You been talking to a person off an on for a few a week or two. Then suddenly, they need your help. They are in a location where they only accept Bitcoin. They obviously don’t have Bitcoin, and this is where they need your help. They may assure you that you will lose no money by maybe offering to send you the money before you go to the ATM.
There is a number of holes here. First, no place will only accept Bitcoin unless they are an illegal enterprise (such as drug dealing). Next, they are likely to tell you that they are trying to withdraw money from an ATM that will only accept Bitcoin. All ATMs will support regular cash. So now, here is the trick.
They are of course going to send you the money before you go to the ATM. One of two things will happen. One you rely on a promise, and send them Bitcoin without any compensation beforehand. They get your money, and then drop contact with you. The second option is they send you the money beforehand. In which case, they just need your routing, and account number. Once they do that, they send you the money so you can send them Bitcoin. However, the money they sent was from someone else’s bank account. And since you would be sending to Bitcoin, there is no way to prove your story when the police comes knocking on your door for bank fraud.
So how do you protect yourself from this? Well, first use common sense. If someone says they are at a place that will only take Bitcoin, ask yourself “Does that make sense?”. If not, it is probably a lie. Even if you were gullible enough to believe the story, you should NOT provide your bank account information to a person you never met. There are only 3 entities that have my bank account information. First, it my apartment management for automatic payments. Second is the Department of the Treasury, and the third is the US Social Security Administration.