The fraudsters want to present a credible facade in order to be able to cheat money – and one way that has become increasingly common is for them to pretend to work for a real company or authority. During the first quarter of this year, the Financial Supervisory Authority has seen several such examples.
– We have noticed a large increase, now we receive questions almost every day about fraudsters who refer to a well-known company or an authority, says Mikael Sandahl, financial inspector at the Financial Supervisory Authority, FI.
Why do you think they do that?
– After all, it is a way for fraudsters to try to create trust and in this way get further in a conversation so that the person they are talking to does not just hang up immediately.
Warns of the “Financial Inspectorate”
The Financial Supervisory Authority shows several examples of when fraudsters pretended to be from the Financial Supervisory Authority.
Often it is people who have already been victims of fraud before who are contacted again, now with false offers to recover their lost money.
– Those who receive these calls or emails from scammers have sometimes already lost a lot of money and may be desperate for help. They are persuaded to believe that this is the rescue and then agree to pay a fee in advance, says Mikael Sandahl.
Three approaches
The Financial Supervisory Authority explains that fraudsters often proceed in one of the following three ways:
* They offer help in recovering money from scams if the consumer first pays a fee.
* The consumer is directly asked to identify himself with the help of bank ID so that the fraudsters can access their bank accounts.
* It also happens that fraudsters claim that a fee must be paid for other reasons in connection with various fictitious payments or transfers.
