On Tuesday (April 19th) a telephone fraudster tried to steal the account details of a 23-year-old from Paderborn. To do this, the fraudster posed in English as an Interpol employee and pretended to be working on a case related to the Paderborn man. After requesting the date of birth and place of residence, the fraudster announced another call from the “locally responsible federal police station”. In fact, just a few minutes later, the Paderborn resident's cell phone rang with a Paderborn area code on the display.
The caller spoke English again and stated that criminals were using the Paderborn native's identity to open bank accounts abroad and had already rented several houses in his name. When he was asked for his account details and account balances, the Paderborn resident correctly ended the conversation, ignored further calls and instead dialed the telephone number shown himself.
As it turned out, it was a connection to the Paderborn Federal Police Station. The real police officers confirmed the caller's suspicions that it was a scam using so-called “call ID spoofing”. A real telephone number, such as that of an authority, organization or bank, is shown on the display to the person being called. The aim is always to gain the trust of the person being called in order to then receive confidential data, cash or other valuables.
In this context, the Federal Police advise:
- If you receive such calls, hang up immediately
- Do not give out personal information under any circumstances
- Do not use the callback function, but instead write down the phone number and type it in yourself
- Never give money or valuables to unknown people
- If you are unsure: Call the police emergency number on 110
Source: Federal Police Directorate
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