Police after fraud cases: Talk to your elderly family member

Copenhagen's West Police urge families to have a conversation about contact fraud with elderly relatives.

The police state that they prioritize these cases highly and urge relatives to warn the elderly about the fraudsters' methods. (Photo: © Ida Guldbæk Arentsen, Ritzau Scanpix)

By

Nynne Poulsen Wowk ( [email protected] ) 25 minutes ago

It can be a very good idea to talk to, for example, your grandmother, grandfather, or another elderly family member about fraud.

This is the call from Copenhagen's West Police, after the police district in two days has charged five people in two independent cases of contact fraud against, so far, six elderly individuals.

>

> Experience tells us that there may be some elderly citizens who are more

> easily persuaded by these very cunning and cynical criminals. We believe

> that family can be a strong defense against this

> Mathias Nebel, Copenhagen's West Police

Although the two cases are not directly connected, they share several common traits, namely that the fraudsters build trust by pretending to be from the police, the bank, or another authority.

And it can make a very big difference if you take precautions, says Mathias Nebel, who is a police commissioner and section leader for Economic Crime at the police district.

- Experience tells us that there may be some elderly citizens who are more easily persuaded by these very cunning and cynical criminals. We believe that family can be a strong defense against this, says Mathias Nebel.

-----------------------------

Good advice to avoid fraud

-----------------------------

Regardless of what the birth certificate says, it can be a good idea to talk about contact fraud, so that you ultimately avoid being scammed.

In that regard, Mathias Nebel also has some clear advice on how to try to avoid being scammed.

- You should have a natural skepticism and ask if you can get some information that you can have confirmed.

- Otherwise, just hang up, and if you can't quite figure it out yourself, reach out to a family member you trust and ask if they will help you find out whether it could be true that the bank or the police are calling you in that way, he says.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.