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A Crypto Scam Crackdown?
Anti-fraud Advocates seek to ban kiosks
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Exhausted and emotionally drained, Melinda Richards, 75, knew she was in deep trouble as she slowly fed $16,000 in cash into a cryptocurrency kiosk near her Portland-area home.
During that week in March 2025, Richards was living in constant fear, ensnared in a computer hacking scam after receiving a pop-up warning on her computer. Believing she was following the advice of legitimate Microsoft fraud experts to protect her savings, she withdrew large amounts of cash from her bank and delivered it to the scammers through gift card and crypto purchases and courier pickups.
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Richards had lost a substantial amount when a bank manager finally refused her request for more money and alerted Richards that she was probably a victim of a scam.
“I felt very sick,” says Richards, who followed the manager’s advice to look up the scam online. “I realized I had just handed over a lot of money that I will never see again.”
As scams become more sophisticated, FBI data shows the use of crypto kiosks to facilitate fraud is proliferating. In 2025, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 13,400 complaints involving crypto kiosks, with losses totaling nearly $390 million nationwide — a 58 percent increase from 2024. More than half of the complaints were filed by people over age 50.
In Oregon, there were 256 complaints filed with the FBI in 2025 in which a cryptocurrency kiosk was used in the scam. Due to underreporting, experts say reported losses are just a fraction of actual ones.
Crypto kiosks convert cash to cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin. It’s very difficult to trace and recover money stolen from people during crypto-kiosk scams.
AARP has been advocating for laws to protect consumers from crypto kiosk crime. Thirty-five states have passed such laws, including bans on the machines, according to Françoise Cleveland, a government affairs director with AARP’s national office.
In crypto kiosk scams, the victims — often with the scammers constantly in touch by cell phone — are instructed to withdraw cash from their accounts and then to deposit it into a nearby crypto kiosk. The machines often look like bank ATMs.
‘No legitimate use’
“There seems to be no legitimate use for these machines. That’s what our data shows,” says Andrea Meyer, the AARP Oregon government relations director. She adds that people interested in investing in cryptocurrency are unlikely to go to a convenience store to deposit a large amount of cash.
In Oregon, AARP is working with state lawmakers to introduce legislation next year to ban crypto kiosks. The state currently does not regulate the machines. The legislative session begins in January, and AARP is asking members to support a ban by signing a pledge at action.aarp.org/NoCryptoATMs.
The upcoming legislation has bipartisan support. State Rep. Nathan Sosa — a Democrat from District 30, northwest of Portland — plans to serve as a sponsor and says he expects that crypto kiosk companies will push for the legislature to pass regulations rather than a ban.
“What we have seen from other states is that these regulations do not solve the problem,” Sosa says. “The scammers find workarounds for them, and the kiosk companies continue to make money off of transactions that are criminal.”
Rep. Dwayne Yunker, a Republican from District 3 in the southwestern part of the state, agrees and says he is pleased to join this bipartisan effort for a ban. A pro-business lawmaker, he says he was approached by representatives of a crypto kiosk company operating in the state that says it is open to regulation but not a ban.
Yunker says he told the company, “It’s not that I’m against you making money.” But, he says he told them, “I also have a job to protect people.... It’s not that I want to have all this regulation, but how do I look at myself and say ... I wasn’t protecting my constituents from scams?”
Yunker and Sosa both note that Oregon law enforcement supports a ban. Sosa recounted a conversation with a police officer who tried to stop an older scam victim from feeding money into a crypto kiosk. Although the officer warned the woman she was engaged in a scam, she was convinced what she was doing was legitimate and wouldn’t stop depositing money. The officer told Sosa that the woman did call police the next day after finally realizing what had happened.
“This is just another story ... where I thought, ‘My gosh, OK, we absolutely need to do something about this because it’s not just in my district — it’s districts all over the state and frankly all over the country where this is happening,” Sosa says.
More AARP Fraud Resources
- What to Know About Cryptocurrency Kiosks and Why Criminals Love Them
- AARP Fraud Watch Network
- How AARP protects older Americans from fraud
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