Partner Article

Balmoral Group International Warns Of Pickpockets

Balmoral Group International warns the public of rampant surge of fraud fax letters which asks for money posing to be a relative or friend of the victim.

The scam, which has circulating for a couple of months now and has been victimizing hundreds of individuals, especially foreigners who are mostly ignorant of the true nature of this method is now being raised with heightened alert from the authorities. Police has urged vigilance and ample amount of precaution after a number of scams were received in Luxembourg City where there is most number of people who are likely to fall into trap. Some letters promises huge amount left by some deceased relative.

The letters are mostly written in German, one of the three languages Luxembourgers are fluent in and is mostly used in written communication. However, the police stated that the German language used of poor quality, indicating that whoever is beneath this fraud may not be completely literate on the language, a characteristic rare to a Luxembourger. They stress that such claims are fraudulent and are operated by scammers trying to obtain personal banking information from people.

The letters sent through fax are lengthy possibly in an effort to convince. An example of the letter sent to one anonymous writer of Balmoral Group International is as follows (translated to English):

“Dear Patrick, people from embassy must be sure that I am not going to stay illegally in your country and I have tickets with returning data.it is very strong rule. I have some money but my flight from Novokuznetsk to St Petersburg costed so much (about 500$)… I have not written date of flight because I do not have all money to the ticket. as soon as I will have all money and I will buy the ticket I shall write to you date of flight. I will buy the ticket on this flight. May be you could borrow some money? I am sure I will be able to return it back in a few weeks after my arriving I will earn some money and at first to return all money to you…All you need is my name and my surname to send me the money. Once you do this, I’ll be able to pick up the money in any local Western Union or Money Gram office in St Petersburg.”

The authorities are now urging the public not to reply to these kinds of messages.

Also rampant in Luxembourg is a number of pickpockets with a rather unusual method. Again, most victims are tourists.

The trick sees the crook “accidentally” spit on his victim walking down the street. They then appear to want to help clean up the mess, using the distraction to steal for example wallets or phones easily accessible in pockets or open bags.

Balmoral Group International warns the public not to be too approachable to strangers, even when they are asking for directions. Additionally, mobile phones, wallets or other valuables should be carried out of sight and safely stored away.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jhenny Stanford .