The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns against fraudsters who, during telephone calls, pretend to be employees of the Ministry or employees of Polish foreign missions. During the conversation, the criminals try to force you to take certain actions – for example, to transfer money.
“Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received signals that fraudsters are impersonating employees of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs or foreign missions of the Republic of Poland in order to force them to perform certain actions, in particular to make a transfer of funds” – the MFA Press Office on the government website announced on Friday.
Fraudsters pretend to be employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
It has been explained that during the telephone conversation the fraudsters inform the interlocutor that he did not comply with certain procedures, as well as that he provided incomplete or false data in the completed forms, which allegedly entails legal consequences.
According to the ministry, fraudsters use the so-called spoofing, which consists in impersonating any telephone number – in this case, the numbers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“This activity is completely independent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and does not mean that any ICT security measures of the Ministry have been broken” – emphasized. As assured, “establishing calls to the MFA Headquarters (+48 22 523 90 00) and the MFA’s Call Center for Citizens (+48 22 250 01 16) in order to obtain information is still safe.”
Fraud on an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – what is it about?
The announcement stated that the fraudsters may request personal information as well as solicit a specific amount of money transfers through an international financial services company in order to avoid severe legal consequences for the interlocutor.
“The employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs do not contact Polish citizens or foreigners residing in Poland in this manner. In particular, they do not request detailed personal data over the phone and do not require any funds” – underlined.
The Ministry urges that in such cases absolutely not to take actions requested by a person claiming to be an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in particular not to provide personal data and not to make any money transfers.
“Each case of fraud should be reported to the nearest Police unit and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be informed by e-mail at the address Rzecznik@msz.gov.pl” – we read. It was also reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports all attempts of fraud to the competent law enforcement authorities.
Internet scams
According to the data of the Police Headquarters, from the beginning of January to the end of June 2021, at least 1,176 elderly people lost their life savings due to frauds committed using “legend” methods, that is, inter alia, “against a policeman”.
The losses amounted to PLN 63,557,479. Due to the vigilance of oneself, relatives or, for example, bank employees, in over 900 cases the cash was not transferred.
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