Berlin / Hanover For once, the perpetrators pretend to be employees of any authority and claim to have intercepted a suspicious package delivery, with which they allegedly have something to do, warns the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony.
On the other hand, the fraudsters play employees of the pension insurance and ask for remittance of allegedly too high pension payments.
If it gets too stupid, just hang up
Those affected should critically question every call from unknown people, not put themselves under pressure, be insecure or intimidated, even in the event of criminal or cost threats. It’s best to hang up right away, the police advises – and also gives the following tips:
- Never give information to unknown persons about private circumstances.
- Do not provide sensitive data such as ID and address data, customer data, passwords, bank and payment data.
- Never send photos of sensitive documents (such as ID, bank card, registration certificate) by e-mail or messenger.
- Do not confirm any data that is supposed to be compared or queried.
- Do not let clever questions elicit a “yes” or a spontaneous “correction” of data.
- Never forget: Phone numbers that are displayed on the display of the phone can be manipulated. So do not pin the credibility of a caller on the displayed number, even if it is allegedly or apparently the police.
- In case of doubt, call back the caller, the authority, the bank or the company – under a number that you already know for sure or that you have from a reliable, official source.
- Never install software or open web pages on a dubious call.
