The Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office warns of a scam in which cyber gangsters rob sellers on kleinanzeigen.de of their money. To do this, fraudsters trick their victims into unknowingly transferring money to them.
This is how the scam works: It starts in the classifieds chat…
The perpetrators contact the sellers in the classifieds chat as interested buyers. The seller and the alleged buyer come to an agreement and the alleged buyer then explains that he transferred the purchase amount via classified ads. The alleged seller claims that Classifieds Support will contact the seller soon. The alleged buyer had previously requested the seller’s email address
… and continues via email…
This contact will then be made promptly, by email. Just not through the support of classified ads, but through the crooks who pose as support. The emails try to appear genuine using logos and graphics from Kleinanzeigen.de. The fatal thing: There is a link in the email that the seller should click on to confirm the transaction and thus get the purchase amount.
… and then continue in a chat outside of classifieds
The link leads to an alleged support chat from Kleinanzeigende.de. The fraudsters have set up such a chat for their scams on a website that offers all kinds of chats. In the alleged classifieds support chat, an alleged employee of the classifieds portal contacts the seller and asks them to enter their bank details on a website and confirm them with TANs from the banking app. However, this site is fake and belongs to the scammers.
The scammers then claim that there are problems with the account or bank card. The alleged support employee asks the victim several times to repeatedly enter a new TAN. It may even happen that the supposed support representative asks you to switch to another bank card because the first card was blocked.
The police explain: “Every time you enter the account details and an associated TAN, a transfer is triggered. The money is then transferred to an account that the perpetrators claim”.
At some point the supposed support employee stops the chat, saying that the money was blocked by mistake. He would now issue a refund and the money should be returned within a day. This ends the communication and the money is gone.
Fraudsters misuse other people’s accounts
The account to which the victim transfers his money does not belong to the fraudsters. Instead, they use other people’s bank accounts for their fraud, which they have organized specifically for this purpose from mostly unsuspecting other victims. Here we explain how the gangsters get into other people’s accounts:
Police warn: This is how gangsters hijack their victims’ accounts and this is how you protect yourself
This is how you react correctly as a victim
If you have already fallen for the scam described above, contact your bank immediately so that they can stop the payments. And report it to the police; This is also possible online via the police online watches. Take screenshots of the chats.
Here’s how to spot the scam and avoid it
The police advise: “No customer support will ask you to enter account details and then confirm them using a TAN/PIN/password. A confirmation using a TAN triggers a transfer (or comparable action). However, a TAN is not required to confirm an account as a recipient account. Payment options in sales/purchase portals such as classified ads should be set up in advance via the providers’ original websites. A request to set up such account details when buying/selling directly should be avoided. If you are asked to do so in the chat or by email after a purchase/sale, please cancel the action. For serious purchases/sales, use alternatives you have already set up”.
