Editor in chief at IamExpat Media
A trickster got more than he bargained for when he attempted to con a 95-year-old woman in Hamburg out of thousands of euros. Recognising that she was being scammed, the wily pensioner turned the tables and managed to lure the fraudster into a trap.
The saga began when the pensioner received a phone call from a woman pretending to be a friend, who told her that she was in hospital and urgently needed 30.000 euros for a ventilator. Luckily, the elderly woman immediately recognised the call as a fraud attempt and played along. She told the woman she would fetch 20.000 euros from the bank.
Unbeknownst to the caller, however, she asked her caretaker to alert the police while she was still on the telephone. When the officers arrived, they listened in on the phone call and guided her. The scammer asked for even more money, and she promised another 11.000 euros.
After that call ended, the woman then received a barrage of further calls from a number of different fraudsters. First, a man who said he was a police officer and that he had received an alert from her bank about a major cash withdrawal. Next, an alleged bank employee phoned, to ask the woman to confirm that she had made the transfer. Then, the original caller got back on the phone, to say a hospital employee would come to her home to collect the money, which she was supposed to hand over in an envelope.
A little while later, a man got out of a taxi and began to walk towards the woman’s home. Special investigators were on standby. They watched as she handed an envelope to the man, and then swooped in to arrest him. Further investigations are ongoing.
The scam prompted police in Hamburg to issue a warning regarding telephone fraud: “Unfortunately, cases like this keep happening. The perpetrators have been trained and are extremely skilful. Again and again, there are massive, sometimes existential damages.”
After the man’s arrest, they released another statement, warning the public to “be suspicious of people pretending to be relatives or acquaintances on the phone… Do not allow yourself to be pressured even in the event of an alleged emergency… Hang up at the slightest doubt!”