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Police warns of new telephone fraud scheme

police warns new telephone fraud scheme
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от БНТ
21:50, 18.01.2022
EN

Complaints about attempted telephone fraud under a new scheme are becoming more frequent: phone scammers presenting themselves as bank employees are trying to extract personal data from their victims and then drain the money from their bank accounts. The fraudulent scheme has been operating for several months.

So far, 12 signals for the new telephone fraud have been registered on the territory of Sofia. Only one of the fraud attempts was successful and money was drained from the account of the account holder. The scheme is completely different from the usual stories with which phone scammers deceived their victims. This time, they don't ask for money for medical treatment or injuries after road accidents, but data for online banking applications.

How do the scams happen?

The phone rings and the number is unknown. A kind voice introduces himself as a bank employee and assures that for security reasons the phone call is recorded. Then the fake bank official says there is a technical problem with the bank account. This is how the conversation with telephone fraudsters, who use the new scheme, most often begins.

"In order to solve the technical problem, the fake bank employees require the victims to give them usernames and passwords for their accounts in online banking applications, as well as bank card numbers. After obtaining this data, the fraudsters now have access to the user's personal funds and immediately dispose of with them, " says Yordan Peshev - head of sector in the Economic Police Department in Sofia.

Sofia Directorate of the Ministry of Interior advises that if you receive such a call, you should first visit the nearest branch of your bank to make sure your money is safe. And then the police. They also remind that no technical problem can be solved by providing data to a stranger over the phone.

"Banking institutions have no practice of requiring the provision of any personal bank account details to their customers by telephone or e-mail," Peshev said.

Although phone fraudsters persist with increasingly crafty techniques, there are still some who attack with well-known schemes.

A 58-year-old man from Rousse received a strange call a few days ago. He refused to be duped.

"The phone rang late at night, a person called me and asked for a certain amount of money because my daughter allegedly had a car accident, hit a man and they need money for his operation. They asked for BGN 10,000, but I quickly realised I was being scammed and hung up, " he explained.

In Varna region, attempts at telephone fraud are significantly reduced. Only four crimes of this type were registered last year.

"in the latest telephone scam, together with colleagues from the Veliko Turnovo General Directorate, we managed to detain the “ mule” with the entire amount taken from an elderly man in Gorna Oryahovitsa and recovered the man's money," said Zhivko Kostadinov, head of the Varna Criminal Police Department.

The police advise people in any case to alert the Ministry of Interior even about attempts to be deceived, as well as to give the investigators the phone number from which they received the call. Social media users have already posted numbers of attempts to defraud them.

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