Published
Scams in Luxembourg“Every week, I receive fraudulent emails or SMS”
LUXEMBOURG – Receiving messages asking to pay to pick up a package is very common. Sometimes people get scammed like this.
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- Marion Mellinger and Joseph Gaulier
Criminals are often very well organized to extract as much data as possible.
A person filed a complaint a few days ago following an email scam. “She had received an email from a parcel delivery service asking her to pay a small sum of money for the service, reports the police. As she was indeed expecting one, the person granted the request. But she later discovered that a three-figure sum had been debited from her account.
“It is very unlikely that the victims of this type of fraud will ever be able to recover their assets,” recognizes the Association of Banks and Bankers, Luxembourg (ABBL). She evokes “very well organized criminals, most often located in third countries” and adopting “very inventive scenarios”. ING bank confirms that it is “difficult to recover the usurped funds, because these are no longer available”.
Complaint advised
José, a reader of “L’essentiel”, was cautious. An SMS supposedly from POST “arrived almost the same day as a parcel collection slip”. He did not take into account the SMS, considered “strange”. “Every week, I receive them by SMS or email. The best thing is not to answer,” says Aurélien. A spokesperson for the ABBL invites you to “never reveal Luxtrust identifiers or bank card data”, because banks never do this.
Spuerkeess advises its customers to favor its application and Luxtrust. Legal action is also recommended. The police invite victims to “file a complaint as soon as possible and keep the messages. If they have transmitted bank details, you must immediately notify the bank, or even the insurance company”. She is interested in sending “screenshots of fraudulent messages, because it allows you to have an overview of what is circulating and to alert the population”, concludes the police.
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