South Dakotans susceptible to virtual currency kiosk fraud may be better protected under a proposal in the state Legislature, proponents say. That includes the elderly.
Rep. Matt Roby is a co-sponsor of the bill. He shared a story of an individual he knows who experienced a fraud scare. He said an older resident came into his office last Summer in a “panicked state” on a call with a scammer.
"She had $10,000 in the passenger seat of her car and she had an address on a piece of paper that was the address for one of the local gas stations that has one of these bitcoin machines, and she was asking me what a digital wallet was, how do I find this thing, ‘I need to put this money in there or all my stuff is going to be taken away,’” Roby recalled. “And so, this gentleman was persistent. After we hung up on him, he called back four times, and so thankfully she had stopped by me…Yeah, if she hadn’t stopped, she probably would’ve gone to the gas station and stuffed $10,000 in this machine, and it would’ve disappeared.”
Senate Bill 98 aims to put consumer protection guard rails around cryptocurrency kiosks–treating them similar to traditional ATMs.
The bill is expected to be amended to appease some industry concerns, like a fee cap that's currently written into the bill. The Senate Commerce and Energy Committee did not take action on the bill at its Feb. 03 meeting.
