February 7, 08:37, Scam, Östergötland County

The latest time has been a wave of scams and attempts at scams, also known as physical vishing in Östergötland with a focus on the Linköping area. There, the perpetrators have targeted elderly people and visited them at their homes with the intention of getting them to hand over jewelry, gold or other valuable items.

On Thursday evening, two elderly women were exposed to this, one in Söderköping and one in Linghem. Right now, the police are seeing an increase in two different methods. One is that they pose as coming from "The Waterworks" and say that there is a water leak and that they must come in to check it. Here, the police have five cases in the past few days, two of which are completed scams.

The other is that they are supposed to check the smoke alarms, then they can claim to come from the landlord Stångåstaden, HSB, Hyresgästföreningen or similar to try to gain trust. Here, the police have had a dozen reports in the past few weeks.

This method is unfortunately common. The scammers are skilled, eloquent and persuasive and try to scare the victim in order to offer their "help" afterwards.

In addition to the above-mentioned methods, scammers can pose as coming from an authority such as the police. Then they try to scare the victim in order to gain access to the apartment. Once inside, they deceive themselves into valuable items, or one searches the apartment while the other keeps the victim occupied.

For the deceived person, this is not infrequently a difficult trauma. Not infrequently, it is large amounts and life savings that disappear from accounts, or valuable goods are seized, often with high sentimental value.

The police have clear warnings to avoid being deceived:

-        Dare to be unpleasant! Hang up the phone!

-        Do not respond to SMS or messages with links, and never give away your bank ID!

-        Never let unknown people into your home.

-        If you are called by someone who says they are from the police or another institution and asks questions about bank information or announces a home visit - always call the police on 112.

-        Do you have elderly relatives or friends - talk to them about this!