MADISON, Wis. (Gray) – Karin Schmeling was feeding all of the money from her checking account into a cryptocurrency kiosk when the machine jammed on the last $100 bill.
“That’s when it hit me, like a coconut cream pie right in the face,” Schmeling said. She had been scammed.
Now, Wisconsin lawmakers are hoping to crack down on scams happening at these kiosks. On Thursday, lawmakers held a public hearing for a bill to place restrictions on cryptocurrency kiosks, including verifying customer identity and limiting transactions to $500 per customer per day.
The proposed legislation would also require kiosk companies to refund victims who report scams within 30 days.
In these scams, people pretend to be a bank or the government and ask victims to quickly take out money from their bank and deposit it in a kiosk.
Schmeling, a retired critical care nurse, lost her checking account savings to scammers who told her the account had been compromised and was being used to access child pornography in China.
“We are handing on a silver platter to scammers a perfect way to hold your grandma hostage for three hours for the sole purpose of taking her money,” Schmeling said.
State Rep. Pat Snyder, R-Weston, the bill’s co-author, said the legislation would create necessary protections for vulnerable residents.
“I just can’t believe how anyone is defending this crap,” Snyder said. “And if it doesn’t pass, I’m going to put a press release out telling every supervisor in every county to ban these things. We will get it done one way or another.”
During the hearing, cryptocurrency kiosk companies advocated for regulation but argued that the bill is too restrictive.
“We support daily transaction limits like I said, as long as they’re reasonable,” said a director of government affairs for Coin Flip.
Schmeling hopes her experience will help change state law.
“I’d go through it all over again if all the invisible grandmas and grandpas behind me would be saved from having it happen to them,” Schmeling said.
There are hundreds of cryptocurrency kiosks throughout Wisconsin. According to FBI data, Americans lost over $330 million to scams involving cryptocurrency kiosks in 2025.
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