Both frauds took place in Lubin. The perpetrator stole his acquaintance’s password to her social media account and then, using a messenger app, asked the victim to make two transfers of PLN 1,000 each via the BLIK application.
Another Lubin resident lost PLN 1,500 in the same way. After obtaining the application code, the criminals withdrew the money from an ATM.
How do the criminals operate?
Thieves steal a person’s identity, impersonate them and, taking advantage of trust, ask their friends to provide a BLIK code. They add that they are standing at the checkout and want to pay for their shopping, but their payment card happened to expire that day. Alternatively, they ask for a quick loan to make an online purchase, promising to return the money the next day.
Police officers:
Let us not be deceived by appearances. Read carefully the messages received on your phone during every transaction, as well as messages from friends. This form of contact may turn out to be an ordinary scam. We may lose our savings, because criminals are only waiting to withdraw our hard-earned money.
How can you avoid being robbed?
- Let us protect our access passwords and remember that the passwords we enter must not be decipherable by unauthorized persons. For security, let us change them every few months.
- Let us remember to log out of applications every time we finish using them.
- Let us not open emails from unknown senders, and most importantly, their attachments.
- Fraudsters often impersonate bank websites or popular auction and social media portals. Let us remember not to enter our login or password there if we have any doubts.
- Let us inform children about the harmful consequences of using the internet.
- Let us monitor the websites viewed by the youngest users.
- Let us block websites that, in our opinion, children should not view.
- Let us update the operating system and the software we use.