Prepayment fraud
The prepayment fraud or rip deal (from English to rip = snatch, or to rip off = tear off, rip off ; deal = trade) is the criminological term for a variant of a fraudulent act.
The perpetrators appear as alleged lenders or buyers. The initiation of these "deals" takes place in a wide variety of ways. For example, perpetrators report to people who have found real estate or other objects of higher value on the Internet or in newspapers, such as B. have offered jewelry or works of art or z. B. Look for investments. The advertisers are then lured to a (foreign) meeting point under the pretense of interest in the property, where the perpetrators usually meet them in a serious atmosphere, e.g. B. in a posh hotel. At the meeting, the perpetrators are no longer interested in the object originally offered, but rather the victims are offered a lucrative currency exchange transaction, often euros for Swiss francs. As a rule, small amounts of money are actually exchanged in order to gain the victim's trust. Then a larger scale barter is offered. If the victim agrees, the perpetrators either disappear as soon as they have the money in their hands, or they hand the victim several bundles of banknotes, of which only the top banknote is genuine. Sometimes the perpetrators are ready to use violence. The dark field of this crime is likely to be considerable, since the perpetrators openly speculate on the victims' illicit money when making commission payments, often requesting this payment as such themselves. In such cases, the victims often refrain from filing a criminal complaint .
The perpetrators generate credibility through a well-groomed appearance and an alleged identity as wealthy business people.
In the past, a currency exchange was usually faked; after this scam has become known, perpetrators also appear as "lenders" or "buyers".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Warning Note the Bavarian police on June 18, 2014: "Rip deal" loaded November 24, 2014
- ↑ Federal Office of Police fedpol: Counterfeit money situation report 2003 , page 8f (on rip deals)
- ↑ Federal Office of Police fedpol: Rip deal (or money exchange fraud) ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 2012, accessed October 11, 2017
