---
title: "New Crypto Payment Scam – A SCARS Alert"
canonical: https://romancescamsnow.com/new-crypto-payment-scam-a-scars-alert/
type: post
author: "SCARS Institute Editorial Team"
published: 2022-01-10
modified: 2022-01-10
categories: ["♦ HOW SCAMS WORK", "2022", "Insights", "♦ SCAM WARNINGS & ALERTS"]
summary: ""
organization: "SCARS Institute - Encyclopedia of Scans - World's #1 Anti-Scam Website - Romance Scams NOW"
organization_url: https://romancescamsnow.com/
llms: https://romancescamsnow.com/llms.txt
---

# New Crypto Payment Scam – A SCARS Alert

# New Crypto Payment Scam

## A SCARS Alert

### How Scams Work!

# There's a New Spin On Scammers Asking People To Pay With Cryptocurrency.

### It involves an impersonator, a QR code, and a trip to a store (directed by a scammer on the phone) to send your money to them through a cryptocurrency ATM.

It works like this:

- Someone might call pretending to be from the government, law enforcement, or a local utility company.
- Maybe a romantic interest you met online calls, or someone calls to say you’ve won the lottery or a prize.
- They’ll wind up asking you for money.
- If you believe the story they tell and you seem willing to engage, they’ll stay on the phone to direct you to withdraw money from your bank, investment, or retirement accounts.
- Then they’ll tell you to go to a store with a cryptocurrency ATM (and they’ll stay on the phone the whole time).
- Once you’re there, they’ll direct you to insert your money into the ATM and buy cryptocurrency.
- Here’s where the QR code comes in:
- They send you a QR code with their address embedded in it. Once you buy the cryptocurrency, they have you scan the code so the money gets transferred to them.
- But then your money is gone.

Here’s the main thing to know: nobody from the government, law enforcement, utility company, or prize promoter will ever tell you to pay them with cryptocurrency.

If someone does, it’s a scam, every time.

Any unexpected tweet, text, email, call, or social media message — particularly from someone you don’t know — asking you to pay them in advance for something, including with cryptocurrency, is a scam.