A group of Senate Democrats, spearheaded by Majority Whip and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, has called on ten major U.S. crypto ATM operators to urgently address fraud issues and protect older Americans.
In a statement released on September 12, seven Democratic Senators, including Elizabeth Warren, highlighted Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data showing that losses from Bitcoin ATMs (BTMs) due to fraud totaled $65 million in the first half of this year.
The Senators pointed out that individuals aged 60 and over are more than three times as likely to report losses from BTMs compared to younger adults.
The letters, dated September 11, were sent to the CEOs and top executives of Bitcoin Depot, CoinFlip, RockItCoin, Bitstop, Coinhub, Unbank, Athena Bitcoin, Byte Federal, Cash2Bitcoin, and Margo.
The letters, signed by Durbin, Warren, and Senators Richard Blumenthal, Jack Reed, Tina Smith, Peter Welch, and Sheldon Whitehouse, urged these companies to “take immediate action” to address concerns that their machines are contributing to “widespread financial fraud against elderly Americans.”
The Senators noted that as these companies have placed BTMs in various businesses, sometimes even compensating these businesses to host the machines, there has been a noticeable increase in Bitcoin scams targeting older Americans.
They referenced a July report from the Illinois Times about a business owner removing a Coinhub ATM due to its sole users being scam victims and a New York Times report detailing “egregious examples” of scammers coercing elderly individuals into sending funds through crypto ATMs.
The letters request responses to several questions by October 4, including inquiries about fraud prevention measures, such as warnings about scams, transaction and deposit limits, and insurance for depositors against fraud.
Earlier this month, the FTC revealed that crypto ATM scams had surged tenfold since 2020, increasing from $12 million to $144 million. The FBI reported that crypto fraud resulted in $5.6 billion in losses in 2023, a 45% increase from the previous year.
According to the FTC, the median reported loss from Bitcoin ATM-linked fraud was $10,000 in the first half of this year, with older adults losing more than two-thirds of this amount.
