Telephone fraudsters have obviously discovered a new scam: They pretend to be employees of a bank.
The "Sparkasse Oberland" and the police have now informed about this during a press conference.
The elderly are the most common victims.
Telephone fraudsters have come up with a new scam
You pose as an employee of a bank
The Sparkasse and the police recently reported about this
Weilheim
- "It is now the fourth time that we have to provide information about the tiresome subject," said the press spokesman for the "Sparkasse Oberland", Robert Christian Mayer, "but the crooks keep inventing new scams." According to false friends, Grandchildren and police officers are now the wrong Sparkasse employees who want to rip off the customers of the financial institution.
According to Simon Bräutigam, who deals with these cases with the Weilheim police, it was difficult to get to the masterminds in the past, as they almost always call from call centers abroad.
Only those “pickers” who had contact with their victims could be identified.
Now it has become even more difficult as the new scammers no longer appear in person.
All they have to do is call their victims and, under a pretext, ask for personal data and PIN and TAN numbers.
They then use them to access their victims' accounts.
Another method is to get the called party to do a “test transfer”, often multiple times.
A problem for the potential victims is that they can no longer rely on the fraudsters speaking bad German or sending emails with lots of spelling errors.
The linguistic quality is getting better and better, says Bräutigam.
All age groups are at risk in all scams, but older people are more likely to be victims, as they often have less experience with computers and online banking.
Anyone who has parents at an advanced age should make them aware of the possible dangers.
According to Mayer, one possible sign that it is a call from a criminal is that the Sparkasse number is displayed on the phone, but before that the area code for Germany "0049" appears.
Helmut Herrmann from Sparkasse Oberland advises customers who have received a questionable call to simply hang up.
In addition, the Sparkasse should be notified as soon as possible.
The callback button should not be used, but the number of the real Sparkasse, which is 0881/6410.
This gives the Sparkasse the opportunity to collect information about attempted fraud.
The responsible employee Thomas Döllinger, who can also be reached directly at 0881 / 641-464, also advises recipients of dubious emails to forward them to "warnung@sparkasse.de", where they will be evaluated.
If a customer had the feeling that something was wrong with online banking, the Sparkasse would immediately block online access and give the customer new access data.
Regardless of the current fraud, the Sparkasse advises all online banking users to always have the latest virus protection and a firewall on their computer.
If you suspect fraud, you should immediately call the police on 110.
More information on Internet security can be found on the “Sicherheitses-internet.net” page of the Bavarian Police.
Alfred Schubert
