– It’s rotten, says the 78-year-old lady about the way she was defrauded last week. She was called by a woman with a Rogaland dialect, who said she was from the police in Oslo. The woman first asked if the 78-year-old knew someone called “Mohad Sah”. – I said no, and was told that he had defrauded several people, including me for NOK 40,000. I couldn’t understand it and said it was luck that I had picked up the phone, because I normally don’t pick up if it’s an unknown number. “We’ll be able to sort this out,” said the “police lady”. The telephone conversation between the 78-year-old and the “policewoman” lasted eight hours. During this time, the accounts of the 78-year-old were emptied of over NOK 700,000. – They took everything. It’s embarrassing, says the lady, who wishes to remain anonymous. She still wants to tell so that others can be warned. She has also told her story to Agderposten. – Was very nice The 78-year-old says that she was told to stay on the phone while the “police” worked, and not to answer if she was called or received messages from others, because it could be the fraudsters. – It rang twice, and both times she said “you mustn’t take it!”. I was told to leave it on the table with the speaker on, but I could read and knit and do needlework. The “politician” also said that she had been an outside police officer for 26 years, but now worked inside with investigations. And she said that she used to holiday in Mandal and was familiar with the area the 78-year-old lives in. – She was very nice. Then she could say “now the technician is calling, I’ll be back in a moment”. Then it could be quiet for a while, before she asked “are you still there. Yes, you are patient”. That’s how she kept at it. The woman from Arendal sat on the phone with what she thought was the police for several hours. At the same time, her accounts were emptied. Photo: Miriam Grov / news – I entered a kind of bubble The 78-year-old was eventually told to give up the password for the online bank and the one-time code for the online bank chip. – “Yes, now we are almost ready. But we need another code …”, says the 78-year-old, who not once during the afternoon thought she had been tricked. In total, she gave up the code ten times. – It’s so embarrassing, because I know we shouldn’t give up the code. I keep getting messages from the bank about it, but she was from the police and wanted to help. I came in a kind of bubble. – Massive increase in fraudsters. Head of Department for Financial Cyber Crime (FC3) in DNB, Sebastian Claydon Takle, tells of a massive increase in fraudsters. – Several criminal actors in both Norway and abroad have noticed that this is a lucrative way to raise money, with relatively low risk. He says phishing has been particularly widely used since 2021 and that this method has since increased by 550 percent. Fraud expert at Nordea, Ida Marie Holm, says they have a doubling in fraud cases from 2020 to 2022. Phishing dominates. She says that fraudsters use SMS, e-mail, telephone and social media. They play on fear, trust and haste. – They pretend to be from your bank, a well-known company, the police or to be a friend and make up stories to obtain BankID or card information. Phishing Phishing is a form of social manipulation where an attacker attempts to trick someone into performing an action. Manipulation attempts can, for example, take place by opening an e-mail attachment, clicking on a link in an SMS or paying a fake bill. The attacker often appears as a real business. These can be public agencies, financial institutions or shops. Attempts at manipulation can be linked to fear, trust, temptation, time pressure as well as fixed or emerging events such as Christmas, time for tax payments, pandemic, outbreak of war etc. Via links, the attacker can request usernames, codes and passwords, and further use these for example to steal confidential information. Read more about phishing and how to protect yourself from it at nettvett.no. Sparebank 1 has had 176 fraud cases from February last year to February this year and there is a clear preponderance of elderly people who are defrauded. 73 of the cases concern so-called vishing fraud, where the bank is abused. – They pretend to be our advisers or from our security department, says head of Anti-fraud Anna Rønning. Sparebank 1 also has 70 registered cases similar to the one experienced by the woman from Arendal, where fraudsters pretend to be the police, the tax authorities or the like. Do not share BankID The 78-year-old is a customer of Sparebanken Sør, where Åsmund Myklevoll is responsible for digital security. He says they experience that at least one customer a week is defrauded. And they have had higher sums than what the 78-year-old was defrauded for. Myklevoll emphasizes that the BankID is personal, and that no one other than the user should have access to these codes. – There are no legitimate reasons why the police, your bank, the Swedish Tax Agency, the bailiff or anyone else would ask for the BankID codes. Asking someone for the codes is a scam, he says. Åsmund Myklevoll is responsible for digital security at Sparebanken Sør tells about highly manipulative fraudsters. Photo: Morten Krogstad / Morten Krogstad The money back The 78-year-old was told by the “policewoman” to switch off the phone and not switch it on again until the following day. Then the bank called and said she had been defrauded. – The bank had tried to call me due to unusual activity the day before, but I was not allowed to pick up the phone. She has been informed by the bank that she will have the loss covered. Now she is asking people to be aware. – It may seem strange to those who have not experienced it, but the woman was so nice. In retrospect, I don’t understand how I could be so deceived. I don’t understand it!, says the 78-year-old. The 78-year-old’s daughter Irene Pedersen says her mother is not normally fooled. She believes she was manipulated and mentally gagged. – Those who say they don’t understand why she did what she did, are unable to understand what it must be like to sit alone at home and get the message “now you will be robbed of everything you have, but we will help you”. And it’s a policewoman calling.
ttn-69
78-year-old scammed NOK 700,000 on the phone – the scope is increasing – news Sørlandet – Local news, TV and radio
