MEDINA, Ohio — Every day, scammers are cooking up schemes to get their hands on our hard-earned money and personal information.
I’ve reported how their efforts have unfortunately paid off – sharing some tough stories about Northeast Ohioans losing tens of thousands of dollars in scams.
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They've resonated with many people, including an assistant prosecuting attorney in Medina County who reached out to me.
"I had seen some of the work that you were doing with respect to scams and fraud, and I thought this was a great opportunity to present this problem," said Thomas Condosta with the Medina County Scam Squad.
The problem is what scammers call "secret government kiosks" that they claim will help people protect their money, but nothing could be further from the truth, as panicked victims who think their accounts have been hacked fall into their wicked web of lies.
Now, one Medina woman is trying to step in before getting stuck.
Hundreds of customers come in and out of the Medina Marathon convenience store at the corner of South Court and Lafayette daily.
Some of them catch Sara Scott's attention more than others.
"Thankfully we have cameras, and I can see the machine from here," said Scott.
The store clerk is talking about the Bitcoin machine near the back of the store.
"A lot of people who buy Bitcoin, who are into crypto, they're doing it on their phone, they're doing it on their computer. So, it's not that often that people are using the machine for legitimate transactions," said Scott.
Scott has experienced that scenario firsthand.
"If you saw somebody getting robbed on the street, you might try to help. But like, this is a more covert form of robbery," said Scott.
Several times, she has stepped in when she sees panicked people on the phone with a handful of cash, to the dismay of the scammers on the other end of the phone.
"So, they'll say stop talking to her and she's trying to stop you and you really need to do this," said Scott.
In that high-pressure conversation, scammers pose as someone from their bank or government agency.
"That's cruel. It's diabolical. I hate it," said Scott.
They often successfully convince potential victims that their personal account information has been compromised.
"We've discovered some fraudulent activity. We want you to protect your money," said Condosta.
Condosta told me those targeted are directed to act fast.
"They'll withdraw large amounts of money from their bank to put it in the safer kiosk, government ATM,” said Condosta.
That so-called safer kiosk, a government ATM, is a Bitcoin machine.
"They'll send them to the closest machine to where they live," said Condosta.
In a recent case, Scott called Condosta for backup.
“I was like, 'Hey, we have a problem,'” said Scott.
She was concerned about an elderly man on the phone and described the scene to tom.
“He’s got the phone on speaker, sounds like he has a foreign accent and he’s telling this man how to put his money in the machine and what he needs to do,” said Condosta.
In the short time it took Condosta to drive to the store, Scott had already convinced the man to hang up before depositing his cash.
Her message to him and the handful of others she’s helped is simple.
“You were just put in a vulnerable position and came across a predator because that’s what these people are, they’re predators,” said Scott.
If you’re like me, you might wonder how Scott knows what to look out for.
"There's a whole genre on like YouTube of people who try to stop scammers. So that's how I was even aware of it in the first place," said Scott.
I asked Scott how rewarding this is for her.
“It’s really stressful to be honest. The relief is overwhelming because just, oh, that person isn’t putting their life savings in this machine. They’re not getting robbed today,” said Scott.
The store owner, Hasan, didn't want to go on camera for this story.
In a statement sent to me, he said, "we don't just care about making money here. We care about our people, and we want to help them when we can."
That's why he wanted Scott to share her story.
We should mention that the Bitcoin machine has two scam warnings on it: one from the operator that appears on the screen and one from a flier from the Medina County Scam Squad.
Scott and Condosta told me that potential victims are so worked up by the person they’re on the phone with that they don’t even see the warnings.
Scott is hopeful other clerks will step up and join her on the frontline of the fight against scammers.
RELATED: Mayfield Heights man shares pain of losing $80,000 in elaborate scheme to help others
