Illinois Woman Scammed Out Of $62,000 By Someone Claiming To Be ‘Yellowstone Star, Kevin Costner

For those that need to hear this… Kevin Costner is never going to ask you for money.

Though he might have lost some of his own money funding his Horizon: An American Saga passion project, the Hollywood actor reportedly earned over a million PER EPISODE of Yellowstone, and would never stoop so low and ask his fans for financial help. One suburban woman in Illinois has unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way.

The Evanston Police Department has reported that in a period of about six months, a woman sent around $62,000 to a scammer that was posing as Kevin Costner. According to their investigation, the Illinois resident was sending the money by buying and sending gift cards, and communicated with the person claiming to be the Yellowstone star through the social media site Telegram.

The victim of this scam was led to believe that the payments via gift cards they were sending to “Kevin Costner” were actually investments, and that the 70-year-old actor was converting the gift cards into cryptocurrency. I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but how does Kevin Costner reaching out asking you to trust him to invest in Bitcoin not raise a few red flags?

Unfortunately, the money that was sent over to the scammer has not and likely will not be recovered. The police department directed the woman to contact her credit card companies to see if they’d be able to help, but those type of companies typically only void payments if the card holder wasn’t present for the purchase. And the Evanston Police Department released this statement as a conclusion to their investigation:

“Due to the nature of the crime, an arrest is highly unlikely.”

The moral of the story here is to make sure you keep an eye out for scammers in this day and age, and especially keep an eye out on behalf of some of our older loved ones. Scammers often single out lonely people, so if you know someone vulnerable in your life that also happens to be a fan of Kevin Costner, keep a close eye on them.

And remember that celebrities aren’t ever going to ask regular people for money… they’ve got plenty of it. And if you think this doesn’t happen often, you’d be wrong. Back in July of 2024, a story about a Massachusetts woman sending a fake Vince Gill over $350,000 was shared. 

In an attempt to get ahead of some of these scams, the Federal Trade Commission put out this release back in 2018 warning people to stay alert when being asked to transfer money online:

“They’re asking fans to send money for all kinds of supposed reasons – like claiming a prize, donating to a charity, or giving help of some kind. Some celebs do raise money for legitimate causes. But you want to be sure the cause – and the person asking you to support it – are real.

Imposter scams come in many varieties, but they all work the same way: a scammer pretends to be someone you trust to convince you to send them money. And that’s exactly what these celebrity imposters are trying to do.”

To spin off of an age old saying, if it seems too weird to be true, it probably is.The post Illinois Woman Scammed Out Of $62,000 By Someone Claiming To Be ‘Yellowstone Star, Kevin Costner first appeared on Whiskey Riff.