Because there's so much attention paid to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies these days, some people might think it's a new thing, but it's been around for years -- long enough for scammers to have figured out lots of ways to try to take someone's bitcoin away.
The rip-offs range from email offers to make you more money if you'll invest cash with them to go on the crypto markets, all the way to sophisticated foreign hackers who try to access your accounts by going through your security tools.
Retired Houston Police Captain Greg Fremin says these crypto thieves are "a very select group of criminals who will engage in that type of behavior.
"It's a very savvy technical aspect of stealing cryptocurrency, but there are people out there who are very good at doing that.
"And sometimes they're doing it from other countries, or they're hacking into people's computer systems and going into their accounts."
And while these particular scams seem new to many people, billions of dollars in consumer money has been lost to these same deceptions over the past several years, experts say.
The holiday aspect of these crimes is simply typical of how scams come out of the woodwork during this time of year, Captain Fremin told Newsradio 740 KTRH.
"We start seeing an increase, a significant increase, in not only property crimes but identity theft and these scams that are rolling now because we've got suspects out there, that's what they do for a living."
Sometimes remembering that these scammers are so good that they consider it their "career" is hard for law-abiding people to understand.