Dutch police: AI-voiced bank calls led victims to hold cards to phones
Police in the Netherlands say recorded calls posing as banks pushed 170 people into an app that passed on card data. The bank's real advice is simple: it will never ask for this.
In short
- What happened?
- According to The Daily Hodl, Dutch police say AI-voiced calls posing as banks led 170 victims to download an app and hold their card to their phone, and about €380,000 was taken in three weeks.
- What was the warning sign?
- A call claiming to be your bank that tells you to download an app and hold your bank card against your phone.
- What can you do?
- Hang up and contact your bank on a number you look up yourself. Dutch police said a bank will never ask you to download an app, tap your card to your phone or give your PIN.
What happened
According to The Daily Hodl, which cites the Rotterdam police cybercrime team, two men have been arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of running a new kind of bank scam. The police say about €380,000 was taken from 170 victims in roughly three weeks.
Victims first received a recorded call warning of suspicious activity on their bank account. The report says the suspects allegedly used AI to make dozens of recordings with different voices, banks, companies and scenarios. People who pressed 1 were put through to a fake bank employee who followed a script and urged them to act fast to block their bank card.
They were then told to download an app and hold their bank card against their phone. The police say the app passed data from the card's contactless chip to an app used by an accomplice at an ATM or payment terminal, who could then withdraw money without the victim knowing.
The police said victims came from all over the country and from many age groups, including dozens in their twenties and thirties. Dutch banks flagged the method through a partnership of banks, police and prosecutors. The police said the servers behind the scheme were taken offline. A court has ordered both suspects to stay in custody while the case continues.
Warning signs
- A recorded call about suspicious activity on your account, asking you to press a key to speak to someone.
- A caller who sounds professional and presses you to act quickly to protect your card.
- A request to download an app.
- A request to hold your bank card against your phone.
- Any request for your PIN.
What families can do
- Remember the police advice in the report: a bank will never ask you to download an app, hold your card to your phone or give your PIN.
- If a call doesn't feel right, hang up. The police said to be alert and do exactly that.
- If you are worried about your account, contact your bank on a number you look up yourself, such as the one on your card or the bank's official website.
- Talk this through with parents, grandparents and teenagers. The report notes that victims were of many ages, and careful people are caught by convincing callers.
- If you have followed any of these steps, contact your bank straight away and report it to the police.
For calls like these, QuietGuard on Android lets only the people you have named as trusted ring your phone, so unknown callers stay quiet and are listed in Activity to review later. It does not judge what a call says, and it does not stop texts, email or apps, so the habit of hanging up and calling your bank back yourself still matters.
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