The criminal pretends to be a housing company and claims that the account number used to pay the rent or consideration has changed.
The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom has received reports of scam messages in which the victim is enticed to pay rent or consideration to a new account.
In the text messages, the criminals pose as a housing company and claim that the account number used to pay the rent or consideration has changed. Messages should not be believed and should not be answered.
A similar scam campaign had been going on since the beginning of the year. Back then, the scam messages only talked about rents. It would seem that criminals have expanded their range of victims to owner-occupied homes as well.
– Payment changes to both the rent and the consideration should always be checked directly with the landlord or housing association, says Traficom’s Cybersecurity Center information security expert Samuli Könönen in the bulletin.
Könönen says that the text message scams are of a very general nature, so that as many people as possible could believe that they are about him.
If you have already managed to transfer money to the account number given in the message, contact your bank immediately and file a criminal report with the police.
A scammer can send such messages to your phone. Traficom