Munich (dpa / lby) - In Munich, a pensioner fell for a telephone scammer and lost more than 400,000 euros. As the police announced on Friday, the over 70-year-old woman had received a so-called shock call from a man posing as a police officer the day before. The woman's son caused a serious traffic accident, should be in custody and need a lot of money for the bail, the scammer lied to the woman.
The elderly woman then actually handed over cash and gold worth more than 200,000 euros to an unknown collector. Shortly thereafter, the scammers robbed the wealthy woman even more. This time, the crooks called the woman and claimed that the alleged accident victim had died and that the bail was higher. The pensioner then went to her safe deposit box and handed over more than 200,000 euros to the same accomplice as before. After the woman then contacted her son, the fraud was exposed.
A police spokesman said that the scam involving the accident caused by a relative is currently being used frequently by telephone scammers. "Unfortunately, this is very, very popular at the moment," he said. The calls came from the criminals' organized call centers. Also on Thursday, an elderly woman from the district of Starnberg fell for the lie. She handed over tens of thousands of euros to the scammers.
