PORDENONE – “Madam, I am the Russian Marshal of the Carabinieri. I have to give you some bad news: his daughter was in a terrible car accident. She is hospitalized.” Changing the name of the person who received the phone call, yesterday the scammers scoured the city and the province far and wide, trying to hit as many as possible. Many have not fallen for it, but it cannot be ruled out that some less careful and less prepared person may have fallen for that scam which is now circulating in all countries.
SGAMATI
The story of one of the potential victims gives a good idea of how these people work. In this specific case, in fact, whoever received the call knew full well that it couldn’t be the police to call her for her daughter who has lived abroad for many years, so she played along a bit. “Tell me, do you know how my daughter is?” «She is hospitalized – was the response of the scammer on the other end of the phone, she is here in Pordenone». At that point the man on the phone had been caught and so the next question made him angry. «But excuse me, do you even know what my daughter’s name is?». After a moment of silence, the fake Marshal Russo raised his voice: “Ma’am, don’t joke, your daughter had a terrible accident”, but evidently, having understood that things weren’t going the way you thought they should go. he threw the phone down.
FIXED NUMBER
Different ones calls that were made yesterday in Pordenone and its province, they reached both the home phone and the landline. In almost all cases the recipient was called by name, a sign that whoever was on the other end of the phone knew what the person’s name was, and also that he had a daughter. In addition to both landline and mobile numbers. Disturbing details that have also sent some people into crisis that after checking with her daughter to make sure she was okay, they focused on the call with the details known to the anonymous person. It must also be said that now many people on social media put their name, surname and even family composition, in addition to their number, particularly on the Facebook wall. It is not that complicated, therefore, to know someone’s name and even their number.
MANY CALLS
The police also confirmed that yesterday users residing in the city and province received several calls with attempted scams. In another case which was also reported by the interested party to the Gazzettino editorial team, the father of another girl was called on his cell phone. Same sentence, same formula, even the name of the Carabinieri Marshal was the same. In this case, the father knew very well that his daughter was fine and had not had any accident, but he had been “playing the game”. The scammer’s request was to be in front of the civil hospital where he would be there and he would explain the situation in detail. In reality, however, instead of showing up in front of the hospital he preferred to immediately call the police to inform them of what was happening. The soldier at the switchboard, once he learned that he wanted to report an attempted scam, told him: “I bet they warned you that your daughter had had a terrible accident and was hospitalized.” “Exactly, but how do you know?” “Since this morning,” the policeman replied, “your call is at least the tenth we have received for the same thing.” A clear sign, therefore, that there was a widespread attempt by scammers to make someone fall into the net.
THE MODE
The scam of a son or daughter seriously injured in an accident has been carried out in many municipalities. The increasingly frequent method is to stage incidents involving family members requesting money, providing the exact names of the relatives. But it’s not the only one put in place. Another method used by scammers is to pretend to be a bank operator and have an instant bank transfer made out to them under the pretext of blocking a fraudulent operation or diverting the money. Never give out account numbers, hang up the phone and call the police immediately.
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