Framingham bans crypto ATMs after $397,000 in local scam losses

Framingham has banned cryptocurrency ATMs. The city council in the Massachusetts town voted unanimously this month to shut the machines out after residents lost about $397,000 to scams that ran through them. It joins more than 20 local bans across the state.

That vote came at a November meeting, said District 3 Councilor Mary Kate Feeney, who brought the measure forward in October. Local prosecutors backed it. The Middlesex District Attorney's office counted 10 crypto ATM scam cases in Framingham over three years, with losses of about $397,000 since 2023.

Framingham's case for the ban

Feeney framed the ban as consumer protection. "This is really something to protect our seniors," she said. The machines turn cash into crypto in minutes, which is the same feature that makes them handy for a scammer working a victim over the phone.

Marian Ryan, the Middlesex district attorney, supported the measure and did not hedge. "There's really no good reason for these machines to be scattered around the city," she said. Her office tied the 10 cases and the $397,000 in losses to the kiosks going back to 2023.

Police will tell the businesses that host the machines to unplug them within a set period. Many sit in convenience stores and gas stations, where they earn the owner a cut of each transaction. The council has not said how long those businesses have to comply, or what happens if they do not.

Massachusetts towns are moving one by one

Framingham is not acting alone. It joins 22 other communities in the state that have passed similar rules, by the count cited at the council. Nearby Newton is weighing the same step.

At a Newton meeting on 3 November, police sergeant Brian Tramontozzi laid out the statewide numbers. "We have some Massachusetts data here: 296 complaints. Almost $7 million, amounting to almost $19,000 a day," he said. Newton itself has logged close to 26 scams since 2023, with about $411,000 in losses, by a local report cited at the meeting.

Newton is copying a neighbor. Committee chair Joshua Krintzman asked the city's lawyers to draft something "very comparable to what Waltham did," a nod to the ban Waltham passed earlier. Massachusetts has no statewide rule for the machines. Each town writes its own.

The bans are spreading to whole states

Whole states are acting, not just towns. Indiana was the first to ban the machines outright, when Governor Mike Braun signed HB 1116 in March 2026, by the account of trade outlet ATM Marketplace. Vermont, Tennessee and Minnesota have since passed statewide bans, and Hawaii limited the cash-taking kiosks without barring them fully. Minnesota's operators have until 31 December 2026 to clear their machines.

Why the kiosks draw scammers

This pattern is national, and federal figures show the scale. The Federal Trade Commission reported that Americans lost more than $110 million at bitcoin ATMs in 2023, then more than $65 million in just the first half of 2024. Reported losses had climbed nearly tenfold since 2020.

Older people get hit hardest. Consumers over 60 were more than three times as likely as younger adults to report losing money at the machines, the FTC said in a report dated 3 September 2024. Most of the losses trace to impersonation scams, where someone posing as a government agency, a business, or tech support pushes the victim to move cash fast.

Here is the shape it usually takes. A caller claims to be from a government office or a bank's fraud desk and warns that the target's money is at risk. The fix, they say, is to withdraw cash and feed it into a nearby crypto ATM to keep it safe. It is a lie. By the time the victim sees that, the funds are gone.

The machines fit that script. A victim is told to feed in bills. The machine converts the money to crypto, usually bitcoin (BTC), and sends it to a wallet the scammer controls. Once the transfer confirms it is close to impossible to reverse, the same hard edge that makes self-custody a real responsibility for ordinary holders.

Speed is the draw for the fraudster. A bank wire can be flagged or recalled. A kiosk transfer clears in minutes and leaves the victim holding the loss, which is why consumer-protection officials treat any instruction to use one as a warning sign.

What a local ban can and cannot fix

A ban removes the machine. It does not remove the scam. The phone call that starts the fraud still comes, and a determined victim can drive to the next town that still has a kiosk. A rule like Framingham's shuts one cash-to-crypto door while the pressure tactics behind the loss go untouched.

Reach is the other limit. These are city and town measures, not a state law, so the map stays patchy, and an operator can move a machine across a boundary in an afternoon. That gap is part of the broader fight over crypto rules, which is still being settled town by town and state by state. Supporters say the bans help anyway, because pulling the fastest on-ramp buys time, and time is what breaks a scammer's hold on someone mid-call.

What to watch

Newton takes up its draft at a coming meeting, and a yes vote would widen the Massachusetts cluster. Watch whether the state legislature trades town-by-town action for a single rule, which would end the patchwork. The FTC's next loss figures will show whether the bans, where they exist, are denting the fraud or just moving it down the road. For now the tally of banned towns keeps climbing.