Mandy (40) from Helmond was robbed of 28,000 euros on Wednesday. She received a call from someone posing as an employee of her bank Knab. He sent a link via WhatsApp and got her to pay. “You feel very stupid afterwards. I am always thoughtful and meticulous. I was really under the impression that I was talking to someone from the bank.”
Mandy works as an independent midwife. On Tuesday she received an email that appeared to come from the Chamber of Commerce (KvK), asking for her details. “The e-mail resembled the website of the Chamber of Commerce. I filled in my name and phone number, but then they asked for my bank details. I did not trust that, so I did not return the email, but closed it.”
The next day, Mandy got a call from someone who said he belonged to Knab. So that man must have known somehow that she was with Knab. “The man told me that suspicious actions were carried out through my bank account. Someone with an iPhone from Belgium tried to log in to my account, while I have a Samsung and live in the Netherlands. It sounded credible.”
“I felt wet somewhere.”
The man on the phone wanted to continue the conversation via WhatsApp for security reasons. The man chatted there under the name Support Knab. “I received a link via WhatsApp that I had to click on. It looked reliable, but I felt wet somewhere.”
Meanwhile, Mandy reached out to Knab to make sure she was really dealing with someone from her bank. To her great frustration, this did not work. “Every time I tried to call the bank, I was called by people posing as bank employees, which made it impossible to reach someone from Knab myself.”
Meanwhile, the man continued to talk to Mandy via WhatsApp. Finally, she decided to click the link. Three payments were scheduled for that same afternoon. These payments had to be blocked because otherwise they would be intercepted by fraudsters in Belgium.
“I had to block the payments. According to the man, this had to be done by clicking on the link and paying the amounts again. According to him, if you transfer the same amount twice at the same time, all payments would be blocked.”
“28,000 euros is an annual income for me, which I have worked hard for.”
A total of 28,000 euros was debited from her account in this way. Mandy was supposed to get the money back, but that didn’t happen. “Then I panicked.” Mandy called the police, but they told her to call her bank. When she finally got on the phone with a real employee of her bank, it was too late. The payments could not be reversed. “28,000 euros is an annual income for me, which I have worked hard for. I’m really angry,” says Mandy.
Mandy is still texted and called by all kinds of phone numbers. She doesn’t respond to that, because she doesn’t trust anyone anymore. “It feels like they are crawling into your body. Your privacy is compromised. I understand that the elderly are easy victims, but I did not think that with my knowledge as an entrepreneur I would also become a victim. I don’t wish this on anyone, so I think it’s important that everyone hears my story.”
The bank Knab finds it very annoying for Mandy. “These scammers are devious. We are going to look at Mandy’s case and we are going to find out if anything can be reimbursed, because we deeply regret this. The bank never calls with the message that your money is not safe or that strange transactions are waiting,” says Joke van Gompel of Knab.