Internet Fraud and Scams you need to be aware of
See this section for regularly updated warnings from Erste Bank und Sparkassen about current fraud schemes in the internet and online scams. We keep you up-to-date at all times to ensure you are aware of potential danger.
- No telephone number is required for sales via Vinted, shpock or willhaben. If possible, do not send your telephone number to anyone.
- Don't follow links in messages you receive from potential buyers.
- No approvals from your side are required in your banking apps when you are receiving payments.
- Check to make sure a web address is correct when you enter payment information.
- Never send mobile TANs to anyone or approve payments in your banking apps unless you are initiating a payment yourself.
- Call your daughter or son on their usual phone number to check whether they have really sent the messages.
- If no one answers your call at the usual number, you can also call the new phone number you got the messages from. If it is really your child that answers your call, everything is fine. If no one answers, even though you have just written to each other via WhatsApp, you should be alarmed.
- Be vigilant if you receive messages on WhatsApp asking you to transfer money.
- If you are still unsure whether you are dealing with a trick, you can also ask a question that can only be answered by your child.
- If you really fall victim to a scammer, immediately contact the nearest police station, or report the incident to your bank advisor at your branch.
- Check the company’s imprint on the website. It needs to be clearly shown who the operator of the website or online shop is.
- The general terms and conditions are not available on the website.
- “Branded" products are offered at suspiciously low prices (most likely, the goods are counterfeit or do not exist).
- Buy more from established brick-and-mortar retailers
- Try to get as much information as possible about the seller of the item. In the case of commercial dealerships, information including the name, address, the legal terms under which the contract is made, such as warranty rights, rights of return and cancellation, delivery and payment terms should be easy to find. If they are not, you should be extra vigilant.
- Be especially wary of offers where you need to make an advance payment, meaning where you need to pay for your purchase in advance. Payment by invoice is always preferable.
- When placing your order, make sure you are using a secure internet connection. You can recognize encrypted data transmission by the letter "s" after the http:// in the address bar of your browser (it should say: https://).
- Report the incident to the police.
- Take the police report to the nearest branch of Erste Bank and Sparkasse or report the incident to our 24h service hotline – simply dial 050 100 50200.
- Don't let the caller put pressure on you. Tell them that it is an inconvenient time for you to talk and offer to call them back later. Genuine police officials are bound to react in an understanding way while fraudsters will increase the pressure to ensure that you don’t hang up.
- If the caller claims that one of your family members or relatives is in an emergency and you need to help them with money, hang up the phone, call the family member in question, and check if they are really in trouble.
- Don't let strangers into your house or apartment and use the door viewer to check who is outside the door before you open it. Do not hand over money or valuables to strangers. In case of an emergency, call the police at 133.
- If you have fallen victim to a scam, call the police at 133.
- Further Information: bundeskriminalamt.at
- Watch out for quick declarations of love: Love scammers are quick to talk about true love and wanting a serious relationship early in the process of getting to know you
- Remain alert when you hear about cruel blows of fate: To establish a bond with their victims and to ensure compassion, scammers tell stories about particularly cruel blows of fate
- Pay attention to unusual professions: Love scammers often pose as working for the military, as doctors in a war zone or pretend to be employees of an oil platform
- Remain alert to mentions of long stays abroad: Due to an assignment abroad, the scammer claims they (still) need to stay abroad for a longer time
- No video chat possible: Scammers may claim the webcam on their notebook is permanently broken or that they can’t access video chat while abroad
- Your online acquaintance asks you for money: We recommend that you instantly break off all contact. Also make sure you block them and report their profile on all channels!
- The best way to prevent CEO fraud is to establish rigid rules within a company that make it impossible to issue such requests to transfer funds.
- Raise awareness among employees via regular training sessions.
- Should you receive an email request of this type, call the sender in person, and ask for details. Find out if the CEO (or manager) is really the actual sender of the message.
- If the email deviates from your company’s usual communication style, please note the following details:
- Does the request for transferring a payment follow the format your company usually uses?
- Is the type of salutation used in the email suspicious?
- Is the writing style unusual or is the sender putting time pressure on you?
- Has your manager made a similar request before?
- Don’t just check the sender's name. Click on the sender to view the entire email address. Is it the usual email address your manager uses?
- Insist on an invoice.
- Fraudsters write fictitious news articles and promote them on social media platforms.
