The scammers pose as employees of various companies and claim that gift card codes are incorrect.
Six cases have been reported to the Schleswig criminal police in the last few weeks. Calls to kiosks, gas stations or postal agencies were aimed at fraudulently obtaining large amounts of cash and claiming that gift card codes were incorrect.
The scam is handled in different ways: The fraudsters report with a suppressed or manipulated phone number and pose as an employee of the headquarters (gas station), an employee of the lottery company, a lawyer or a notary. It is suggested to the person being called that technical checks on payment devices are necessary or that voucher codes are incorrect.
A current case
In one case, an employee at a gas station was so professionally deceived by the fraudster on the other end of the line that a total loss of 3,000 euros was caused. The unsuspecting man received a phone call from what was supposed to be a head office employee. He said that gift cards from an “app store” (internet trading platform) had to be blocked.
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To do this, the employee was instructed to first swipe various cards over the cash register and then tell the alleged work colleague the scratched-off card code. This meant that the fraudster was able to access the funds immediately online. Although this scam is not unknown, the fraudsters still manage to “lull” their victims on the phone using professional conversation and thus deceive them.
You might also be interested in: Warning: online banking scams
Source: Flensburg Police
Article image: Shutterstock / By Tero Vesalainen
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