The tricks of the scammers
Shock callers want to take their victims by surprise, and sometimes they succeed. Often especially seniors are cheated out of high amounts of money. But other scams – often in the area of cybercrime – also regularly call the police to the scene.
If a shock caller should contact you, the polizeiprasidium unterfranken advises: do not let any strangers into your home. Be suspicious of people on the phone claiming to be relatives or acquaintances who do not know you, and do not reveal details of your family or financial circumstances. During the phone call, ask for personal details that only your relative can answer. Call the known number of your relative. If in doubt, involve family members or the police without delay. Never hand over money or valuables. Other tricks of the scammers:
1. A classic scam is the promise of a prize, which is delivered by letter, e-mail or telephone call. The catch: before the winnings can be paid out, an amount must be transferred to an account. In the case of mails containing promises such as "you are a winner"!" The police therefore advise caution.
2. Internet fraudsters try to trick customers with online banking using a new phishing scam. Customers of various banks and credit institutions are being led to believe that their account has been falsely credited by a trojan horse, a piece of malware in disguise. This erroneous entry should now be refunded. You only have to click on the link "repayment" click and enter a transaction number (TAN) in the screen with the pre-filled transfer. A check of one’s own account balance on a computer infected with the trojan horse makes the online customer believe that a credit has actually been made to his account. With the revealed TAN, a repayment has actually been made to the benefit of an account specially set up by the perpetrators.
3. In the facebook scam, the scammers hack a facebook account and use an SMS payment service, which sends the victim a high phone bill. And this is how it happens: first, the victims are contacted by a friend on facebook. They have no idea that their facebook account has been hacked. The friend needs your number, for example, because he has bought a new cell phone. A short time later, one or more SMS messages from a payment service are received on the transmitted number. A sum of money is mentioned and the caller is asked to confirm a code and send back a text message. As soon as the recipient does this, the next bill from his mobile phone provider or the prepaid card is debited with the amount stated in the text message.
4. Internet auction platforms such as ebay are also abused for fraudulent purposes. Most of the reports are directed against the sellers of items that have been bought and paid for by the victims, but not shipped by the sellers. Hacked ebay accounts are a type of fraud that has been identified time and time again: the scammed access data is used for active trading on the platform. The perpetrators can receive goods that they have ordered in someone else’s name or sell goods that they do not own.
5. A fraudster can also lurk behind a sales ad. He pretends to be interested in the offered object. By mail, he sends a completely overdrawn check and asks the recipient to pay the difference between the purchase amount and the check via a cash transfer service (e.G., a bank account).B. Western union), or to be transferred to a bank account in a foreign country. The check is also credited after being cashed at the bank. The fact that this happens only under reserve is mostly overlooked. The amount can be reversed from the credit account within 180 days. If the check bounces, the bank reverses the amount credited and the seller is left with the difference.