National Police shut down telephone scam from Benidorm

A WELL known scam which relies upon people calling a high cost telephone number thinking that they were going to earn gift vouchers or prizes from nationally respected companies when of course, the victims literally spent large amounts of money to receive nothing has been broken up by the National Police.

The investigation began in late 2014 when the Commissioner of the National Police in Benidorm received a complaint and on calling the number, the call itself lasted for 45 minutes and resulted in a bill for that one call which amounted to €170.

Subsequent to this, a string of complaints from around the country were recorded and by 2015, six people, five Brazilians and one Spaniard were arrested and charged with defrauding victims of a total of €422,000.

Although the scam appeared to have stopped, officers became aware that it was revived in the latter part of last year and investigations led to the arrest of two men, one aged 49 and the other 39 who allegedly made €32,000 from this latest scam which involved shell companies in Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

The National Police have advised all telephone owners in Spain to be very wary of any message that purports to come from a well-known company which requires calling a ‘special’ telephone number as it could well be yet another example of this well tried and tested scam.