Area police are cautioning businesses about a scam involving an individual impersonating a fire marshal to solicit fraudulent payments via Bitcoin.
According to the Middletown Township Police Department, a scammer recently contacted a township business claiming to be the fire marshal. The caller demanded immediate payment for “required testing,” warning that failure to comply would result in a fine.
The payment for the testing was requested in Bitcoin.
The targeted employee received a text message from someone pretending to be their supervisor who was instructing them to withdraw money from the business’s safe and deposit it into a Bitcoin machine at a nearby smoke shop. Following these instructions, the employee unknowingly transferred over $2,000 into a Bitcoin account, police said.