The fraudsters want to show a credible façade in order to swindle money – and one way that has become increasingly common is that they pretend to work for a real company or authority. During the first quarter of this year, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has seen several such examples.
– We have noticed a large increase, now we get questions almost every day about fraudsters who refer to a known company or authority, says Mikael Sandahl, financial inspector at Finansinspektionen, FI.
Why do you think they do that?
"It's a way for fraudsters to try to create trust and thus move forward in a conversation so that the person they're talking to doesn't just hang up immediately.
Warns of "Finansinspektionen"
Finansinspektionen shows several examples of when fraudsters pretended to come from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.
Often it is people who have already been affected by fraud who are contacted again, now with false offers to get their lost money back.
"Those who receive these calls or emails from scammers have sometimes already lost a lot of money and may be desperate to get help. They are persuaded to believe that this is the salvation and then agree to pay a fee in advance, says Mikael Sandahl.
Three approaches
Finansinspektionen explains that fraudsters often proceed in one of the following three ways:
* They offer assistance in recovering money from fraud if the consumer first pays a fee.
* The consumer is directly asked to identify themselves using bank ID so that fraudsters can access their bank accounts.
* There are also cases where fraudsters claim that a fee must be paid for other reasons in connection with various fictitious payouts or transfers.