Alleged investors, philanthropists or entrepreneurs who promise you large amounts of money are criminals.

Alleged investors are criminals – the most important thing to start with:

  1. Users repeatedly receive promises of money from alleged investors, philanthropists or entrepreneurs.
  2. The criminals contact their victims via email or private message and claim a large inheritance, a lottery win or something similar.
  3. The offers then lead, among other things, to advance payment fraud or identity theft.

As our cooperation partner Watchlist Internet warns, mass emails about alleged winnings in the millions are being sent to arbitrary email addresses. To receive the money, all you have to do is submit a certain amount - supposedly to process the transfer - and copies of your ID. If you do this, you will not only lose your money, but also your identity!

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You supposedly won 3 million euros? Have you been offered a loan with extremely favorable conditions via email? Criminals hope for your response and try to use a pretext to get you to make a transfer and send copies of your ID. Such emails are fraudulent. It is a scam (also called advance fee fraud).

Winning notification via email

Criminals contact anyone via email or chat. They pose as administrators of a high inheritance, bank employees, lottery employees, credit institutions or similar. After briefly introducing themselves, they explain to you that you have supposedly won a large amount of money. For example, such an email looks like this:

Nice day for you,

My name is Warren Edward Buffett, you have won a donation of €3,100,000.00. I am an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist who serves as Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Because of my age, I do charity by giving back to the world.

So I donate €3,100,000.00 to you. Contact me for more information on how to receive your money via this email:

[email protected]

I also donate to charitable and human causes.

In this case, the name Warren Edward Buffett was misused. In fact, this is a very wealthy investor, but he doesn't randomly give away millions of dollars via email.

How does advance fee fraud work?

Criminals try to use a pretext to get personal data, copies of ID cards and money. The scam works like this:

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  1. You are promised a lot of money
  2. You will be asked to log back for further details
  3. If you do this, criminals will ask you to provide copies of your ID and very personal information (address, telephone number, signature, etc.). Apparently your identity needs to be verified.
  4. You will be asked to transfer a certain amount of money under some pretext. In return you will supposedly receive your winnings.

How to protect yourself from scamming

  • Be careful with unusual offers such as promises of prizes! Ask yourself if you have even entered a competition.
  • Don't answer!
  • Enter parts of the email with the word “scam” in your search engine. Most likely you will be warned and informed about the scam!
  • In general, be skeptical if a stranger contacts you online!
  • Don't send copies of your ID or money to people you don't know!
  • Don't let yourself be put under pressure!
  • Do not dial any telephone number listed! These are often premium value added numbers.

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I answered – What can I do?

  • Search your name regularly on the Internet.
  • Report this to the police. You cannot rule out that criminals will commit crimes in your name!
  • Break off contact immediately and ignore any further contact attempts!
  • Make sure that criminals can no longer reach you and block all contact channels.
  • report the scammer profile on social media.
  • Contact your bank and try to reverse any payments you have made.
  • Save evidence (email copies, chat logs, profile screenshots…).

Handle copies of ID cards carefully

Sending copies of ID cards over the Internet always represents a security risk and should be avoided. If there is no other option, you should always add a watermark to copies of your ID card that states the purpose of their use.

Advice & help:

For specific advice requests, please contact the relevant offices that we have listed for you Advice & Help www.watchlist-internet.at/beratung-hilfe

Related to the topic: Romance Scam: Beware of greedy Internet acquaintances!

Source: Watchlist Internet
Article image: golubovystock / Shutterstock.com
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )