Teacher loses life savings in bitcoin scam and now she might lose her home

A retired trainer says a Bitcoin scam took her life savings and now she might lose her home The warning she wants everyone to hear s Heather Walker has this unique scrutiny Karla Kelley thought she had set herself up for a nice confident retirement after years of teaching Karla Kelley Bitcoin ATM scam victim I had worked all my life to get to a point where I had no debt But one phone call changed that Karla Kelley They put a fear into me it s like Oh my gosh ' Karla says she got an email about her PayPal account and was given a phone number to call That s when she got the bad news Karla Kelley Your account is in jeopardy somebody has got your identity The man on the phone reported her account was hacked and criminals now had access to her bank accounts So she needed to take strategies to protect her money Karla Kelley The guy sought me how much I have in my savings account and I declared He mentioned OK take the and put it into it ' and he gave me a bitcoin machine The man explained her to take her money out of the bank and put it in bitcoin but the man wasn t done Over the coming weeks he claimed to be working with the police and mentioned all of her bank and funding accounts were in danger of being stolen Heather Walker I know people are going to be watching and say How did she fall for this ' Karla Kelley I know it I know it If I was watching me I would be saying the same thing It s the fear Scammers use fear to steal billions of dollars from people all across the country Karla Kelley In the very beginning they reported me you cannot tell anybody because it could jeopardize the assessment So I m like Well all right the FBI knows what they are doing I certainly don t want to jeopardize their examination So I didn t say anything to my daughter my friends and I lived with months with this fear and anxiety Experts say the crooks know exactly how to manipulate their casualties Karen Murillo AARP Florida This is not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about This is a event of numbers for the scammers they are targeting us at a crazy rate these days The actual number of casualties is unknown because plenty of people never account the crime A police body camera was rolling as this Texas woman inserted her life savings into a bitcoin atm Not stopping even when the police arrived These Bitcoin ATMs are a huge trouble Florida has more than of them in stores across the state and none of them are regulated Karen Murillo These scammers are exploiting the lack of consumer protections There is no daily transaction limit and majority of of the time when the money is sent it s gone instantly because only the scammers have access to the cryptocurrency Karen Murillo It s devastating and Florida requirements more protections AARP Florida is pushing lawmakers to regulate Bitcoin ATMs and require the owners to pay back people whose money is stolen It s too late for Karla Her money is gone and now she could lose her home Karla Kelley I ve raised my daughter here we ve had Christmas Thanksgiving people all out on the patio you know we have a lot of memories here Her daughter is trying to help using social media to raise funds and warn others She started a GoFundMe Now with help from her family and friends Karla is trying to rebuild her life Karla Kelley I can t blame myself because I m a trusting person I thought I was doing the right thing Her lesson to others if anyone asks you to put money in a bitcoin ATM stop and call police Heather Walker News