then found he lost the $27,000.

He told police he gave the suspects his Social Security number.

A few weeks ago, Western Springs police reported another resident lost between $100,000 and $200,000 in a scam that started with a Best Buy employee in Countryside.

In that case, the resident was 70. Victims of such scams tend to be older.