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Shock call: "The methods of the fraudsters are becoming more and more perfidious" (symbol picture)
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
An unknown caller tried to convince a 66-year-old woman in Rinteln in the Weser Uplands that her daughter had killed a cyclist.
The man asked the elderly lady to pay 30,000 euros to prevent her daughter from being "extradited," the police said on Wednesday.
The 66-year-old was initially panicked by the fraudster and believed the story of lies.
Then, however, she got cool and contacted her daughter.
The result: There was no accident at all, rather it was a so-called shock call.
"The methods of the fraudsters are becoming more and more perfidious," commented the police.
Lousy scam
According to the police, "shock calls" are a mixture of grandchildren's trick and call center fraud.
Callers pretend to be relatives, police officers or lawyers on the phone.
Then they claim that either they, as an alleged relative, or their alleged client, caused a traffic accident.
People, for example children, were seriously injured.
The relative can only avoid criminal prosecution by immediately paying a sum of money in cash.
There are also variants of this mesh.
Fraudsters declare that an alleged family member has had a serious accident and must be operated on immediately.
However, the operation can only be carried out if it is paid for in cash beforehand.
ala / dpa
