Investigators from the National Police have warned of a new form of fraud committed through WhatsApp.
Scammers contact their victims, mostly women, and trick them by posing as their children to urgently request money, in order to deal with an immediate problem. To achieve this deception, they state that they cannot communicate directly with their usual telephone due to supposed problems with their terminal, and neither can they receive calls.
Faced with this situation, many victims agree to make the immediate transfers as requested. Finally, when the transaction has been carried out and the deceived parties manage to talk to their children, they realise that they have been victims of a scam and they can no longer cancel the transfer.
In recent weeks, various such incidents have been detected in different parts of the country with which criminals have managed to defraud amounts ranging between 2,000 and 26,000 euro.
In case of receiving a communication of this type, the National Police recommends not losing your temper and making sure, before making any payment, that the person you are allegedly contacting is really a relative.
