10.09.2024 - Fraudsters take advantage of every opportunity to get their hands on your money. Last week, two cases were reported to the NCSC in which motorists were targeted by fraudsters. The schemes involved fake websites for motorway stickers in Austria and parking fines in Switzerland.
The NCSC regularly receives reports of attempted fraud against motorists. Particularly abroad, it is sometimes difficult to get to grips with the situation regarding charges and fines. It is therefore easy to click on the wrong link and end up on the wrong website. But fake websites where you are supposed to pay parking fines have come to the attention of the NCSC in Switzerland too.
Fake website for Austrian motorway toll charge
A motorway sticker is required to use motorways in Austria as in Switzerland. In contrast to Switzerland, however, the electronic motorway sticker is not sold by the Austrian administration itself, but by a publicly owned limited company. The Autobahnen- und Schnellstrassen-Finanzierungs-Aktiengesellschaft (ASFINAG for short) is responsible for issuing the sticker.
If a motorist wants to buy a sticker and is not familiar with the country, they may well run a search online and be tempted to click on the first hit in the list displayed. Fraudsters have realised this and therefore try to make sure their fraudulent site is listed above the official website by placing an advertising link, for example. In search engines, sponsored results or advertising links are displayed above the actual search result. If the user then clicks on such a manipulated advertising link, they are going to end up on the wrong site.
In the present case, the ASFINAG website was reproduced extremely realistically. Interestingly, the fake site even includes the letters ASFINAG, which do not even appear on the genuine site. Only by taking a close look at the domain name would you notice the mistake.
The purchase process also worked perfectly on the counterfeit site and the victim bought a one-day motorway sticker for EUR 8 on the website using their credit card. However, there was a surprise on the credit card statement. Instead of the EUR 8, a total of EUR 704 was charged to the credit card. It is also doubtful that the motorway sticker would have been valid, so if the victim had been found to be without a valid sticker, they risked being fined a further EUR 120.
Fake parking fine websites in Switzerland
However, dangers lurk not only when trying to purchase motorway stickers, but also when paying parking fines. Parking fine fraud is a phenomenon that has been reported repeatedly this year. This involves fraudulent activities in which the fraudsters send out fake parking fines in order to deceive unsuspecting motorists and scam them out of money. Here too, the fraudsters first create a convincing copy of a parking fine payment website and register a domain with a similar sounding name. They then send fictitious fines to random email addresses, which are to be paid on the fake website, claiming serious consequences in the event of non-payment. These demands are intentionally vague so that they could apply to a large number of motorists. Again, the fraudsters are simply after your credit card details.
Recommendations:
- Only buy motorway stickers through official channels. If you are unsure, consult the websites of the relevant authorities directly.
- Also be careful with search queries. Advertising links are often displayed before the actual results. These are labelled as ‘sponsored’.
- If you receive a parking fine, check it for plausibility.
- If you have to pay a fine online, first find out whether it is an official site. If in doubt, ask the authorities.
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Last modification 10.09.2024
