Phone scams on the rise, scammers turn to threats to con victims

A double rise in phone scams has been registered this year. From January to September, the scammers stole three and a half million BGN from their victims. In addition to being brazen, phone scammers have become more aggressive and often use made-up, emotional stories and cruel threats.

Scammers are good at pretending to be someone that they’re not. They trick people into thinking a loved one is in trouble. Here’s how it might work:

“Hello Dad. I am in trouble.”

This was the start of a family emergency scam call, after which Todor Todorov send his savings of 19,000 BGN to the scammers.

“Dad, we made an accident, I hit a child on a pedestrian crossing and now I am in the police. To save the child, you have to pay 30,000 BGN in compensation" Todor Todorov explained how the call went on.

The oldest tactic in the phone scams. However, a fake prosecutor managed to convince Todor to give his money to a man he would send to collect.

"We were saving lev by lev. Can’t believe how impertinent they are, tricking the old man to give them money," said Todor Todorov's wife.

Shortly after handing over the money, a police team stopped by the house of the deceived man, who identified the lengthy phone call from abroad.

"The police officer came and said, 'Did you give them money', I replied, 'I gave them', said Todor Todorov.

Then the police officers did their job - they captured the mules. It turned out that it was not the first time scammers have contacted Todor. Years ago, he was tricked into paying a large sum for medical treatment of a relative, but his relatives stopped him from handing over the money. In order to reach trusting elderly people, phone scammers dial hundreds of numbers at random every day.

And so - until they reach a victim. It turns out that the most frequent scam phone calls are made from Romania, and their victims are elderly people from both Bulgaria and Greece.

"If until recently the first call was always to a landline and subsequently the communication between the victim and the perpetrator continued on a mobile phone, now the scammers directly call mobile phone numbers," said Zlatka Padinkova, head of the ‘Combatting Fraud’ unit of the national police.

Scammers are now using a new tactic.

"The new tactic is a call from a person pretending to be an employee of a utility company about unpaid debts, for electricity, water", explained Zlatka Padinkova.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 200 phone scams have been registered in the country. Nearly 50 crimes of this type have been detected and 359 have been prevented. The districts with the highest number of people scammed by phone are Sofia-city, Varna and Burgas. In order to pressure you to quickly send money, scammers use not only stories to play with your emotions, but they use aggressive methods and fear tactics as well.

"Threats of the type that they will send a four-wheel drive to the address with masked persons who will beat the victim, there will be cutting of limbs, they use insulting words and very cynical expressions," said Zlatka Padinkova,

Because of the worrying trends, the Ministry of Interior has launched a new awareness campaign in cooperation with a large chain of shops. Leaflets with detailed instructions on how to act when a scammer calls will be distributed. The advice can be summed up in a few words - "hang up the phone and don't give money".