According to an Oxford Police report, the woman was lured into the scheme when her laptop acted abnormally — frozen, screen flashing and making a loud noise. At the bottom of the screen was what appeared to be a Microsoft logo and a phone number attached to it. The woman told police she called the number and reached a man who claimed he could help her repair her computer.
A short time later, she said she was contacted by another man claiming to be from the non-existent Federal Government Fraud Department. He told the woman that her bank account had two fraudulent deposits of $15,000 and $23,000, which he advised needed to be taken to the nearest Bitcoin Depot ATM, a machine that takes cash deposits and purchases the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin before transferring it, untraceably, to an anonymous “digital wallet.”