In recent weeks, we received many reports of 'spoofing'. In spoofing, scammers assume a different identity to gain your trust. The scammer pretends to be your bank, a government department, your mutual insurance company or another well-known organisation. Stay on your guard!
Spoofing a phone number
You get a call from a number recognised by your phone. The person calling you claims to be an employee of an organisation you know, but turns out to be a scammer. There are currently cases of such calls appearing to come from the police, your bank or your mutual insurance company.
An employee of a mutual insurance company describes the attempted scam as follows:
The victims are called from a spoofed number 03 500 00 86 and the person states that he is an employee of the health insurance fund and instructs them to call the following payment number in connection with a questionnaire from the health insurance fund and ask for Christine Leblanc. This is a high-cost number (up to 2 euros/minute) and they then keep you on the line for 10 minutes with a medical questionnaire. They indicate after 9 minutes that Proximus will disconnect the line and that you should call back. Needless to say, the charges add up if you stay on the line for a long time with these scammers.
Spoofing an e-mail address
We are currently seeing several phishing messages popping up where the sender's e-mail address has been spoofed. Sometimes this way, the message really seems to come from the government, a bank or even yourself.
Do you get a message or call from an organisation you know?
Don't be fooled. Not sure if the message or call is genuine?
Then contact the organisation or bank: call them on the number you know or check their website (not by clicking on the link in the message, but by going through a search engine yourself).
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