The 44-year-old resident of Legnica reported to the District Police Headquarters in Lubin after losing PLN 11,000 when she offered shoes for sale through the OLX platform. “The woman received a message from a person interested in buying them saying that the order had been placed and that a link to log in to the bank’s website had been sent to the victim’s email. After logging in to her account, the woman approved the transaction, enabling the criminal to carry out several money-withdrawal transactions amounting to approximately PLN 11,000,” reports junior constable Aleksandra Pieprzycka of the Provincial Police Headquarters in Wrocław.

She adds: “Several other residents of Lubin County also fell victim to this type of fraud, losing amounts of up to several thousand złotys. There were also several attempted scams in which people realized in time that they had fallen victim to a fraudster.”

Every scam reported to the police followed a similar pattern.

How do the criminals operate?

  1. People allegedly interested in buying the listed items contacted sellers on the aforementioned sales platform via a telephone messenger.
  2. During the correspondence, the criminals sent sellers a link supposedly enabling them to receive payment for the item sold.
  3. When someone clicked the link, they were redirected to a website deceptively similar to OLX, where the seller was asked to provide their payment card number, expiry date and, worst of all, the CVV number, which is one of the security measures preventing unauthorized transactions.
  4. The next step was a redirection to a fake bank website for additional verification. According to the instructions, the seller was asked to enter, among other things, their login and password, PESEL number, card PIN and their mother’s maiden name in order to obtain an access code and withdraw the funds.
  5. Using this data, the scammer logged in to the seller’s real bank website and added their own phone number to the account. (In this situation, the warning for the seller should be an SMS received from the bank informing them that a new phone number has been assigned to their account.)
  6. The victim often reacted too late for the bank to block the transactions carried out by the scammer. The criminals obtained information allowing them to control their victim’s funds and quickly carried out online transactions not only in Poland but also abroad.

More information about scammers’ methods can be found on the official OLX blog. It also contains examples of messages and fake websites that scammers use to try to obtain our savings.