Last year, the Fraud Helpdesk received approximately 500,000 reports of (attempted) fraud through its telephone and online channels. In 2021 there were already more than half a million.
In particular, the number of telephone fraud reports rose last year, by about 18 percent. It was notable that the number of (English-language) fraud attempts in particular increased. Victims are called and receive a recorded message. He reports that the person in question may have fallen victim to bank fraud. The miscreants try to get the bank details or citizen service number (BSN) from the victims.
Fake bank employees and phishing
New is the form of telephone fraud that is initiated by an e-mail that supposedly comes from the bank. A phishing email, in other words, which is followed by a telephone ‘warning’ with the request to provide personal (data) in order to prevent fraud. There are also still scammers who visit victims to retrieve supposedly blocked bank cards, after they have stolen the bank details by telephone or via a phishing e-mail.
In addition, in 2022 more people were called by people posing as bank employees who wanted to warn them that there were many burglaries in the area and advised them to store valuables in a bank vault. The 1309 registered attempts of this form of fraud made 229 victims, who were defrauded for a total of more than 3.3 million euros. The total damage from all fraud reports registered with the helpdesk amounted to no less than 43 million euros in 2022.
Fewer cybercrime reports
There was also some good news. For example, the Fraud Helpdesk registered considerably fewer cases of cybercrime. In 2022, 4471 reports of this were made. A year earlier there were still 9933. According to the Fraudehelpdesk, however, this decrease also has to do with the different definitions of what is or is not typified as cybercrime.
Investment fraud is on the rise
A few days ago, the Fraud Helpdesk also reported an increase in the number of cases of investment fraud. This year, the number of reports of this has already increased by 30 percent compared to last year.
“It concerns high-risk CFDs (so-called ‘leveraged products’) but also increasingly offers in crypto coins and currencies. The AFM also recently reported an increase in reports about this in its Signals Monitor. The Fraud Helpdesk and the AFM are therefore once again warning against fraudulent investment providers,” said the Fraud Helpdesk.
