New scam again

Graz woman (87) lost cash to fake police officers

(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

Fraudsters pretending to be police officers and defrauding older people in particular of a lot of money: This scam has been booming for several years. Now the Styrian police are warning of a new variant of the scam. An 87-year-old woman from Graz recently lost several thousand euros in cash.

On Friday of the previous week, the landline phone of an 87-year-old woman from Graz rang. The caller introduced himself as a bank employee and told the elderly woman that someone was trying to withdraw money from her account using a forged passport. This had been reported to the police. 

About an hour later, a supposed police officer actually called - even with the Graz area code 0316. The fraudster spoke to the woman in High German and Viennese dialect. Later, he called the woman's cell phone again and insisted that she not hang up. 

Fraudster did not let up for hours
The fraudster manipulated the 87-year-old woman and then "accompanied" her to a bank by phone and asked her to withdraw cash there. He made her believe that the cash had to be prepared by the police so that the perpetrator could be arrested if he tried to withdraw money with the fake passport again.

The woman went home again and waited there for the second supposed police officer to collect the money. During the whole time, she remained in telephone contact with the other fraudster. The woman handed over several thousand euros in cash to the "collector".

It was only when the 87-year-old told her son about it that he became suspicious and filed a complaint. 

According to the victim, the "pick-up man" is probably a foreigner, about 1.80 meters tall, with black or dark hair and a short full beard. He was wearing dark clothing and had a beige cap as well as round, dark sunglasses.