He recorded a fake bank consultant. He even received a confirmation text message. From ING number

Cybercriminals not only invent new fraud methods, but also constantly improve already proven schemes. One of their favorites is impersonating bank employees and reporting an alleged burglary attempt. One of such conversations was recorded by a user of portal X, who knew from the very beginning that he was dealing with an attempted fraud. Despite everything, he decided to continue the conversation to see what cybercriminals had prepared for him and to warn others.

They asked about money. They wanted to pair the phone with the account

The conversation began as usual, with information about the alleged detection of “fraudulent activities” on the client’s account. According to the fake consultant, someone tried to hack into the account, but the bank can repel these actions. However, a reaction from the customer is obviously needed to “block” and “insure” his account. This is quite a typical telephone scam scheme.

The “consultant” introduced himself as “senior specialist Adam Ostrowski”, which could have raised some doubts because he spoke with a clearly eastern accent. However, in order to make himself credible in the eyes of a potential victim, the man sent an SMS to the client to confirm his identity. The message was sent from a gateway that changed the sender’s name to “ING”, and the SMS appeared in one thread with automatically generated messages that the customer had previously received from the bank.

At this stage, many people might already believe that they may actually be dealing with a bank employee. It is only later in the conversation that a lot of information appears that clearly suggests that we are dealing with fraud here. First, the man will ask the client to provide the exact amounts in his checking account and all savings accounts. The man on the phone claimed that he did not have access to this data in the “system” due to the error of the “junior specialist”.

Later in the conversation, the “consultant” explained the stages of the procedure step by step and they were easy to predict. The cybercriminal explained that the customer must connect his phone as a “trusted device” to his bank account, so that no one will be able to access his funds from any other smartphone. Additionally, he stated that the “bank’s” consultants will – as he put it – “mirror action” repeat the operations that the customer is to perform on his account.

The fraudster tried to persuade the potential victim to change the transfer limit to PLN 100,000. zloty. Then the criminals wanted to close his bank account and open a second, secure one with identical settings but a changed account number. The fraudsters’ goal was, of course, to transfer all the funds from their victim’s account. There are many phrases in the conversation that suggest that we are not dealing with a real bank consultant, but many people can still fall for such a scam.