Three Clarkdale residents have lost a combined $48,000 to scammers so far in 2026, already outpacing the total $43,963.11 lost across seven cases in all of 2025, according to Clarkdale Police Department records.
“It seems like it’d be even larger than that increase over the last, maybe even the last 18 months,” Clarkdale Police Chief Randy Taylor said. “It just seems like they’ve been relentless at trying to scam people.”
Nationwide cryptocurrency investment scams accounted for $7.2 billion in losses last year according to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has been posting “STOP” signs at Bitcoin ATMs since late 2024 telling residents to not make a cryptocurrency purchase “if they have been told to make the purchase by someone they have never met in person.”
April 17, 2026: “A local business was defrauded of $28,000 through an email chain scam,” according to CPD. “While making payments to a construction company they had hired, a scammer intercepted the email correspondence and provided incorrect bank account information.”
A business email compromise such as this is when a scammer impersonates a legitimate business, and criminals have also successfully used this tactic earlier this year against Yavapai County to reroute a $868,982 payment to a vendor.
Feb. 26, 2026: “A woman was contacted by an individual claiming to be from Amazon regarding fraudulent charges,” according to CPD. “She granted the individual remote access to her computer, and they instructed her to withdraw approximately $6,000 from her accounts. She was then directed to deposit the funds into a Bitcoin kiosk.”
Feb. 20, 2026: “A woman received a text message claiming to be from her bank regarding fraudulent charges. She was then contacted by individuals who claimed to be working in coordination with a federal judge,” according to CPD. “They instructed her to transfer $14,000 to a credit union account.”
Nov. 6, 2025: “A woman was corresponding via email with a construction company she had hired when an unidentified individual infiltrated the email thread through a reply-chain scam,” according to CPD. “The individual instructed her to transfer funds to a different bank account that did not belong to the construction company,” the victim lost $1,000.
June 26, 2025: $9,100 was lost by a local man after a pop-up ad told him to call what he thought was tech support — the victim deposited his money into a Bitcoin ATM.
June 6, 2025: A woman lost $1,500 when she thought she was purchasing a car from a Facebook friend who had her account hacked.
May 2, 2025: “A woman noticed her computer was malfunctioning when a popup message appeared instructing her to contact tech support and providing a phone number to call,” according to CPD. “After contacting the number, a man claiming there were fraudulent charges on her bank account instructed her to withdraw money and deposit it into a Bitcoin kiosk. While making the deposits, she realized she was being scammed and stopped the transaction. She suffered a total loss of $1,450.”
Feb. 26, 2025: After meeting who he thought was a cryptocurrency investor on WhatsApp, a resident lost $28,000. The scammer led the victim to believe he was earning a profit by presenting falsified returns.
Jan. 24, 2025: “A man noticed a $13.11 charge from Facebook on his wife’s bank account,” according to CPD. “They later discovered that someone had created a fake Facebook account using his wife’s identity and had obtained her banking information.” Scammers have also been known to clone Facebook accounts of existing users by reuploading a person’s photos and sending friend requests to that user’s friends, posing as someone the potential victim knows in order to eventually request payment.
Jan. 8, 2025: A resident received a text from an unknown number telling him to transfer $2,900 to a bank account; all communications ceased once the scammer received the funds. This crime was a “smishing” scheme, a text message version of a phishing scam — in which the scammer impersonates a bank or government agency to trick the victim into sending money.
The Sedona Police Department had $400,000 in scam losses reported to them from both visitors and residents in 2025; Camp Verde residents lost over a reported $372,630 according to the Camp Verde Marshal’s Office.
“If it’s a possible scam through email, make sure you know the URL and that it’s coming from a reliable source,” Taylor said. “If it’s a phone call, even if you do know who the person is, because a lot of times AI will match their voice, you want to hang up, say ‘I’ll call you back,’ and call them back on their own phone number. If you get a text message from anybody that’s not in your contacts, never answer it. And if it seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.”
For residents unsure whether a call, text or email is a scam, Taylor encouraged them to reach out to CPD directly.
“If a citizen ever has the slightest concern, have them give us a call and we can make that phone call for them,” he said. “If it seems the least bit suspicious, don’t click on it, don’t respond to it — feel free to contact us.”
The non-emergency number for the Clarkdale Police Department is 928-634-2921.
