Police Officer Nearly Fell Victim to a BLIK Scam

Below is a story published on the Dolnośląska Police website, in which a police officer describes how he himself nearly fell victim to a so-called “BLIK” scam:

Even police officers can be exploited by criminals, as I found out myself last weekend. It all began very innocently, with a message I received on Messenger from a good friend. The message was very short: “Do you perhaps have a BLIK payment :-)”. And that was only the beginning of the problems…

EDIT: I only noticed after finishing the text that I had probably gone on a bit… Nevertheless, I invite you to read the following fairly long text, which I believe is important.

I have written dozens of articles about how serious a threat scammers are when they exploit—let’s not deceive ourselves—other people’s naivety. Every day, I read police reports about residents of our region who, deceived by criminals’ smooth talk, transfer them several, a dozen, several dozen, and sometimes even several hundred thousand zlotys. I came very close to joining their ranks.

It all happened on Saturday afternoon, which I was spending at home doing what people usually do on a Saturday afternoon: trying to tidy up the flat after the whole week. A series was playing on Netflix in the background, and I was trying to follow all the plotlines. Perhaps the fact that I was not focusing on anything in particular almost contributed to the scam succeeding. When I received the message from my friend, “Do you perhaps have a BLIK payment :-)”, I immediately thought that perhaps I owed her something, or that she wanted to transfer money to me for some old matter. Wanting somewhat to find out what it was about (because I hoped I was not the debtor!), I replied that yes, I had BLIK, but asked where the question had come from. At that moment, it still did not cross my mind that the whole thing was simply a scam.

At that very moment, however, my fiancée called me. She was on the other side of Poland that day. She asked whether I had also received a message from our mutual friend. Believe it or not, it was only then that I realized I could literally have fallen victim to a crime moments later. Me—a police officer with many years of experience who had warned others about scammers hundreds of times. A red warning light should have gone on immediately when I received a message containing the word “BLIK”. However, being distracted by another activity and seeing that a very good friend was writing to me, it did not occur to me at first that this was a blatant scam attempt.

When I realized that the seemingly innocent message probably was not from my friend, I called her immediately. Her phone was busy, so I called her husband’s number. He answered after a while and was surprised to hear that his wife was sending messages—especially since she was sitting next to him and driving the car. Immediately after I informed him (and, as it later turned out, I was not the only one, since several dozen people had received the Messenger message and were also trying to verify it), they began trying to log in to the application and prevent the scammer from sending further requests for BLIK codes.

It was not that simple, however. At that point, I decided to occupy as much of the scammer’s attention as possible (because by then I knew for 100% certain that he had taken over my friend’s account), so that he would not be able to target other unsuspecting friends. I asked how much money he needed, how I could transfer it, whether he was sure he did not want cash, and I even sent a completely fabricated sequence of six digits that was supposed to be a BLIK code. The scammer began asking how long the “code” was valid, and when it did not work (which was hardly surprising, since it was merely a product of my imagination and had not been generated by the system), he asked for more and suggested that perhaps the withdrawal limit needed to be increased. I kept trying to draw him into further conversation. After several dozen minutes, the conversation suddenly ended.

It turned out that only after many attempts did my friend manage to regain access to her account and partially block it, by which time she was already at the nearest police station, where they had gone immediately after receiving information about the scammer. Unfortunately, during that time the criminal managed to persuade several people to send BLIK codes and then confirm the transactions. At this point, their losses exceed PLN 3,000. Perhaps, like me, they were distracted by something. Perhaps they knew that if their good and trusted friend asked for a small favor, they would fulfill it immediately. Perhaps they did not have a moment to think and did it unconsciously. Unfortunately, they lost money that will now be very difficult to recover. The worst part is that the friend whose account in the application was taken over is also a victim, even though she did not lose any money. The scammer did gain access to her private messages and information, which he may use in the future. It is possible that he did not have time to copy them, but there will never be any certainty.

And now the most important question: if even a police officer who knows how scammers operate could be fooled, how can we protect ourselves? Above all, be alert to unusual messages, even those from good friends or family. If anything raises even the slightest suspicion, contact that person directly—meaning, call them. Not through the application that the scammer may have taken over, but simply dial their number and press the green call button. It all seems simple, but as you can see, sometimes even a momentary lapse of judgment can lead to substantial losses.

And one more thing: remember that your account can also be taken over by a scammer. Therefore, do not merely protect it with a genuinely difficult password (the days of passwords like “name1234” are long gone), but also use, for example, two-factor authentication, which requires not only entering the aforementioned password but also providing a one-time code received by text message or generated by a dedicated application such as Google Authenticator. Nowadays, unauthorized access to an email, Instagram, or Facebook account can result in many unpleasant consequences, including financial losses. So please: do not let yourselves be scammed, and beware of messages that seem innocent at first glance but contain an unusual request for a BLIK code or a quick loan!