What to do?

Phone scammers are in high season again

Symbolic image

(Bild: APA/dpa/Jan-Philipp Strobel)

Attempts are being made to rip off people via text messages and WhatsApp. Thousands of messages are sent every day and people are still being conned out of their money. But what should you do when you receive a message like this?

"Hi mom, this is my number. My cell phone broke down, would you write to me on WhatsApp at this number?" Many people across the country are currently receiving this message. So did a "Krone" reader, who immediately dialed the police emergency number 133. However, the Linz resident was told to go to a police station and file a report. "That's more than inefficient in terms of clearing things up quickly," he now says.

Don't call the emergency services
The "Krone" asked Gerald Sakoparnig, a fraud expert at the LKA. "That makes sense. Because it's not an emergency. The reason is that we can't trace the numbers anyway because they are generated on the Internet," he says. In addition, there would be hundreds, if not thousands of such messages every day. If everyone then called the emergency services, it would exceed the police's capacity.

The best thing to do is to ignore these messages and make an issue of it among friends and relatives so that nobody reacts.

Gerald Sakoparnig, Leiter der Abteilung Betrug LKA Oberösterreich

But he doesn't even think it makes much sense to report it. "There would be long queues outside the police station," he suspects. His tip: "It's best to ignore these messages and make it a topic of conversation among friends and relatives so that nobody reacts."

Peak season before Christmas
Fraudsters are currently in high season again. In the run-up to Christmas, fraudsters are targeting messages from supposed delivery services that allegedly have no address. Here, too, the rule is: ignore and delete. Because even if the fraudsters only scam small sums, it doesn't have to be this way.