The series of WhatsApp scams in Vorarlberg just won’t stop. A 64-year-old woman from Bludenzer almost got eaten by the criminals, but was lucky in the end.
The scam always follows the same script, which was no different in the case of the woman from Bludenzer: First, the unknown perpetrators contacted the woman via SMS and pretended to be her son. With the note that the old cell phone was broken, a new number was given and from then on communicated via WhatsApp. The alleged son then pretended to be in financial difficulties and asked the 64-year-old to pay two bills of around 2,000 euros each into a German account. Although the woman commissioned the transfers, she soon became suspicious and canceled the payments. This enabled her to avert financial damage at the last second. Others were less fortunate: the police have been reporting such cases of fraud almost every day for weeks, and in the days before Christmas alone there was damage of over 40,000 euros.
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