crime
Lots of complaints about grandchild trick scam
Looking back, the type of fraud seems outrageous, but in the situation itself, some people see it as a real reason to act: criminals use grand tricks to get money out of people’s pockets.
The so-called grandchild scam, in which criminals pose as relatives and exploit people’s good faith, caused a lot of frustration among citizens last year. In 2023, around 60,000 complaints were received, the Federal Network Agency said upon request. The vast majority of these cases concerned grandchild tricks; a small proportion of these statements concerned other criminal practices.
There is no comparative figure for the complaints, as the grandtrick fraud type only became widely documented by the federal authorities in autumn 2022, but at that time it was not yet recorded separately in the statistics.
In the grandchild trick, a criminal contacts an often older person via text message or chat program, pretending to be a relative or close friend and making them believe they are in an emergency situation. Surprisingly, it is usually impossible to speak to the alleged relative on the telephone, as the fraud would then probably be exposed. Communication only takes place via messages.
Some people still fall for it because they are shocked by the extent of the alleged emergency situation and believe that quick action is necessary – some then transfer money to the wrong relative, who is probably laughing up their sleeves.
In such cases, the Federal Network Agency takes action and deactivates the number from which the messages were sent – last year there were around 6,500 deactivated numbers due to grandchild tricks. “The protection of consumers has the highest priority,” said Netzagentur President Klaus Müller. “We are consistently curbing abuse.” Including other cases of phone number misuse, almost 10,000 numbers were switched off.