Carinthian woman deprived of over 1,000 euros: Fake ASFINAG website dupes victim
A woman from the Villach-Land district lost over 1,100 euros through an online fraud. She fell for a deceptively authentic fake ASFINAG webpage after receiving an SMS with an alleged toll demand.
Carinthian woman deprived of over 1,000 euros: Fake ASFINAG website dupes victim
In the Villach-Land district, a fraud variant on the internet has caused financial damage of more than 1,100 euros. A woman living there, referred to as Maria in the reporting, was lured to a fake website through a message on her mobile phone.
The SMS was actually sent to the daughter of the victim, who was outside Austria at the time and would not be back home until after the alleged payment deadline. In addition, the young woman was having difficulties with her card. For this reason, the mother decided to transfer the requested 8.60 euros herself. She followed the link embedded in the message and entered her details.
Hardly had she done so when 1,790 Australian dollars were debited from her account – equivalent to approximately 1,100 euros. Maria immediately had her card blocked. At the bank, she learned that the money had flowed to an account in Spain. It is uncertain whether the amount can be recovered.
The Federal Criminal Police Office has been warning about this fraud method for some time. Criminals create internet presences that are deceptively similar to the official ASFINAG portal. The fake domains often differ from the original through minor spelling errors or unusual extensions such as .mom or .lat, for example "asfimag.mom". Particularly insidious: the perpetrators book paid advertisements with search engines, which appear above the genuine results and redirect internet users to the fraudulent websites.
Anyone who enters their card details or personal information there does not receive a vignette. Instead, the fraudsters misuse the information for further criminal activities or sell it to other perpetrators, who use it for telephone fraud, for example.
Maria wants to warn others with her case: the fake website looked like the genuine ASFINAG portal. The Federal Criminal Police Office recommends buying digital vignettes only through official channels and carefully checking the internet address.
Source: 5 Minuten
Source: Google News AT — Crime (de)