Missouri’s AG sued CoinFlip because it knowingly allowed scammers to use bitcoin ATMs to steal money from residents and charge fees of up to 22% without informing customers. The lawsuit seeks to close the company’s doors in Missouri and impose a fine of up to $1.8 million.
The lawsuit was foot in Jasper County Circuit Court It names GPD Holdings LLC as a defendant.
According to Attorney General Catherine Hannaway, “Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ATMs are the new escape route for fraud, transferring innocent people’s money to scammers, never to return.”
Who are the three victims in this lawsuit and what happened to them?
The first victim is an 80-year-old military veteran, who was deceived by a suspect under the alias Selena Lee in the fall of 2025.
Lee contacted the old man, claiming to have made a fortune in cryptocurrencies, and encouraged him to invest through CoinFlip.
Without prior notice, the man sent Lee between $180,000 and $200,000 from September 2025 to March 2026. When Lee asked for more, the man sold his car and withdrew the money from his investment accounts. He almost lost his apartment when a friend stepped in to pay his rent.
The veteran is now living off Social Security and has lost all of his savings.
What’s worse is that the ATM never showed him the fees for all of his transactions, and Lee simply told him there would be a fee of $5,000 to $15,000 per transaction.
The second victim (we’ll call her Jane Doe) was contacted by a woman who claimed to be a police officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
This happened in March 2026, and the caller told Jane she had two warrants for missing jury duty. What made the fake officer seem even more convincing was that she knew she would be excused from jury duty in August 2025, so Jane was inclined to believe her.
The caller then transferred Jane to another fake officer who sent her text forms and told her she owed $10,000 to clear arrest warrants.
After Jane said she couldn’t pay $10,000, the caller reduced the request to $2,500, then to $1,000. Jane drove her car to the bank and withdrew $1,000, which she then took to a CoinFlip ATM at a vape shop.
An employee at the vape shop noticed her and warned her she was being scammed, but by then, the money was already gone.
Jane called the ATM number to report what happened, but a CoinFlip employee told her the best they could do was refund her $182.38. Transaction fees. However, she did not remember any notification about transaction fees when she used the device.
The third, but perhaps not last, victim was affected in April 2025. She received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, informing her of her arrest.
The caller asked her to pay $9,600, but when she said she couldn’t afford it, they asked her to deposit $1,000 into a CoinFlip ATM.
I deposited $900, but when I tried to cancel the transaction after realizing it was a scam, it failed. She called CoinFlip, but they told her they had already run out of funds.
What does CoinFlip say about itself, and what does the lawsuit say about what’s really going on?
CoinFlip claims that its ATMs are a “safe option” for purchasing Bitcoin. The lawsuit even refers to the company Own websitewhich claims that its “Know Your Customer” process acts as a “barrier to criminal activity.”
However, the lawsuit says all of these claims are just window dressing. According to company documents cited in the lawsuit, CoinFlip knows that scammers are using its devices to defraud.
The company also acknowledges that financial exploitation of seniors is “one of the fastest growing forms of fraud” in its training materials.
But despite all that, the lawsuit claims that CoinFlip continues to process transactions because it earns fees on each transaction.
What are the hidden fees in this case?
The lawsuit claims that while CoinFlip displays a $2.99 fee on its ATMs, the actual fee is hidden in a detailed terms of service document, which most people don’t read. This fee can reach 21.9% of the total transaction value.
According to the lawsuit, if one person put $100 into a CoinFlip machine, they would only receive $75.76 worth of bitcoin. This means that more than 24% goes to CoinFlip, and the customer is not informed of this.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, CoinFlip could easily display the full transaction fee on the screen, but intentionally hides it because it profits from the fees.
The lawsuit is just part of a broader movement by US states to crack down on cryptocurrency ATM operators.
Bitcoin Depository It was once the largest cryptocurrency ATM operator in North America with more than 9,000 machines worldwide. However, the company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas last year after more than $25 million in legal judgments in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone.
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