On February 11, Bertha Smits received a call from a person who introduced himself as an employee of the KBC bank in Lier, where the octogenarian lives. “He said that the police had already been informed and that they were recording the conversation”, she explained to our colleagues from HLN.
The man then asks her if she transferred money to Poland; to which Bertha Smits replies no. A conversation then follows between the two interlocutors. “He mentioned all kinds of names of people I knew like my grandson and my tenant, along with the exact amount of the transaction made.”
Ironically, Bertha Smits had previously been trained in phishing and knew to be wary of such calls being made. Nevertheless, “as they mentioned the police of Lier and these names, I believed them”, explains the Belgian.
As the conversation progresses, the scammer tells the octogenarian that there is a problem with her bank account and that she must go to her branch. Impossible given Bertha’s health concerns. The man then offers to send a “colleague” to his home.
“I had to prepare my mobile phone, my laptop and my bank cards,” explains the old lady. “I had to enter a code on my computer and for the rest, I didn’t touch it. She had a card reader with her, where I had to insert my bank card and enter my PIN”.
The scammer then does the same with Bertha’s husband’s card and ends up cutting the two bank cards with a pair of scissors. Immediately, the scammer went to various stores in the province of Antwerp and carried out no less than 27 transactions. “In the meantime, the man gave me some additional advice. He called me from 1 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.,” Bertha explains. “They placed orders for an amount of €6,000 in an electrical store”.