Warning from Bonn police New telephone scams

Bonn · Police are warning of a new wave of telephone scams in Bonn. A “healthy mistrust” of any unusual call is the best protection.

The phone rings and the number +22569880997 is displayed. Judith Olek takes the call on her mobile but does not notice it is from overseas. A woman is sobbing on the other end of the line. “She could not speak, she was crying so much,” reports Olek. She hung up and called the police.

The number is known to investigators and any call back costs money. Telephone scammers are always coming up with new schemes and most recently in Bonn they have posed as police or customs employees. Officials warn against them with information campaigns.

“We always register such telephone scams intermittently,” says Robert Schalten, spokesman for the Bonn police. There has been another wave since the beginning of the year. There were twelve incidents in February, of which two were successful, with the victims being defrauded of sums in the five figure range. Scholten also knows that such situations are “very embarrassing” for those affected and the number of unreported cases is therefore almost impossible to estimate.

The most common scam is where those called are told of a fictitious emergency and are put under pressure. “It could be a car accident involving a relative who urgently needs money,” says Scholten but the list of scams is long. Most recently, scammers have posed as police to gain trust. “Then the number 110 is on the display,” says Scholten. An easy rule: the police never use 110 to call anyone. Scholten advises anyone with the slightest suspicion to note down the phone number and to inform the police.

Customs officials are also fighting ID-spoofs and identity theft at the moment. Citizens are receiving phone calls demanding information relating to apparent legal proceedings. It is suspected the information given is intended to be used for cash payments. It is advised to immediately end such conversations. Another scam is a demand for storage charges for two trunks apparently being stored at Berlin-Brandenburg airport.

It is difficult for investigators to catch the perpetrators. Of 266 reported cases in Bonn last year, only eleven were solved. “In most cases we cannot trace the calls,” says Scholten. To be able to react, the Bonn police have centralised the processing of attempted scams. “We also cooperate closely with other officials in Germany. When something happens, we get to hear about it,” explains Scholten. New examples can be quickly identified and the public warned. But the best protection is a “healthy mistrust” as shown by Judith Olek.

(Original text: Nicolas Ottersbach. Translated by Kate Carey)

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