Romania’s National Cyber Security Directorate warns the public about an increasing trend of phone scams where criminals impersonate police officers and banking officials to extract personal and financial information from victims, leveraging social engineering and fake documents.
A phone call is often how the scam begins. According to Romania’s National Cyber Security Directorate, or DNSC, the caller claims to be a police officer and says someone is trying to take out loans using the victim’s identity. The tactic is known among specialists as “loan fraud in your name” and combines voice phishing, or vishing, with social engineering to pressure people into handing over money and personal data.
The scheme is built in stages. Fraudsters may use genuine personal details, send forged documents by WhatsApp and circulate fake screenshots that appear to come from banking apps or from near bank branches, according to the DNSC warning carried by Mediafax and reported by Digi24. In some cases, the victim is passed to a second caller, presented as a bank or central bank representative, who urges them to open their banking app, apply for credit, withdraw cash or move funds.
The Directorate has stressed that no authority and no bank will ask someone to take out a loan in order to protect their savings. It advises people not to share personal information, banking details or authentication codes over the phone and not to follow instructions to transfer money. If a call seems suspicious, the safer step is to hang up and contact the institution directly using official details, not those provided by the caller.
The warning fits a wider pattern of impersonation fraud in Romania. In 2024, DNSC repeatedly alerted the public to scams in which criminals posed as its own employees, including one case reported by Antena 3 in which callers claimed to help people recover lost money and asked for IBAN details and parts of the personal identification number. TVR and Mediafax also reported joint warnings from DNSC, the Romanian Police and the Romanian Banking Association about spoofed calls, where criminals disguise the number to make it look as though it comes from a trusted institution. DNSC says attempted fraud can be reported on 1911 or through its cyber incident reporting platform.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
