A Winnipeg man is warning others about a scheme involving a new job and a request to make a cash deposit into a bitcoin ATM.
Ken Bennet posted his resume on a job website and recently accepted a position as a ‘quality control agent,’ or secret shopper.
Bennet said most of the communication with the company which hired him happened through email, but on Wednesday he became suspicious when his boss phoned him and asked him to complete a task involving bitcoin.
“He was saying that if I completed it quickly enough I could be eligible for a promotion after three days,” said Bennet. “It didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel right.”
Bennet said when he agreed to the secret shopper job the company claimed he would be paid $650 a week plus bonuses. After completing four secret shopper assignments, his boss asked him to go to a bank on McPhillips Street and withdraw a certain amount of money the company would be sending to his bank account via e-transfer.
Bennet said the second part of the assignment involved depositing that money into a bitcoin ATM, also on McPhillips Street, using a QR code sent to him in an email which would allow him to deposit the bitcoin into the company’s account.
A scenario where people deposit money into a bitcoin machine is one that Winnipeg police have highlighted as part of fraud prevention awareness month this March.
Sgt. Shaun Veldman with the Winnipeg Police Service Financial Crime Unit said this can result in people losing their own money.
“A week later, days later, that cheque didn’t clear,” said Veldman. “The funds that went into your account are now gone.”
“You’re essentially without that money you originally thought you had.”
Bennet said he was offered a $100 bonus to complete the task quickly, but in the end he told the man who was claiming to be his manager he wouldn’t do it.
“If it seems too good to be true it probably is,” said Bennet. “The entire assignment with the bank was raising red flags all along.”
Bennet said he contacted police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Veldman said prevention is key.
“We can’t investigate our way out of this,” he said. “Once you’ve sent that money via bitcoin, it’s very anonymous, so there’s not really a way to trace where that money went to. So once you’ve sent it and hit send on the machine it is gone. You’re not going to get it back.”
Bennet hasn’t heard from the company since he turned down the request on Wednesday to make the bitcoin deposit.
CTV Winnipeg’s phone call and email to a phone number and email address linked to the company wasn’t immediately returned.
WinnipegBTC.com owner Kevin Carthy, who operates several bitcoin ATM’s in Winnipeg, said cryptocurrency is just the latest technology being used by fraudsters.
“These kinds of schemes have been around for a long time,” said Carthy. “A lot worse things have been done with cash. It’s just a new version of cash.”
“To me, you shouldn’t be sending cryptocurrency to anyone but yourself or someone you know,” said Carthy. “Usually if you are, you’re involved in a scam almost every single time.”
“The odd exception is if you bought something, like a product that you bought, because a lot of companies now are taking cryptocurrency as payment.”
If you suspect you’re involved in a potential scheme involving cryptocurrency, you can contact the Winnipeg Police Service or make a report to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre
