"Mom, serious car accident": Wolfratshausen couple victims of shock call

2023-01-12T16:26:29.524Z

"Mom, serious car accident": Wolfratshausen couple victims of shock call Created: 01/12/2023, 17:15 By: Carl Christian Eick A large number of so-called shock calls have been reported to the police in southern Upper Bavaria in the past few days. A married couple in Wolfratshausen is also one of the victims. © Symbolic photo/Markus Scholz/DPA A Wolfratshausen couple fell victim to a shock phone

"Mom, serious car accident": Wolfratshausen couple victims of shock call

Created: 01/12/2023, 17:15

By: Carl Christian Eick

A large number of so-called shock calls have been reported to the police in southern Upper Bavaria in the past few days.

A married couple in Wolfratshausen is also one of the victims.

A Wolfratshausen couple fell victim to a shock phone call – and did everything right.

Wolfratshausen – Around 11.45 a.m. on Wednesday the phone rang at the Maier couple (name changed) in Wolfratshausen.

The phone number was suppressed, at the other end of the line a young woman sobbed: "Mom, serious car accident, Mom!" Maiers panicked, but then stopped short and called the Wolfratshausen police station.

It quickly turned out that it was a so-called shock call.

"Mom, serious car accident": Wolfratshausen couple victims of shock call

The perfidious scam of the scammers: They tell the caller the lie that a relative caused a traffic accident - and has to go to prison.

Unless the people called post a bail.

The cash that the crooks are hoping for will be picked up by a local police officer.

The Maier couple did everything right: Despite the stressful situation that the call caused ("we panicked, we got ready to leave"), the father of the family asked the local police "whether there was a serious accident on the A95".

Because father and mother thought their adult daughter was in Munich at the time of the shock call.

The police were able to reassure the couple, especially since there had been a large number of such attempts at fraud in southern Upper Bavaria in the past few days.

The police gave the Wolfratshausen couple little hope

"The police gave us little hope of finding out," the couple reported to our newspaper.

Mr. Maier, on the other hand, considers it easily possible to subsequently identify the caller with the help of the telephone service provider ("keyword data retention") - even if the number was suppressed.

"Another place where data protection thwarts criminal prosecution in Germany and these perverted perpetrators can continue in peace," says Wolfratshauser indignantly.

At the beginning of this week, the police were able to record at least a partial success in the course of the investigation into shock callers: a suspected money collector, a 26-year-old Pole, was arrested red-handed.

The man is in custody, according to Stefan Sonntag, press spokesman for the Oberbayern Süd police headquarters in Rosenheim.

Con artists come across retired detectives of all people

"Hello, this is the police.

Your daughter is sitting next to me.

She caused a serious traffic accident in which a child died.

She now has to go to jail for this, unless she can immediately pay a bail of 50,000 euros”: According to Sunday, many people in southern Upper Bavaria have received such calls in the past few days.

Bad luck for the scammers: one of their victims in the Freilassing area was a retired detective.

He immediately turned on his ex-colleagues, who set a trap for the money collector.

The 26-year-old was arrested on Tuesday, and the investigating judge issued a pre-trial arrest warrant on Wednesday.

Police: "Don't let yourself be pressured"

The police warn again emphatically against shock calls: “Do not let yourself be put under pressure, not even by allegedly urgent investigations or an urgent bail payment.” And: “Hang up – and then dial the emergency number 110.” (cce )