Thousands of euros gone

Message from “son” was a nasty scam

Several Burgenland residents received messages from their supposed children via WhatsApp. Some followed the request. Several thousand euros are now gone.

(Bild: Christian Schulter)

Once again, family fathers from Burgenland fell into the trap of clever fraudsters. Once again, the perpetrators lured a lot of money out of the victims' pockets with the "father-son trick". Despite warnings, more and more cases are being reported.

Just a few days ago, as reported, there was a series of attempted scams. The criminals used WhatsApp messages to trick unsuspecting fathers into believing that their son had a new cell phone number. A short time later, the victims received a request to deposit urgently needed money in a bank account for the supposed child using an express bank transfer.

2200 euros gone
In the case of one father from the Oberpullendorf district, 2,200 euros were transferred. "When the trick was discovered, the express transfer could no longer be reversed by the bank," explained an investigator.

The victims received messages like this.

(Bild: Christian Schulter)

Identity never in doubt
The fraudsters used the same scam to cash in on other families in Burgenland. In a chat with his "son", a father, also from the district of Oberpullendorf, was urged to transfer 2,400 euros by express bank transfer to an account because of a feigned emergency. The man never doubted the identity of the person he was talking to and complied with the fake son's request. It was only when the unknown perpetrator demanded more transfers that the father of the family became suspicious and alerted the police.

Do not transfer money hastily
Several attempts at fraud failed. "I immediately deleted the fake message about a supposedly new cell phone number. My son was standing next to me when they sent me the scammers," says a man from the Jennersdorf district: "If I had any doubts, I would have called my son before rushing to transfer money!"