The Grand Ducal Police have warned of the increasing number of scams targeting the elderly and others in recent years.
In a statement issued on Wednesday 19 February 2025, the police explained how criminals approach victims by telephone, electronically or even at their front door, with the intent to have the victim either hand over money or valuables or to provide personal data in order to access the victim’s money through other means.
The police noted that, typically, the criminals seek to confuse their victim(s) in an effort to convince them by isolating them and/or putting them under pressure. The scammers often pose as a representative of a public body such as a police officer, a representative of the judicial authorities, a municipal worker, a bank employee or pretend to be relatives of the victim.
The police have issued the following recommendations to counter these common scams:
- never share personal information and data that is requested via email, text or other messaging services;
- never click on a link that was sent from an unknown source;
- beware of messages that push people to react quickly, asking for personal data;
- always check if the message is addressed to one personally or if it contains errors or incorrect translations;
- if the origin of a message is not clear or in case of doubts, do not hesitate to contact the respective organisation;
- know that genuine organisations and companies will never ask people to send personal data via email;
- genuine administrations, companies and banks will never ask people to give their cards or tokens to strangers or to transmit personal data to them by phone;
- if unsure if this is an attempt at a scam, do not be pressured and contact the administration, company or bank concerned.
The police have also asked the public to inform and educate older citizens in their area about these types of scams.
Further information on how to prevent falling victim to these types of scams can be found at: https://police.public.lu/en/prevention.html
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