She describes herself as suspicious, and yet a woman in the canton of Zurich allowed herself to be directed to the ATM by a telephone scammer. How can that be?
The pleasant voice that Barbara Meier heard on the other end of the phone is typical, says the expert.
An elderly woman sits in her own apartment and sweats. Despite the normal room temperature, she has put on a winter jacket. The man on the phone, “Mr. Berger,” assured her that she would be picked up in the patrol car – the same Mr. Berger who previously directed her to an ATM. It’s January 2022, the scene of the crime is a Zurich agglomeration. The woman we want to call Barbara Meier here has a bad feeling.
After 20 minutes the phone rings: you can take your jacket off again. The visit to the police station was done. The conversation ends with the man on the phone laughing. “It was a dirty laugh all of a sudden,” remembers Barbara Meier. Completely different than before. The voice of the man, who spoke polished High German, sounded soft and pleasant. At that moment, Barbara Meier suspected that something was wrong, that the alleged Mr. Berger had kept her waiting to buy time.
“What? You who are always so suspicious?” her niece will ask later. She herself says: “I was obviously a naive chicken.”
And she asks herself: How could this happen to her?
The amount of the crime increases sharply
Barbara Meier was the victim of telephone fraud, as one of 28 people in the canton of Zurich alone since the beginning of the year. Over 1000 unsuccessful attempts have been reported to the police. The criminals stole more than 2 million francs in this way. This is usually the annual amount of crime. This indicates a clear increase.
Barbara Meier has agreed to give us information in the presence of a police officer. Two months after the incident, in a cantonal police meeting room, she tells us about that winter day when the landline phone rang. She no longer remembers what was on the phone display. But the perpetrators can manipulate this ad: People then read “117” or “Hinwil cantonal police”.
Barbara Meier is 79 years old and single. Before retiring, she worked for a public administration. She likes to go out in the evening, to the opera or to a concert.
The man seemed to know all this. She says: “They must have been watching me for a long time. But I do not know how.” The policewoman sitting at the table shakes her head: perpetrators of this type chose their victims at short notice.
Barbara Meier’s first name was probably fatal, says Rolf Decker. He’s a canton policeman – a real one – and with the Prevention department also for phone fraud responsible. According to Decker, the victims are selected according to a very simple trick: the perpetrators look for first names that suggest that the bearers are older: Irene, Regula, Helga, Elisabeth, Edeltraut, Adelheid – or Barbara. Women are more likely to be victims than men. There is no scientific explanation for this, says Decker. A possible connection: There are more classic “old” women’s names.
The pleasant voice that Barbara Meier heard on the other end is also typical, says Decker. “They are people with psychological sensitivity.” It fits into the picture that Meier was impressed by the information that the other person apparently possessed. It is the core business of criminals to create this impression on the phone. The perpetrator hints at something and lets the victim tell the story. The victim asks counter-questions and thus reveals information about himself. The risk for the perpetrator is low: if he gives himself away, he simply tries the next name on a long list.
Phone scammers succeed when they catch their victims at the right moment, says Decker. This could be the time after a personal low blow like a divorce. Or it is possible to find a trigger point in the victim: it is suggested, for example, that one’s own child is in an emergency. When a police officer calls, many ask themselves, “Have I done something wrong?”
Barbara Meier has had health problems for years. At the beginning of the year, however, she had the feeling things were looking up. In her case, it was supposed coincidences that made her susceptible to fraud. Just before the call, she was standing on the balcony and heard a police siren. “Something happened again,” she thought to herself as she closed the balcony door. In addition, she had discovered a defect in her car light a few days earlier, but had not yet rectified it. “Now they’ve got me,” was Meier’s thought when a caller introduced himself as a canton police officer.
The man replied indulgently that it was not about her car light, but about a gang of burglars. Three burglars were caught, two are still at large. A notebook was found with the thieves in which their address was listed. She is in danger. Valuables and cash should be kept safe. With this story, the man persuaded Barbara Meier to drive to the town center and withdraw 10,000 francs from the ATM. The money is “insured” by the police, and nothing can happen.
Why should money be safer in the hands of the police than in the bank? In retrospect, Barbara Meier cannot explain why she let herself be convinced. The explanation is likely to be found in the manipulation by the perpetrator with the fleeing thieves as a threat.
Typical of the perpetrator’s actions is that “Mr. Berger” insisted that Barbara Meier always stay on the cell phone and that she avoids contact with third parties. In the stairwell she met a neighbor – the voice on the phone seemed irritated. When she was back home, the man announced a police officer who would pick up the money at the door and take it to the police station.
Shortly thereafter, a young man rang the bell. He was dressed in civilian clothes and spoke Zurich German. She asked him for ID, as she always does in such situations, says Barbara Meier. The man at the other end of the line reacted immediately: “For security reasons,” the officer had no papers with him. The man had looked around in Barbara Meier’s apartment and photographed valuables, but the perpetrators were apparently not interested in them. Otherwise the amount of damage would have been higher. Luckily, the ATM limit is 10,000 francs, says Meier.
The perpetrators are in Turkey
The money is gone, the insurance usually pays nothing. It is practically hopeless to get hold of the culprit – but the little fish are caught every now and then. This was recently demonstrated before the Zurich High Court, where the case of a Turk living in Switzerland was heard. The public prosecutor spoke of “unknown accomplices operating out of Turkey” who had verbally worn down the victim. The perpetrator who was supposed to collect the money was caught. He was sentenced to 28 months in prison, including 10 months unconditionally, for multiple frauds.
According to Rolf Decker, the perpetrators act almost exclusively from southern Turkey. It is difficult to get hold of them. There is international cooperation by means of requests for legal assistance via the respective public prosecutor’s office. But the best way is prevention.
Rolf Decker speaks in retirement homes, works with Pro Senectute or with local Spitex organizations. The easiest way is to hang up the phone, but that’s often difficult for the older generation, says Decker. His most important tip: ask questions – for the surname, first name, employee number and the police station from which the caller is reporting. Hang up on a pretext and call back the specified police station – but from another phone, for example the neighbor’s. Otherwise it could happen that you end up back with the perpetrators. Valuables should never be given to strangers.
After Barbara Meier had reported the incident to the right police, she immediately closed all the windows and locked the door. “I was totally confused,” she says. She had lost interest in the planned visit to the Tonhalle. For weeks she would get a bad feeling if someone walked behind her on the street. She says: “I doubted myself.”
She asked her family doctor, who also works with hypnosis, if one could be hypnotized over the telephone line. He denied this. To this day, Barbara Meier cannot understand why she went through all this. “Actually, I’m ashamed to have been duped like that.”
She might be too harsh on herself. If the perpetrator catches the right moment, almost everyone is likely to be at risk. If the first contact is successful and the person on the phone seems believable, it is difficult to drop out of the conversation.
Ironically, those who show respect to a police officer on the phone become victims. From the point of view of the police, the cases must have a particularly bitter note.