- They misuse the faces of prominent people and claim that they have become even richer through the respective platforms.
- Scammers misuse logos and the presence of well-known media to inspire trust and invent comments by alleged users who were able to make high profits with small deposits.
- They send e-mails, make contact via dating platforms or chats in online games and may contact you in person to try to persuade you to an initial deposit
- For further communication, scammers switch to messenger services such as WhatsApp to evade law enforcement authorities as soon once they have been identified as fraudsters
WARNING of possible fraud attempts on second-hand online marketplaces (such as Vinted): Do not release any payments!
A growing number of fraud attempts is currently observed on second-hand online platforms, such as Vinted, shpock or willhaben. Often, such fraud attempts are directed against new sellers.
Fraudsters pretend to be the first potential buyers interested in the offered goods or send messages to sellers, pretending that they are representing the platform. They get in touch quickly and ask for a phone number. Then they send text messages or messages on WhatsApp and ask the sellers to confirm that they have received a payment.
CAUTION: Such text messages are not sent by the sales platform, but by criminals trying to scam you. If you confirm, the criminals attempt to withdraw money from your accounts! Under special circumstances, these criminals can even gain full access to your internet banking.
Make sure you do not disclose George access data and never authorise orders for "incoming payments" using George ID or s Identity. This is always an attempt of fraud and these amounts will be withdrawn from your account and not credited to you.
Please only authorise orders in George that you have entered yourself and always check beforehand exactly which transaction you are authorising.
How do you protect yourself from this scam?
We are here for you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer? Our 24-hour service is always there for you at 05 0100 - 50200.
Learn more about this scam scenario on Watchlist Internet
Currently, scammers are trying to get money from potential victims via WhatsApp. They send their victim a message pretending to be the daughter or son of the recipient and demand the transfer of several thousand euros. Do not transfer money under any circumstances because your money will end up directly in the hands of criminals.
Your child writes you their mobile phone is broken and that they now need your help to make a bank transfer. As plausible as this may sound at first, you need to remain careful in case you receive such a WhatsApp message. In most cases, it is a message sent by scammers who are just pretending to be your daughter or son and who want to get your money.
How does the Hi mum / Hi dad trick work?
"Hi mum, my phone broke down, this is my new number". With this message, criminals try to gain the trust of the recipient and at the same time explain why the message is sent from a new number that the “parent” does not know.
The criminals send a few more messages asking harmless questions, for example, "How are you?" or "What are you doing?". Finally, they send a message asking their alleged mother or father for help: they claim there is an important transfer of money they need to make but cannot make any transfers with their “new number” yet. They ask whether “mum” or “dad” could advance the money.
In the next step, the scammers send a message with a bank account to which the money is to be transferred. Do not pay under any circumstances. If you transfer the amount, you will not be able to get the money back!
This is how you protect yourself from the “hi mum” scam
We are here to support you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer of funds? Our 24-hour service hotline is ready to assist you at any time: dial 05 0100 - 50200.
Learn more on Watchlist Internet (in German only)
Protect your money when shopping online
Goods fraud or merchandise fraud is a type of fraud where a perpetrator promises to deliver goods to a customer. These goods are then either not delivered at all or are goods of inferior quality. The aim of the fraudster is to obtain payment from the buyer without delivering anything in return. Very often, merchandise fraud happens in the context of a purchase over the internet. Merchandise fraudsters are also particularly prone to using popular online platforms such as "eBay" or "Willhaben".
How can you find out whether you are dealing with a dubious seller or dealership?
What else you do to fall prey to this type of fraud:
If you have become a victim of a fraudulent commercial dealer:
Also learn more out about these and many other fraud scenarios on Watchlist Internet (in German only).
Another type of fraud is the “false policeman trick”. Fraudsters call on the phone and pretend to be police officers. They will fraudulently tell the called person that there is going to be a burglary or a robbery. They then ask the person to hand over money and valuables to a messenger.
Learn more on Watchlist Internet (in German only)
We are here to support you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer of funds? Our 24-hour service hotline is ready to assist you at any time: dial 05 0100 - 50200.
Could you fall victim to a romance scam? Watch out for these signs
A love scammer (or romance scammer) is a person that you meet online who gains your trust over a long period of time and then tricks you into believing that you are in a love relationship together. In fact, a lover scammer has only one intention: to get your money.
Love scammers establish a relationship with their victims during supposedly honest conversations, always with the promise to meet in person soon, which never happens.
