If she weren't "extremely suspicious" by nature, a 71-year-old Starnberg woman would probably have been caught by fraudsters this week.
It is about misuse of emergency numbers, which a telephone operator says is not possible.
Starnberg -
Telephone fraudsters are becoming more and more perfidious, so that they even manipulate emergency numbers. Callers tried this trick on a 71-year-old from Starnberg, she noticed it in time. But she wants to tell her story to warn older people in particular. Because she herself volunteers at the senior citizens' meeting in Starnberg and is sure that 20 out of 30 visitors there would probably have fallen for the fraudsters.
It was a "chief inspector" who reported to her as "Peter Lang", allegedly responsible for the area of fraud and burglary with the alleged service number K747. This alleged police officer told the pensioner that there had been a robbery not far from her home. Two perpetrators have been arrested, another is on the run. A notepad was secured from the arrested, on which not only the name of the 71-year-old was noted, but also bank details of her and personal information, which he now wants to match. Because the Starnberg woman hesitated, he offered to have his identity confirmed by calling the emergency number 110.
The woman hung up, as she says, and after a while dialed 911. In fact, her identity was confirmed, even more, she was even forwarded to "Peter Lang". She almost believed the callers, says the 71-year-old - if the many other questions hadn't aroused her suspicion again. At the same time as this conversation, she therefore dialed 110 on her cell phone and landed at the police station in Starnberg. Nothing was known of a robbery on their residential street.
Andreas Aichele, press spokesman at the police headquarters in Upper Bavaria-North, has known this trick for a long time.
Kai Motschmann from the police in Starnberg also remembers that the telephone connection used to be maintained until both participants hung up.
If someone didn't (the cheater), the person who hung up ended up with the old person the next time they called.
Today this is no longer possible, it is enough to hang up, says Motschmann.
Telekom, as a telephone operator, also declares: "This is not possible," said a spokesman.
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Helmut Kilian, head of the Starnberg senior citizens' meeting
© private
And yet the 71-year-old swears that is exactly what happened. “I'm neither a quirky old woman nor do I have dementia,” she says. The callers were clever and presumably trained professionally. And through her work in the senior citizens' meeting, she knows how trusting older people often are. Corona has reinforced this. She is sure that many would have fallen for it. The caller cleverly set up the conversation and asked questions in such a way that she, too, believed in the authenticity of the call.
When she reported the incident to Helmut Kilian, he too was shocked. “I was very surprised that something like this is even possible,” says the head of the senior citizens' meeting in view of the use of the emergency number. In the next newsletter he wants to point out the scam. "We have had the police with us several times, who give presentations to point out frauds." In any case, he wants to bring this advice to mind.
The 71-year-old filed a complaint. "A day on which there were several cases with wrong officers," says Kai Motschmann. “The scam occurs frequently.” Even with fake emergency numbers on the display. He advises paying attention to a dial tone when calling back. His colleague from the police headquarters also points out that real officers did not present themselves with service numbers. “I do have an ID number, but I've never looked at it, especially not passed it on,” says Andreas Aichele. "That is not common."
In retrospect, the woman from Starnberg was suspicious of the fact that she had been called by two numbers for months.
When she was called back, she was told that these numbers had not been assigned.
“Can I still trust my own phone line?” She asks.
Is one related to the other?
The technology plays into the hands of fraudsters and particularly unsettles the elderly.
The Starnberg woman, actually "known as a sore thumb", would prefer not to be named by name.
