Like many Belgians, Guillaume* recently received an SMS scam. Unfortunately, this professor in the Verviers region did not pay attention to the warning signs and saw the trap closing in on him. As he tells RTL, the young man clicked on the link contained in a message which promised him a refund of several hundred euros. “I’m a physical education teacher, I don’t always have a job so I know that with CAPAC, there are sometimes late payments,” he told our colleagues.
On April 14, Guillaume therefore arrives on a form in which he provides his card number. The beginning of Calvary. With this simple data, the crooks managed to extract nearly 14,500 euros from him, in particular by managing to access his savings account. To obtain this money, the thugs carried out various operations, in particular in stores in Antwerp. “Purchases of 500 euros, 2000 euros and in all, there were 6,500 euros”.
The next day, while shopping, the 27-year-old noticed that his cards had been blocked (his bank had already refused several transactions, such as the transfer of 8,000 euros to another account, an amount that he should recover but which is still blocked by the bank) and that he no longer has access to his banking application. “I rang my bank which said to me: ‘You have been robbed’”, he confides.
A terrible event in the life of Guillaume who was just looking to buy a house. “I was in tears, we had to go visit a house… We canceled. »
Today, the young man wants to testify to prevent other people from finding themselves in the same situation as him.
*Assumed first name
What to do if you receive a suspicious SMS?
Several advices are to be engraved in memory in such circumstances.
– Never click on a link whose source you do not know. Also, analyze the URL to see if it’s an address you know.
– If you clicked, change the passwords of your accounts and also pass an antivirus shot
– To avoid being disturbed, block the SMS number. To do this, if you are on iPhone, click on the number, then info and once more “info” then “block this correspondent”. On Android, go to the chat settings (represented by three small dots) and press “block contact”.
– If you clicked, notify your bank and if you sent your card data, call CARD STOP directly on 070/170.170.
