Teenager Falls Victim to Fraudsters Posing as Wincent Weiss for Donations

She thought with pop singer Vincent Weiss to get in touch and wanted to do something good: In fact, an 18-year-old from Iserlohn has money cheater sent. The police warn of the scam.

At the beginning of September, an unknown person contacted the young woman via messenger and pretended to be the well-known singer. Communication went on for weeks and the Iserlohn woman’s chat partner repeatedly mentioned that he had money and prepaid cards for her Waisenhäuser donation. Finally, he also asked the 18-year-old for support. Fully convinced that she was doing something good, she bought several prepaid cards and sent the valuable code numbers via messenger. The 18-year-old’s parents became aware of the donation and took their daughter to the police Fraud complaint to be reimbursed.

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The police warn: “Anyone can say anything on the phone or in the messenger service and completely freely Pretend identities.” A popular scam that takes advantage of this fact is the “Hello Mom” trick (we reported several times). Mass messages sent to random addresses will eventually reach parents who feel addressed and really think their children are asking for help. Apparently the old cell phone is broken and so the children call using a new number. In this case, those affected could expose the fraud by calling the known number of their son or daughter.

At alleged celebritiesIf you contact people without asking, this tool is of course no longer applicable. However, the police emphasize that it is extremely unlikely that celebrities will randomly contact people to support their orphanage campaign.

Also Love-Scammer occasionally slip into the role of celebrities. They took advantage of their victims’ weaknesses in a particularly perfidious way. “No one is immune from error or short-circuit reactions. “It is all the more important to know the fraudsters’ scams,” explains the district police authority. That’s why parents should keep in touch with their children – for the benefit of both sides.

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