As soon as they are sure their victim trusts them, scammers start asking for money. They may quote various reasons for their sudden request: a death in their family, a severe accident, sudden job loss, wanting to escape from a war zone, medical or hospital bills they need to pay or problems with local authorities are just a few examples. Often scammers also claim that they need money from you for a flight to visit you at home.
Scam victims become emotionally dependent on a romance scammer. They may transfer large amounts of money to the scammer over a long period of time.
This is how it works:
Love scammers may be very creative. One victim, for example, reported that she fell for an alleged medical doctor claiming to be on a peacekeeping mission in Yemen. He told her that he would be going home soon, however, his private documents would need to be sent back in advance. For this, he needed the help of a trusted person, hence the victim was asked to arrange for sending and receiving the documents. Of course, the scammer committed to repaying the charges, even with a signed written agreement. However, such a document is worthless if a false name is used for signing.
How did the romance scammer end up getting the victim's money? He set up the victim with a fraudulent parcel service – also backed by the scammer himself or a criminal gang. This fake parcel service demanded several thousand euros for sending and insuring the package.
How to Expose Love Scammers
If you have already suffered financial damages a result of the scam, report this to the police immediately.
Learn more on Watchlist Internet (in German only)
We are here to support you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer of funds? Our 24-hour service hotline is ready to assist you at any time: dial 05 0100 - 50200.
The term “fraud” is commonly used to describe illegal activities targeted towards financially cheating a victim.
In a "CEO fraud" scam, fraudsters attempt to impersonate company stakeholders with decision-making authority, such as CEOs (Chief Executive Officers or managers), to scam employees of a company to transfer large sums of money when they are supposedly asked to do so on behalf of the CEO.
The fraudsters pretend that such a request is issued directly by a company's management. This type of fraud is a variant of social engineering exploiting the vulnerability of humans.
Fraudsters usually proceed by carefully researching as many details as possible about a company and its structures.
They may pay particular attention to information about business partners and future investments, email availability or information about employees in social networks.
How to prevent this:
Learn more on Watchlist Internet (in German only)
We are here to support you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer of funds? Our 24-hour service hotline is ready to assist you at any time: dial 05 0100 - 50200.
Investment fraud is any type of fraudulent activity in which investors in the capital market are deceived. Investment fraud involves fraudsters intentionally depriving investors of their assets with the purpose of the scammers themselves benefitting. The most common type of Investment fraud involves cryptocurrencies.
Especially during phases of low interest rates, private investors are on the lookout for lucrative investment opportunities, thus increasing the chances of falling prey to investment fraudsters.
Easy access to online offers and seemingly serious trading platforms that are actually fake replications make it easy for fraudsters to feign respectability and profits. Accounts on such fake platforms allow investors to track apparent profits live.
Investment fraudsters use many different types of fraud strategies. It is simply a matter of using common sense when evaluating an investment. First, carefully check a provider’s background – is the high return offered realistic in any way? If you are being offered a quick way to great wealth, it is almost always a scam.
How do investment fraudsters target potential victims?
There are many ways potential victims are persuaded to register an account and to make a first deposit during an online investment scam.
Remain especially vigilant and alert for the following scenarios:
How are victims of online scams persuaded to make large deposits?
After initial registration on a fraudulent investment platform, the victim usually receives a personal phone call from an alleged “account manager”. This call is intended to establish trust and, at the same time, to explain how to proceed.
After the victim makes an initial deposit of between 200 and 300 euros, first gains are presented via a fraudulent website shortly thereafter.
The victim’s growing elation is exploited by online scammers to convince them to make further payments. The higher the deposit made by the victim, the higher the alleged gains. For example, if you decide to deposit 10,000 instead of 1,000 euros, you will receive "better conditions" and will be looked after by more successful traders in the future.
Fraudulent activities are continued by the scammers until the victim stops depositing money. Once criminals realize that a victim is no longer incentivized by gains to make further deposits, they change their tactics: the victim suddenly starts to incur heavy losses. To compensate for their losses, the victim is persuaded by the fraudsters to start depositing funds again immediately, which are purportedly used for investments in other markets.
Learn more on Watchlist Internet (in German only)
We are here to support you
Have you mistakenly disclosed confidential data? Or have you already made a transfer of funds? Our 24-hour service hotline is ready to assist you at any time: dial 05 0100 - 50200.