I was told to deposit cash into a Bitcoin ATM to protect my money — is it a scam?

Yes. No bank, government agency, or business will ever tell you to move your money through a cryptocurrency ATM — not to protect it from “hackers,” not to pay a fine, not to fix an account. The caller stays on the line while you feed cash into the machine because every bill becomes untraceable crypto in their wallet within minutes. Hang up, and if you already deposited, report it to the ATM operator and at reportfraud.ftc.gov right away.

Educational verdict from documented scam patterns — not a live report. For a 0–100 risk score on the exact link in your hand, run the checker.

From the research desk — this pattern is one of those documented in This Week's Scam Wave, in Numbers — August 12, 2026 →