A scam targeting a 90-year-old woman in Ozieri was foiled by state police. The pensioner was contacted by phone by a man posing as a bank employee. He communicated a false payment order, which the woman had never executed, and instructed her, step by step, on how to proceed at the ATM to block the transaction.
But the caller was simply seeking money, a sum that could have been very significant and could have been transferred from the victim's account to hard-to-trace accounts or prepaid cards. However, thanks to a timely tip-off from a passerby, suspicious of the elderly woman's phone conversation, the officers arrived on the scene while the woman was still on the phone, preventing the scam from going through.
According to law enforcement, this activity is often carried out by high-profile criminal organizations using the so-called "trawling" technique. To deceive victims, perpetrators also use sophisticated "spoofing" techniques, which are technical devices that mask and falsify their identity, with the goal of making a calling number (or email sender) appear known, simulating a reliable source. In these cases, potential victims who receive calls, text messages, or emails from apparently known numbers or senders (such as, for example, their bank's) are tricked into providing sensitive personal information or making transactions. The Italian State Police recommends always contacting law enforcement in such cases.
