A Woman Loses $ 48,125 Claim Over A Bitcoin ATM Firm In Canada

By Kapil Gauhar

A woman, unnamed for security reasons, suing for 62,500 Canadian dollars ($48,125) sent to a phone scammer over a Bitcoin ATM has lost her case in the court, reported local media. Nancy Orr, the Charlottetown Provincial Court Chief Judge, ruled on Friday that the fiat currency deposited by the woman into the ATM machine belonged to Instacoin ATM Canada Inc., the digital cash dispensing unit owner.

When handed down the decision, Chief Judge Orr is quoted as saying “It’s most unfortunate that she was victim of such a sophisticated fraud”. However, she further added that “It’s up to the bitcoin purchaser to know what they’re doing.”

The woman deposited 62,500 Canadian dollars into a Bitcoin ATM believing that she owed taxes. Indeed, it was a fraud. A man who claimed to represent the Canada Revenue Agency called her, threatening the new immigrant with deportation and arrest for the tax default.

As indicated by a report by CBC News, the case centered on who owned the money legally she deposited into the ATM, later seized by the police in the form of cash. The woman talked about the matter in the court like how the scammer got her on speed dial, and of the intimate report he held about her family. She testified that being a new immigrant, she had to believe the threats of deportation and arrest, and that this could be avoided by sending such a large sum of money demanded.

The women made a series of withdrawals from the bank over two days in February, which she deposited into a bitcoin machine at a restaurant in Charlottetown. She then transferred the money to a bitcoin address supplied to her by the anonymous man on the phone.

The woman tearfully told the local media, “It’s really had. I need that money back”. She sobbed, “I want other people to know what happened to me, so it doesn’t happen to them”.