Heirlooms, an iPhone, gold jewelry and thousands of euros: in one afternoon the parents of Toinny Lukken from Megen had lost it all due to fake bank employees. This form of telephone scams has grown exponentially and the criminals today even use hypnotic tricks to influence victims remotely.
Criminals are increasingly posing as helpdesk employees by telephone and mislead victims in such a way that they manage to steal bank details, debit cards and even jewelry and telephones from them. So you have to be careful on the phone, especially for people over 50 and foreign students, the police in East Brabant reported. By 2021, the number of bank help desk fraud cases will almost double.
“Especially the theft of the gold jewelry is a big deal.”
Toinny’s father and mother fell victim to a cunning scam. The criminals managed to gain their trust and they grossly abused it. They even saw the real number of the bank on their phone screen.
Toinny: “The theft of the gold jewelry is particularly important. The money stolen has now been reimbursed by the bank, but we hope that the perpetrators are caught and that we get the jewelry back. I hope that people who hear this story will think and be warned.”
“Offenders tell the victim that his bank account is no longer safe.”
Matthijs Jaspers of the cybercrime team of the East Brabant police about the fraud: “The scammers have detailed data on victims, such as account numbers and sometimes even the balance, for example because a webshop has been hacked.”
Jaspers explains: “They make the victim believe that their bank account is no longer safe. Victims are then asked to secure their entire bank balance themselves with one or more transfers in a safe-deposit box, but that is an account of the scammer. In other cases, someone from the bank will allegedly pick up the debit card from their home urgently and the pin code will be stolen, after which the money will be quickly debited.”
“I think it’s great how the criminals work.”
The police notice that criminals know a lot about their victims and partly because of this they are able to quickly gain trust. As a result, Toinny’s parents were on the phone for five hours and someone came to the door twice to steal the debit card, the iPhone and the jewelry.
According to the police and the victims, these often long telephone conversations are quite hypnotic. Osse hypnotherapist Esmée Karstanje is amazed at the criminals: “I hate to say it, but I think it’s great how the criminals work. People who write speeches for politicians sometimes use the same technique. This kind of conversational hypnosis is used to influence people without them realizing it, so my colleagues and I do not use this technique in our practices.”
“Hang up and then call your own bank.”
The police advise to disconnect when someone calls and pretends to be a bank employee. “Hang up and then call your own bank via a commonly known number and wait until you get someone on the line. Then you can check whether what has been said is correct. However, are you already so far in the conversation that someone comes by to to pick up your debit card, call 112 immediately and the police will come to grab such a criminal in the neck.”