Pensioner twice victim of scammers
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A 74-year-old woman from Flachgau fell victim to cyber and telephone fraudsters twice this week: the woman was cheated on two consecutive days and lost 10,000 euros.
According to the police, the 74-year-old received a WhatsApp message with a scam on Thursday afternoon: her alleged son wrote to her that he had lost his cell phone and therefore needed money. Therefore, the woman transferred more than 6,000 euros to a foreign account for this “son” in two installments.
When the 74-year-old had contact with her real son in the evening, she noticed the fraud and reported it to the police. The officials also advised her to contact her bank in person the next day and not to give out any information over the phone.
Alleged bank employee lured out money
But on Friday morning, the 74-year-old received a fraudulent call – this time allegedly from her bank. An unknown woman tells her that she has been the victim of a scam. In order to prevent further damage, she should close her accounts, the alleged bank employee advised her. They called the 74-year-old a pseudo account abroad. The woman from Flachgau transferred the remaining money there. This caused her a total of 10,000 euros in damage.
On Friday afternoon, a married couple in Salzburg also fell victim to telephone scammers – more on that in Fraudsters lured the couple out of their bank details (salzburg.ORF.at; December 31, 2022).