“Hi Mom, I broke my cell phone”: This is the message scammers are currently using to send SMS or WhatsApp to potential victims. The federal criminal investigation department reported on Saturday that the number of reports of such cases had recently risen by 350 percent. The damage is enormous.
The scammers use a number unknown to the victim to send messages to thousands of recipient numbers. In this, they pose as the victim’s daughter or son and claim to be writing from a friend’s cell phone (hence the unknown number). Then four-digit amounts are required for urgent payments, which must be transferred to an account.
Massive increase in cases, high number of unreported cases
Despite intense warnings from several police authorities in Austria, the daughter-son scam is still on the rise, the federal criminal investigation department warned. Between October and December, the number of incidents reported to the police nationwide rose to approximately 880 reports per month (provisional, not statistically corrected number). The dark field can be classified as much higher.
“About 50 percent of these incidents were documented as completed fraud offenses involving financial loss. This phenomenon probably caused more than 600,000 euros in damage in October alone, with a strong upward trend,” according to a BK broadcast. In the current situational picture of the Federal Criminal Investigation Department, this mode is now almost on a par with order fraud, which is usually by far the highest number of attacks.
Tips from detectives
There was another call from the crime prevention side to warn about this scam. The BK emphasized that parents and grandparents in particular should inform the younger generations about this scam. If a family member unexpectedly contacts you on a new or unknown phone number, “immediately call the affected family member back on the number that is already known and take care of it,” the police advise. Never respond to contacts without checking or asking.
Source: Krone
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