20-year-old scammed out of $20,000

TRAVERSE CITY — A 20-year-old Long Lake Township woman was scammed out of $20,000 over the course of a year, the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office reported.

Starting last April, the woman told deputies, an unknown person threatened to kill her family unless she paid them.

She responded to the threat by following instructions to transfer money into a Bitcoin account using Cash App, Lt. Brandon Brinks said.

“It’s unclear what the premise of this scam was,” Brinks said.

Over the past 11 months, she told police, she continued to pay in small increments. The amount now totals $20,000. On Tuesday afternoon, she decided she had finally had enough and called the sheriff’s office to report it.

So far, Brinks said, the email and account numbers she provided all seem to be untraceable, which is common in fraud cases like this one.

The case is still under investigation.