Increasingly frequent scam phone calls
I don't know if I'm warning or just informing, but I've been having an interesting past two weeks with incoming scam calls. I'm an O2 customer if that matters. But I guess my number was added to the Scam Central database recently and I'm popular because I always pick up.
Mostly it's calls with various foreign area codes and it's always a recorded message (in German): hello, I would like to talk to you about work, please add me on WhatsApp. After that it disconnects.
But today I got a more unusual one. It caught me off guard because I'm sick at home and was taking a nap. So get woken by the ringing phone and pick up and a female voice says: hello, I'm calling from [...] bank, a suspicious 500 [something] euros has been booked from your account. Please press 1 immediately to talk to a customer service representative.
I was still dopey, so I didn't catch what bank she said, sounded like DKL or something else with D, but I don't think that's even a real bank. The message sounded recorded.
At this point, I disconnected and lo and behold, it's a frigging hidden number! So I can't even block it.
Anyway. Your bank doesn't call you from a hidden number and doesn't tell you stuff about your account before verifying your identity. If you're new to Germany and German is not your first language, or you happen to be sick and sleepy like me, it's easy to be caught off guard.
Stay safe and don't fall for scams!